Sign in to your Collider account
Image via Max
[Editor's note: The following contains some spoilers for Season 3 of The Sex Lives of College Girls.]
Summary
- The third season of the Max series 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' introduced a new roommate, Kacey, while exploring new experiences for the core characters.
- Season 3 focuses on individual character growth, with Kimberly fighting for change, Whitney rejoining the soccer team, and Bela exploring her feelings for girls.
- Showrunner Justin Noble discusses the ensemble cast, saying goodbye to one of the core characters, introducing new faces, and increasing episode runtimes.
From creators Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, Season 3 of the Max original series The Sex Lives of College Girls brought change to Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet), Bela (Amrit Kaur) and Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott), as they had to say goodbye to Leighton (Reneé Rapp) when she decided to pursue academic ambitions elsewhere, and they welcomed a new roommate named Kacey (Gracie Lawrence). After a bumpy start to the school year, new guys, an inspirational professor and some priorities to get straight, friendship and the support the foursome has for each other get them through it all.
Over the three seasons since they started at Essex, Kimberly, Bela and Whitney have continued to grow and find their voices. By the end of Season 3, Kimberly decided to fight the power, Whitney rejoined the soccer team on her own terms, and Bela kissed a girl and realized she liked it. Even Kacey got to have her moment, with a show-stopping performance of “Never Enough” from The Greatest Showman.
Unsure of the future of the series, Noble spoke to Collider for this one-on-one interview about what he’s learned from showrunning The Sex Lives of College Girls, what it has been like to work with this ensemble, figuring out the right exit for Leighton while saying goodbye to Rapp, figuring out how Kacey and Taylor (Mia Rodgers) would fit in, what Ilia Isorelýs Paulino brings to Lila, the Eli (Michael Provost) and Kimberly relationship, what led to the longer episode runtime, their process for figuring out where to end each season, and how far ahead he’s thought about the lives of the core characters.
Showrunner Justin Noble Has Learned So Much From His Time on 'The Sex Lives of College Girls'
Image via Max
Collider: You worked on other shows before doing this, but what have you learned from the experience of being a showrunner on this series for three seasons? Since you have to do a little bit of everything, is there anything you hadn’t realized you were capable of before doing this series?
JUSTIN NOBLE: Literally so many things. You can make hundreds of episodes of television and there’s still so much you don’t know about what showrunning is, no matter how many episodes you write and produce. And the system is really interesting. You’re the head of a company of basically 350 employees. Suddenly, you’re in charge of HR and you’re like, “Should I be? Is this right? Should we revisit this?” My favorite anecdote about it is from a year and a half ago, but that I Love Lucy movie with Nicole Kidman that came out, I watched it with my parents because it’s very much a holiday home with the parents movie and I found myself so jealous of Tony Hale’s character because he played their showrunner and it was so simple. Back then, there were two cameras, a tape night, and you’d do a rehearsal. A little bit of TV is still that way, but it’s just gotten so big and so ambitious, and as it grows, everyone wants to keep it financially lean. So then, they want you to do it faster and tighter and cheaper, so you’re constantly on your feet trying to re-evaluate how to do the things you just realized are your job, and in faster, more efficient and better ways. It’s a lot of hats. Thankfully, I’m bald and I love a hat.
It’s also one of those jobs that you can’t really take a course in because every showrunner approaches things in their own way, depending on how they view their own strengths.
NOBLE: Totally. And I think I know enough about myself to know that I just care deeply. And so, at a job at the top like that where every detail is somewhere underneath your triangle of people who work there, there are so few things where I’m like, “I don’t need to know about that.” I want to empower the amazing people we hire because that makes the job so much easier, but I still love to know what it is, so that on the day, no one’s caught by surprise. The first time that happens, you learn a lesson. The costume department picks a costume, and then the intimacy coordinator on our show says, “It’s gonna be difficult for a sex scene with this costume.” And then, all of a sudden, the showrunner is like, “Now we’re causing a delay. Why didn’t I go to a meeting between the costume department and the intimacy coordinator?” You didn’t go because that meeting doesn’t exist since there are a million things and you can’t have a meeting for everything. But it’s honestly fun. It keeps you on your toes because you’re constantly juggling a new thing on any given day, in addition to writing and producing and directing, and all those pesky little details that you’ve aspired to do with your entire career leading up to it.
Related
Your main ensemble of four shrunk to an ensemble of three this season. What have you most enjoyed about working with this ensemble? What’s it been like to see the work they’ve delivered, individually and together, from season to season, since it’s not just been about individual character growth on this show, but also the larger group friendship?
