‘Emily in Paris’: Mindy’s Music Career Was Written For Ashley Park
Christmas came early for Emily in Paris fans as Netflix released the third season of the popular show on December 21, 2022. As viewers catch up with the title character’s chaotic love and professional lives, others are more interested in her best friend, Mindy, whose music aspirations have grown with every season.
Mindy is a wonderful singer, but when Ashley Park auditioned for the show, she didn’t know her character would have a musical background. The star recently revealed that Mindy’s music career was written for her.
‘Emily in Paris’ creator wrote Mindy’s musical career for Ashley Park
When audiences first meet Mindy, they learn that she comes from a very wealthy Chinese family but left her country for Paris to study business and start afresh. Mindy reveals to Emily that she took a stab at the Chinese equivalent of American Idol, but things didn’t turn out well, which also catalyzed her need to leave her country.
Mindy pursues music more as the show progresses, and while it makes sense now that Mindy has a music career, earlier iterations of her character weren’t supposed to have that element. Speaking to Vulture, Mindy’s portrayer, Park, revealed that that element of her character was written specifically for her.
When the outlet asked if her backstory and failed run on the music competition show were a given when she auditioned, Park said,
“Darren Star called me after the first table read, and they hadn’t written anything past episode three yet. He’d seen me in Mean Girls on Broadway and asked if I’d mind if they wrote in some singing for Mindy.”
Ashley Park didn’t anticipate her character’s singing journey
Park recently recalled the story in an interview with Good Morning America, where she went into details about it. The Tony-nominated singer shared that when Star called her, she thought she was fired, but he had other plans. She revealed that when the idea was initially fronted to her, she thought it would be a one-off thing.
“I really thought it was gonna be like, ‘Mindy goes to a karaoke bar.’ ‘She sings happy birthday.’ I had no idea that it would be this kind of trajectory of a story arc,” Park said. The 31-year-old star said in her Vulture interview that she and Star wanted the plotline to be “story-driven and not just singing for the singing,” stating that her backstory and music career are still in development.
One of the songs Mindy sang on the show even went viral, which has catapulted her and the actor into even more renown. In season 2, Mindy takes up work at a drag bar, and while it gets her fired, she finds her voice. One of the numbers Mindy sings is “Mon Soleil,” which Park announced on her Twitter last year, almost broke a streaming record for Netflix on Spotify.
Ashley Park didn’t think she would do this much singing
Mindy’s music career has become a huge part of her storyline, which took even the actor herself by surprise. In a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair, Park said, “I didn’t know my singing would be such a beautiful storyline to kind of open up that friendship and open up that character.”
The actor said that singing on the show helped her figure out her “actual true voice.” The first time Park sings on the show, she does a one-minute acapella version of “La Vie en Rose” at the park for Emily. By season 3, Mindy has already performed several hit songs, from Sia’s “Chandelier” to BTS’s “Dynamite.”
