The Sex Lives of College Girls is back for season 2 and it is better than ever!

Stars Alyah Chanelle Scott, Reneé Rapp, Pauline Chalamet and Amrit Kaur spoke with Shadow and Act’s managing editor Trey Mangum about what challenges fans can expect their characters Whitney and Leighton to run into this season.

Rapp said that this season her character Leighton is beginning to embrace the times she runs into chaos.

“I think the best thing that you watched Leighton do is start to embrace certain situations that would typically knock other people down that literally don’t phase her,” she said. “…So I really admire her resilience and I’m also confused by it, but in a hot way. I think she just owns who she is for the first time, which is really really exciting, seeing someone’s insides match their outsides.”

Scott said that her character Whitney is facing the challenge of redefining herself outside of the passions she’s thrown herself into. Scott talked about facing this issue herself as she’s gotten older, as well as her relating to Whitney’s life at a predominately white college.

“I feel like there’s two sides of it. I feel like there’s the side that is just like any normal college student who has a thing that is there thing, and when that thing is gone, when the passion is gone, who are you?” she said. “And [there] also is Whitney being a Black girl at a predominately white place. That aspect I related to in college very much so. But the other aspect of finding yourself and figuring out who you are beyond what you love happened to me in adulthood…because our passions are our jobs that we’re so lucky to have but when you’re not working, you’re like, ‘Dang I just want to work and that’s not healthy.'”

Both Scott and Rapp said that the wait to see how fans would react to the first season was anxiety-inducing. But the overwhelmingly positive response was a relief.

“I feel like it was affirming…So it was anxiety until we heard back [from] people relating to the show and liking the show…We did a good thing,” she said.

You can watch the full interview below:

The Sex Lives of College Girls follows four friends who experience life at the fictional Essex College in New England. The second season, comprised of 10 episodes, is described as picking up “with the students returning after their Fall break, tackling the challenges thrown their way at the end of season one, and facing their next semester filled with now faces, parties and predicaments.” The Sex Lives of College Girls is currently airing on HBO Max.