NOBLE: Absolutely. That’s what the show is about. I love an ensemble comedy, I always have. I’ve worked on so many of them, but that’s also because it’s what I enjoy watching. I think that the core of our show is in those scenes in the suite where they’re discussing some issue and they have four different perspectives on it because of their background or their personality. No one’s lines could be given to another character because their POV is so clear on something, or they disagree on something, two on one side and two on the other. We’ve had that with the original four on the show. And this season, we’ve added two new girls and sometimes we’re doing five-person scenes, and sometimes six because Lila’s hanging out and she’s so fun to write for. It’s a huge creative undertaking to add another body, both in terms of on the page and coverage on set for direction, but it makes it feel richer and fuller to me. I don’t think we can continue to do six-person suite scenes too much because you literally only get through one scene, and then it’s lunch. But I do think it makes the cuts that we’re seeing this season feel richer and fuller.
That was a big thing I wanted to make clear to the audience, who understandably are going to miss Leighton. They’ve known Leighton for two years on the show. She’s obviously a story that I super gravitate towards. As a queer writer, I put a lot of make my own experiences into it. I miss writing for that character, of course. But at the end of the day, our show is The Sex Lives of College Girls, and there are thousands of different types of interesting stories that can be told for different types of college girls. So, the goal of this season was to honorably exit that one character, and then be like, “By the way, here are two new girls who have unique perspectives. And we’re also gonna throw a lot more towards Ilia [Isorelýs Paulino] and Renika [Williams], and everyone else, because there’s never a shortage of women who are interesting in college.
Leighton Murray Only Knows How To Win, So Her Exit in 'The Sex Lives of College Girls' Had To Reflect That
Image via Max
When you found out that Reneé Rapp would be leaving and you realized that Leighton wouldn’t be there anymore, did you immediately know how you wanted her to leave? Was it important for you to have her leave to better her education and her future, and not to have it be a shallow reason?
NOBLE: Absolutely. Could you imagine if, one day she was just like, “I’m going for a hike on a rocky cliff in Vermont,” and we were like, “What are you doing?” The truth of it is that it happened during the strike, so we were off. Mindy [Kaling] and I were good little strikers and we weren’t working during it, so when we came back from the strike, we met up at her house, just the two of us, before we even had the writers' room back up and running, to decide how we wanted to exit the character. The main ethos was, “This is Leighton Murray. Leighton Murray only knows how to win things. She doesn’t lose things. So, what is the win that would feel right for her character, at this stage in her life, that would send her off in a new direction?” The other thing I like about it, as we started talking about details and as we flesh it out with the writers in the room, was that Leighton joined our show in the pilot episode of Season 1, at a time when she knew herself the least and was hiding the most about herself in so many different ways, not even just her sexuality. She was so wounded and projecting, and that’s what made her such a rich character to write for. Over 22 episodes, we’ve watched her have this enormous true confidence build. It felt like she just made good on the challenge of what college is early. If college is figuring out what you want to do with your life and what you need next, Leighton got there in a year and a couple weeks, unlike other people who get there in four years. There’s nothing more fitting for Leighton Murray than being an overachiever who got it right the first time.
Related
I loved that it was a decision that she made herself and that she was at a place where she could do that, and it wasn’t something she felt forced into. It made it an important character moment.
NOBLE: Oh, yeah, I think so too. I had talked to some people who were like, “How are you gonna kill her off?” And I was like, “This isn’t Grey’s Anatomy. She doesn’t have a bomb in her chest from a terrorist and the students are trying to figure out how to isolate her.” We wanted to tell a story about transferring. The other thing that’s real is, in my first year in college, one of my best friends called over the summer and was like, “I’m not coming back,” and I remember being shook by that. I was like, “But you’re one-sixth of my social circle. What does that mean for me?” So, I thought that would be a good story for the other girls. It’s not just Leighton’s exit, but how do you cope with a friend who’s leaving? What does that mean for you? What does it mean for your group? Those are big shoes to fill, both behind the scenes and on the screen, for the new characters. That pressure feels real when you’re the new person in a suite.
What was it like to say goodbye to her, and to not only have that last day on set with her, but to have the first day on set without her?
NOBLE: The interesting thing is that we filmed in reverse order, intentionally. Very early in the season, I knew I wanted to do episodes three and four first and then go back and do one and two. We had been down for so long that I wanted people to shake off the cobwebs and have a little more time meeting this new character Kacey and having some energy on set that felt like, “This is what we’re gonna be doing moving forward. Now, we’re ready to go back and close this last chapter.” I’m really glad we did it that way. We knew it was coming and prepared for it, and really worked on the words for that scene where they say goodbye to each other. The performances in that scene are just incredible because it’s real. It’s one of those scenes where it blurs the line between acting and real life because they are saying goodbye to each other. Alyah [Chanelle Scott] was so emotional during it and we knew we wanted that. She talks about it really fondly because she was so in it, but she knew we was gonna see Reneé again because they live three minutes from each other. But it comes across on the screen like a good emotional sendoff for the group.
