“What’s It All About, Alfie?”: Lily Collins and Lucien Laviscount Break Down ‘Emily In Paris’ Season 3’s Most Romantic Scene

Emily in Paris Season 3 features one of the year’s most romantic scenes. It’s a grand gesture so charming, so adorable, and so perfectly suited to the show’s plot that I’m still squealing about it weeks after watching the screeners. In honor of Season 3 dropping on Netflix, Decider asked stars Lily Collins and Lucien Laviscount to unpack the sweet musical moment for fans, and their responses will only make you love the scene more.

If you haven’t seen Season 3, Episode 2, “What’s It All About…” yet, you might want to stop reading now to avoid spoilers. But if you’re ready to dive into Emily’s big Dionne Warwick declaration of love, keep going! In the Season 3 premiere, Emily (Collins) missed Alfie’s (Laviscount) going away party and chose to prioritize work over their relationship, so Alfie started working for Antoine (William Abadie) without telling her because he feels hurt and closed off. After Emily tried (and fails) to mend her romantic relationship with Alfie, Mindy (Ashley Park) comforted her and started singing, “What’s it all about, Alfie?” Emily questioned the song and Mindy explained it was Dionne Warwick’s 1966 track, “Alfie.” (Though the song was originally written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the 1966 film, Alfie, which starred Michael Caine.)

Emily never heard of the song, so viewers quickly forget about the scene until later in the episode when Mindy and her band are performing at Paris’ annual musical celebration, Fête de la Musique. Alfie joins Emily in the crowd and when she tries to apologize to him again he says he doesn’t want to talk about their relationship history, he just wants to enjoy the music. When Mindy wraps up, Emily hops onstage, borrows her mic, and says she’s “putting herself out there.”

Next thing we know she’s standing on stage singing “Alfie” in front of a crowd in a rom-com worthy scene so good it will give you chills. “COOPER! What do I have to do to get you to stop singing?” Alfie says before running on stage and kissing her to applause from the crowd. Swoon!

In a Zoom interview with Laviscount, Decider asked him to share his favorite Season 3 scene with Lily Collins and he quickly recalled the magical music moment. “You know what? And I’m not just saying this, I really think every day I come on set with Lily it’s something new, but it’s also something that feels so familiar. She’s got such a way about her, so I love everything we do because everything we do means something, whatever capacity it is…but there’s a scene in the movie, or the show — I think it’s a movie, it’s one big movie for me — when she steps up on that stage, she puts a microphone in her hand, and she sings her little heart out and it’s the most adorable, sweetest, [most] truthful [gesture] — it was beautiful,” Laviscount said. “Honestly I was a spectator in that scene, just watching her do her thing. No acting required. I was blushing. It felt real. It felt good.”

The scene was also a standout Season 3 memory for Collins, though because she was the one performing it felt a tad less magical in the moment. “It was slightly terrifying, because also it was in a public space in the middle of the city like the day after the actual Fête de la Musique. So people were out in the streets, it was summer, and it was quite an open-aired set type situation to do it in,” Collins explained over Zoom. “But also I was really excited to get the opportunity to do it. And I love music, but it’s always something I want to have that’s character driven and makes sense for the character within the moments and is emotionally driven and charged, and this was a beautiful opportunity for Emily to step outside her comfort zone and for me to utilize all the nerves or excitement I could as Emily and give it for the moment and hopefully win Alfie over.”

Collins shared that although the crowd was slightly intimidating “everyone was so nice and supportive,” and her co-star Ashley Park chimed in to gush over the scene, too.

“It was such a good scene — to just watch Emily do a grand gesture not in a work setting, but in a personal setting was just so sweet,” Park told Decider.

Season 3 has a number of memorable moments, including several dramatic finale cliffhangers, but Emily singing “Alfie” is absolutely in my Top 5 favorite scenes.

Emily in Paris Season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.