Reneé Rapp "hated" filming her first year of The Sex Lives Of College Girls

Renée Rapp says filming The Sex Lives Of College Girls—where she plays closeted lesbian Leighton—while struggling with her own sexuality was "terrible"

By Hattie Lindert | March 2, 2023 | 7:30pm

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Reneé Rapp Photo: Rodin Eckenroth

Spend an episode with the titular girls of Mindy Kaling’s HBO Max series The Sex Lives Of College Girls and it’s clear: Leighton (Reneé Rapp), the frank legacy student whose perfectly coiffed white blonde hair is the straightest thing about her, wears the pants in this friend group. But the confidence and charisma Rapp exudes in the role didn’t always come so naturally—in fact, Rapp says that filming the first season of the series “horribly” affected her sense of self.

In a new episode of Spotify’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Rapp says that her personal struggle to come into her own sexuality made taking on her first leading role on the small screen grueling. When Rapp agreed to play Leighton, she wasn’t exactly out of the closet— in her own words, her role on TSLOCG has been her “genuine like coming out to my family, close and extended.” Today, Rapp openly identifies as bisexual.

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“The first year doing [The Sex Lives Of] College Girls was terrible. It was terrible,” Rapp tells host Alexandra Cooper. “It sucked so bad, because at the time, I was in a heteronormative relationship. I hated going to work, because I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m like good enough to be here. I don’t think I can be here. I don’t think I can be doing this.’ I was like, ‘Maybe I’m just trying too hard.’ And then I would come home and I would psych myself out, literally.”

Rapp says that she’ll never forget calling a close friend at one point during that time in defeat. During that conversation, she questioned everything: whether she was straight or not, whether she was good enough or not, and whether she could keep filming or not.

“I was just in a panic constantly,” Rapp recalls. “And I wasn’t [straight], but I was so freaked out by the idea of my sexuality, not being finite or people laughing at me or me laughing at myself that I hated first year of filming.”

Even though Rapp says she was initially “so excited” for the opportunity to audition for a queer role, the reality of playing the character often felt like a “mindfuck.” Rapp specifically recalls male cast and crew members consistently asking prying questions about her own sexual orientation.

“It really f**king pissed me off and it made me second guess everything about myself,” she says.

Especially frustrating for Rapp was how badly she wanted to succeed in the role. “I wanted so badly to do a good job,” she said. “… I wanted to play the role in the way that if I saw it as a kid it would feel good to me. I also wanted to do a good job so bad that I was so nervous all the time.”

Ultimately, those first-season jitters dissipated; now squarely through season 2, Rapp says she enjoys playing Leighton and acting alongside her co-stars (she describes her co-star Alyah Chanelle Scott, who plays soccer star Whitney, as a “God-send” on set). Although she still worries about getting compared to her posh character “constantly,” Rapp isn’t as worried anymore about viewers assuming her own sexuality based on Leighton’s. Honestly, she’s more concerned about anyone getting the impression she would ever wear that much tweed.