CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you were to try to imagine in your head what life as an entertainment star might look like, it could conceivably manifest as something along the lines of where Reneé Rapp is right now.
That is, sitting next to her manager in the back seat of a hired car somewhere in New Jersey, having just wrapped another rehearsal for Tina Fey’s movie version of “Mean Girls the Musical,” which started shooting Monday and will see Rapp reprise a lead role she played in the 2019-2020 Broadway version; using her phone to do a Zoom interview that’s being monitored by a publicity manager for her record label, Interscope Records.
But is this what the 2018 Northwest School of the Arts alum imagined what stardom would look like back when she was growing up in the Charlotte area, where she first charted a laser-focused path to success in an industry that guarantees so little?
Yes ... and no.
“I think it’s tangibly everything I imagined that it would be,” says Rapp, 23, who, on top of that other stuff, is also a star of HBO Max’s dramedy series “The Sex Lives of College Girls” and recently headlined a concert mini-tour in support of her debut pop EP. At the same time, she says of achieving the stardom she envisioned as a kid, “I think it emotionally doesn’t feel like you think it would. Just in the sense of, like, I’ve learned — and I will likely continue to learn, as I’m getting older — that the things you dreamed about and the goals that you want to achieve are not everything.”
Case in point:
“I remember when I went and did ‘Mean Girls,’ I told my parents, I was like, ‘Aw, f—. I’m making money on my own now, and I genuinely thought that my anxiety would just disappear, ’cause this was the goal, and I felt like when I achieved things, that those achievements become everything, and they erase the bad s—.
“But sadly, the bad s— is still there.”
Her eye was on two big prizes
Denise Rapp traces the earliest compliments related to her daughter’s talents to a time her mom (Reneé’s grandmother) saw then-6-year-old Reneé and several other kids perform as part of a music camp at West Virginia University.
“My mom said all the other kids sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ or ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ and did great,” Denise recalls. “But Reneé sang ‘Faithfully,’ by Journey ... and the teacher said to my mom, ‘She’s amazing. I’m gonna see her somewhere, someday.’ ”
In fact, Reneé had felt from a young age that she wanted to be a big recording artist in the vein of her hero, who also used an acute accent to punctuate her name: Beyoncé. And when Rapp was in seventh grade, someone blazed a trail that provided an example for how she might get there.
That came in 2013, when Northwest School of the Arts student Eva Noblezada took a best actress win in the spring at The Blumey Awards (which recognize the top musical theater performances by high school students in the Charlotte area); parlayed it into a coveted runner-up spot at The Jimmy Awards (a national competition that The Blumey winners are fed into) in the summer; and then was cast in the fall in the lead role for the 25th anniversary revival of “Miss Saigon,” which opened in London’s West End the following May.
Rapp, frankly, had fairly limited interest in the acting part of musical theater. But she fixated on that being a ticket to a Jimmy, a Jimmy being her ticket to getting seen by agents, getting seen by agents being her ticket to Broadway, and Broadway being her ticket to a recording career.
As an incoming freshman to Hopewell High School, her parents took her to Meet the Teacher Night — and Denise remembers her daughter asking the theater teacher point-blank: “Are we gonna do The Blumeys?”
After two years and lead roles in shows like “Little Shop of Horrors” at Hopewell, she auditioned for and was accepted into Northwest’s program, correctly predicting that distinguishing herself at Noblezada’s competitive alma mater would boost her chances of winning the award she so coveted.
It was almost like Babe Ruth calling his shot.
In May 2018, Rapp won best actress at The Blumeys for her turn as Sandra in “Big Fish” for Northwest. In June, she did Noblezada one better by winning The Jimmy outright. She started getting seen by agents. One year after winning The Blumey, Rapp was hired to take on the starring role of Regina George in the Broadway musical “Mean Girls.”
Everything was working out. Yet in many ways, she was miserable.
‘Only happy when I’m daydreaming’
Growing up, Rapp’s home life was stable and loving.
She says her dad, Charlie, “is my best friend and my biggest supporter in the whole wide world”; she trusts her mother to look out for her so much that since she left home she’s relied on Denise as her business manager; and Charlie describes Reneé’s younger brother, also named Charlie, as “a touchstone of support for her.”
Like many teenagers, Reneé had significant struggles nonetheless.
She’s been open (particularly in just the past few months, in interviews to promote “The Sex Lives of College Girls” and her pop music career) about the fact that she has grappled in the past with eating disorders, her mental health, her bisexuality and drug use.
Meanwhile, the two things she outwardly appeared to enjoy most as a teenager — singing and acting — were almost constantly a source of internal pain and suffering. For instance, describing the brief time in her teens when she sang with a girl group someone in Charlotte was trying to put together, she says: “It was just a really s— environment. ... These girls did not like me. ... It was honestly not fun at all.”
As for acting, in addition to having limited interest, Rapp felt completely out of her element.