What was it like to figure out exactly who Kacey and Taylor would be, as characters, and how they would fit into the larger series?
NOBLE: I had a smidge of creative anxiety over switching up the cast and literally changing up who’s on the poster for the show. But getting back to the idea of the title, The Sex Lives of College Girls, there are plenty of types of college girls. We get into the writers’ room and within a day of pitching, there were 600 to 800 different versions of characters that we could pursue. The wall was full of them. It looked like Homeland. And so, once we were talking about it, we were just so excited about different areas. For Kacey, in particular, her card stemmed from macro words like girly girl, and we just hadn’t had that on the show. Everyone in the room was like, “I lived with a girl like this,” or “My best friend in high school was like this.” As we started talking about her, we added specifics. There was this one moment that was eye-opening for me, where one of the girls was like, “She’s probably one of those girls whose mom was really controlling about the way she looked and was like, ‘You can never leave the house with wet hair.’” And a bunch of the women in the room were like, “Oh, my God, yes! That’s such a thing.” That was just a version of my chance to be the shepherd of what other people are responding to and encourage them to continue pitching on what they’re following, rather than me suggesting a left field pitch.
Lila seems so perfectly suited to Ilia Isorelýs Paulino that it’s hard to imagine them as separate entities. How much of that character is what you had originally envisioned for that character, and how much is just her and how she sees it?
NOBLE: That character, I would say more than many, had a real development course. As we were talking about it, we talked about different versions of the character. Lila operates in Kimberly’s sphere. Originally, we were like, “What’s good fodder for Kimberly? Maybe it’s someone who’s like her, in the way that she’s not like her suitemates.” I just love big, funny, loud, horny women. That’s who my friend group is, which is why I write this show. It just naturally became a thing I wanted to do. I sort of had that with Bela, but then I saw Ilia’s audition and I was like, “Oh, my God, it’s her.” I reached out to friends through the Yale Drama School, where she was at the time. She had just graduated, and they were all like, “She’s a huge talent. Get her fast.” She adds so much to that character. She just inspires the writers. It’s just that dynamic. On set, it’s so easy to write alts with and for her because she’s so playful. She’s an all-star. She knocked it out of the park, no matter what you do. You can stand off screen and be like, “I’ve got four alts for you.” And she’s like, “Gimme, gimme,” and she’ll just knock it out of the park and add her own spin. More than anyone, she will improvise. It’s just her. She is Lila. I give her all the acting credit in the world. It’s not that she’s portraying herself, but she just adds so much. When she puts on that Lila skin, it’s magic.
Co-Creator Justin Noble Loves Embracing the Messy With 'The Sex Lives of College Girls'
Image via Max
With Eli, Kimberly is dating someone who’s clearly more experienced than she is and she doesn’t really know how to communicate very well about that. How did you want to approach that relationship?
NOBLE: In real life, you learn from people you’re dating, and we love it when our girls step in it a little bit. They think they know what they’re about to get into, but they’ve only had a glimpse of the iceberg. I also just really liked the representation story of a bi guy who wants to date women. I know from my own circle of friends, there are just so many stereotypes about it. If you’re a bi woman, that’s one thing. But if you’re a bi guy, you’re just gay and you haven’t come out yet. So many of them just give up on dating women. And so, with Leighton exiting and having a little less queer representation from that character, I wanted to make sure we were telling some stories that resonated in that sphere. And Kimberly was naturally the character to give that partner to because it’s just so funny that she would try so hard to be an ally for anything. We’ve seen her do that in other areas, but her becoming a soldier for male bisexuality is so fittingly Kimberly Finkle. It ended up feeling very fun. It was also a twist on her always getting the hottie on campus. Now, she’s with this hunky guy from The Holdovers, but is only going to mess it up.
Did you write Kimberly’s professor character specifically for Tig Notaro?
NOBLE: Candidly, no. We didn’t write it for Tig. This season has been in development for so long because we basically wrapped Season 2, got a quick renewal, and then started loosely talking about ideas. But then, we knew a strike was coming, so we were just puttering with macro beats. So, the character was developed more so for someone who should be around Kimberly, that she could learn an important lesson from her or get some downward pressure from. And then, we went through a casting process where we tried to figure out who would be the right fit. We wrote her as dry funny on the page, and then our casting team, who’s just the best and who are so damn good at their job, put Tig forward and right away it was like, “Of course, yes.” It was just really smart casting and the easiest thing for me to just say yes to.