“I thought I was a terrible actor. That was my entire, big insecurity in the theater growing up, ’cause I was like, ‘I cannot act for s—.’ ”
The net effect of all this, she says, is that she was “was internally really sad” during her youth in Charlotte. “I would tell my mom, ‘The only time I’m happy is when I’m daydreaming, or when I’m talking about my future, I get so excited.’ ”
But there’s an argument to be made that her curse was actually a bit of a blessing, as it pertained to those big, bold, aforementioned goals.
“There were turbulent feelings that she had at times,” recalls Corey Mitchell, who was her theater director at Northwest and has remained a family friend since. “The thing that always amazed me about her is how that turbulence wasn’t crippling. That’s probably the thing that really distinguishes Reneé, is that the turbulence she felt did not stop her forward momentum.”
Some of that turbulence may have even fueled her momentum.
After high school, she harnessed her insecurity and — as she began auditioning for Broadway shows — hid it behind a veneer of confidence so high it bordered on indifference. Her mindset suddenly changed.
“We’re made to believe,” she says, “that we should kiss their (casting directors’) feet, right? ‘You should be so grateful for every opportunity. You’re lucky to be in the room.’ And I do think that’s true. I’m not saying that we should all be entitled idiots. But I also think there’s a power imbalance, and that they are also lucky that you are there, and you’re willing to audition, and you’re willing to show up ... and give your best.”
Basically, it worked. Casting directors were intrigued by her, she believes, because she exuded “I don’t give a f—” energy.
She says it’s a mindset that helped her get hired for “Mean Girls” in 2019; and then in 2020 for “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” in which she plays Leighton Murray, one of four roommates living together in a New England college dorm. Rapp gradually felt better about her acting ability — she admits she started to develop an affection for it — as “Sex Lives” pushed into its second season in 2022. Still, the hope continued to be that these projects would be the key to launching a singing career.
As it turned out, all she needed was some more of that turbulence.
‘I know who I am all of a sudden’
The turning point for Rapp came two Decembers ago, at the end of 2021, when she was home for the holidays in Huntersville.
“It was right after a huge breakup,” Rapp explains. “This person and I broke up, and I got off the phone with them, and I literally laughed. I called my manager, and I was like, ‘Oh, by the way, it’s time. This is gonna be the greatest year of my life.’ He was like, ‘Are you OK?’ I was like, ‘No. I’m actually not OK at all. But I know that my entire life is going to change. Because I have just shed so much dead weight.’ ”
Then she went and sat down at her mom’s piano and wrote the first song she’d ever written from start to finish by herself.
When she finished, she says, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m good at this ... and I have something to say. I know who I am all of a sudden, now that I’m out of this relationship with this person.’ ”
By spring, she’d inked a deal with Interscope Records. This past November, she released her debut EP, “Everything to Everyone,” to critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Billboard and Vogue, whose writer noted “it made me (a) dance, (b) cry, and (c) feel things, in that order, which is really all you can ask of pop music.” (Interestingly, according to Denise Rapp, her daughter’s debut EP does not include the breakup song that started it all. Maybe on the follow-up?) And in December and January, Reneé performed shows in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Atlanta and Paris.
The largest was at North London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town on Jan. 19, when she headlined in front of a sold-out crowd of about 2,300.
Unfortunately, she says, realizing her lifelong dream didn’t feel the way she thought it would.
“I had an anxiety attack before I went on the stage,” Rapp says. “I was honestly anxious the whole time in London. The entire time I was onstage in London, all I was doing was judging myself. ... In the moment, no, didn’t feel good at all.”
In other words — like she said up top — the bad stuff is still there.
“She still is incredibly hard on herself, and who she is,” says her dad, Charlie. Both he and Denise agree, however, that Reneé has matured since the breakup, and that talking frankly and openly about her struggles has been “almost therapeutic” for her. “Sometimes she goes a little further than Mom and I would like to see. The expletives — ” Charlie continues, as Denise laughs — “could be replaced, and we’d appreciate it.” But above all, he just wants to see his daughter happy.
And it seems like she’s getting there.
In the past, Reneé might have never been able to get rid of the bad feelings she had about that London show. Might never have been able to reflect on it without resentment or embarrassment. Might only have been able to find solace in thoughts about the future.
So for Reneé Rapp — who, remember, is just 23 and pretty new to adulting — this is progress: “I feel very lucky. I mean, I think about it all the time. My childhood was so emotional. I was such an overly emotional and sensitive kid. It was so hard so much of the time. But I feel like all of that stuff goes into exactly who I am now. ... So when I look back at the footage, I’m like, ‘Wow, oh my God, I’m literally doing what I always said I was gonna do.’ ... When I watch videos back, I’m proud of myself. And that feels really, really good. ... It’s been a really interesting four years, with a ton of ups and downs.
“But I’m glad,” she says (and Dad, sorry about this), “that it finally f— worked out.”
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