Related
The episodes this season are a bit longer than they’ve been in the past. How did that come about? Was that an intentional decision? Did that evolve out of the story you were telling?
NOBLE: It was the perfect synergy. We were so pleased with how the first two seasons of the show were received and we would see these tweets saying, “Longer episodes!” That’s all fine and good, but longer episodes are more expensive, which is harder as the show progresses. In terms of adding more characters, it became needed. When we were breaking these stories, and we were juggling four or five stories instead of two or three, so the episodes just had to be longer, otherwise the comedy would have been sacrificed because the first thing you cut if it’s getting too long are jokes. So, it was a perfect fit of wanting longer, so they were just gonna be longer. I think it makes feel tighter and like so much is happening in each episode. We wanna be able to tell full stories in a chapter of these girls’ lives, not just, “I dated a boy and it was complicated for this reason, and then it got even more complicated for this reason.” And then, we made it to our resolution.
We wanted to see what they’re like in their clubs and their classrooms, and with their personal feelings with themselves and where they’re evolving to. I really labor over the first couple weeks of the writers’ room where we’re talking about like what the season trajectory is gonna be. As we decided where the academic story was gonna turn, where the relationship story was gonnna turn, where a new love interest would come in, because you don’t want the same one through the whole season for every girl, it just felt like there was so much that we could handle longer episodes. I was like, “We’ll get it done. We will find a way to produce these ten episodes longer within the same allotted period of production time."
How do you approach the end of each season? Do you try to give some sense of resolution and closure? Do you like to leave it in a way that gives you room for another possible season? How do you figure that out?
NOBLE: We like to mix it up. Season 2 was cliffhanger soup where everyone was in disarray. That felt intentional, in terms of the creative. At the end of the first year, we didn’t want that to feel like you had figured it all out and you’re on your way. We wanted to have ongoing story and honor the fact that they’ve probably tried a lot of stuff and it hasn’t quite worked out. That being said, I personally feel like we’re entering into a TV audience era where people don’t want that. The thing that I hear about our show that’s so nice is that people will say, “I sat down and watched your show on a Saturday and I finished it by Sunday afternoon.” They call it a warm hug. They don’t wanna get tremendous amounts of anxiety from this show. That’s just not what we are. We don’t need a lot of girl-on-girl warfare with people who are fighting each other. Season 3 feels different than the previous seasons because, to be candid, those cliffhangers were a little bit of a vestige of a different business era. Back in the early 2010s, you would have to throw forward in an interesting way, so that the audience wanted more, and that would affect your renewals. Now, we live in such a time where it’s like, “These are the numbers,” and they tell you whether it’s renewed or not.
‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ Showrunner Justin Noble Wants the Characters To Keep Evolving in New Ways
When it comes to these girls and just how much you personally spend time thinking about these characters, do you have a picture of where they all end up, or do you not want to think that far ahead?
NOBLE: I don’t. Sometimes I’ll think of something and be like, “Why am I thinking about Kimberly at 50?” You can’t help yourself when you start to know the characters. Once we knew we had two episodes to send Leighton off, I was immediately like, “I can so see this being the moment that sends Leighton off into a trajectory where she’s a C-suite female executive at a company and she’s killing it, and she has no problems other than the ones she causes by her personality.” I think college is such a period of time when you think you know what you want, but I would love to know what the percentage of accuracy is on that. I applied to college as a biochemical engineering major. Twist, two days in, I dropped all those courses, went to my freshman counselor, and was like, “What’s the easiest major here? I just joined four comedy groups and I think I’m gonna soft major in extracurriculars.”
I wanna keep it open to find new stuff. Kimberly, for instance, is so dead set on being a Supreme Court justice, and that’s very much the aspirational goal that a high schooler in Arizona would have. I’m interested in her learning a little bit more about what that’s like in 2025. Is that an ideal job? Has the entire concept of the Supreme Court become something completely different than what she thought it was in an academic sense? Now it’s basically a new wing of a government, as opposed to an independent, nonpartisan group, but we probably won’t go that political.
We shouldn’t trust 18- to 22-year-olds to have a great idea of what they wanna do with the rest of their lives. I just love talking to actual college kids to make sure we’re getting the right version of it, and it’s not imposed by a man in his late 30s, and they look like babies. We’re so conditioned by TV to see high schoolers and college students as an older group because that’s how they’re portrayed by characters, and they should be because if we saw real 18-year-old girls going to a Naked Party, you would change the channel. You’d be horrified. You wouldn’t want that on your television. But hearing them talk about their majors and their aspirations is cute because they should experience a lot of things before they firmly decide what’s right for them. They’re still cooking.
The Sex Lives of College Girls is available to stream on Max. Check out the Season 3 trailer:
English (US) ·