Jemima Kirke on Conversations With Friends, Girls, and being a ‘stylist’s nightmare’

From Girls to Conversations With Friends, Jemima Kirke has explored the complicated side to relationships … and fashion.

“I’m a stylist’s nightmare,” Jemima Kirke says, pointing out the electric-green knit she is wearing on our Zoom call.

As free-spirited Jessa in cult TV comedy Girls, Kirke became – as did the show’s creator, Lena Dunham – the voice of a generation for cool-yet-effortless “it” girls in New York (and everywhere).

Now, the British actress, 37, has a new show: she plays a writer in a strained marriage on Conversations With Friends, the British TV series from the creative team behind 2020’s Normal People, which is also based on Sally Rooney’s novel.

Here, Kirke discusses her role, why she is sick of Instagram-fuelled fashion trends, and the legacy of Girls – a series that defined millennial feminism in the 2010s.

Jemima Kirke at the premiere of Conversations With Friends in London. Picture: Getty Images

Conversations With Friends explores the conflict between the head and the heart. Where is your character, the ambitious writer Melissa, coming from?
Jemima Kirke: “I think she’s coming from both. I think that she presents to be coming from the head, a very rational place and a place of unconditional love. And I think that is true to an extent, but I don’t think it comes as naturally to her as she would like Frances (Alison Oliver) and Nick (Joe Alwyn) to think. She is doing it perhaps somewhat strategically and also, manipulatively, because she is hurting and probably as jealous and emotional as Frances.”

What attracted you to the script, based on Sally Rooney’s book of the same name?
JK: “The context of the story and the way that it’s told: the pacing is very slow, and the context is mundane – it very much takes place within everyday life. Even the affair is somewhat typical – not the details, the details of anything are never typical. It’s the details that make things stand out. I found that to be a real challenge to have an entire scene based around making someone a cup of tea. Sitting at a coffee shop asking someone if they want to go on holiday. Those kinds of scenes, whenever they happen, are a challenge – it can’t just be about making a cup of tea. They have to make something, a situation, that’s unremarkable, remarkable, via the acting and the direction, of course. If it was as meaningless as it seems, then we wouldn’t have a scene.”

Alison Oliver, Sasha Lane, Jemima Kirke and Joe Alwyn star in Conversations With Friends, the unofficial follow-up to Normal People. Picture: Getty Images

You have played such strong female characters. What do you look for in a role?

JK: “When you say strong, do you mean tough or experienced?”

They have a strong perspective and are self-assured, particularly noting the character of Jessa which you played in Girls, and of course Melissa in Conversations With Friends.
JK: “I agree. That makes sense. They are very directed and they have a specific point of view, they are not generic characters by any stretch. They are quite dominant. I don’t look for that in a character necessarily. It’s what I get offered mostly but it would be a pleasure to play someone who is the opposite. I don’t think strong or dominating women are the most interesting characters – they can be, I appreciate that there are more stories with those types of characters, but I think it’s just as important to tell stories about the opposite personalities. There is strength in being reserved and more observational or insecure. I mean these are powerful characters as well. Any story and any character that’s written that breaks down the exterior or what that character represents, to me, is interesting. Anyone that sort of smashes it and says it’s not what it seems. A person is always more dynamic than their archetype.”

‘I’m a stylist’s nightmare!’ Jemima Kirke at New York Fashion Week in 2017. Picture: AFP

Joe Alwyn plays your on-screen husband, Nick, a character who is described as “stupidly handsome” in the novel. It’s a very complex marriage. How did you and Joe get to know each other prior to shooting?

JK: “Sometimes your first reaction to a person can be your best chemistry. We did meet beforehand to talk about the relationship – there was a lot of drinking, socially, with the other actors, which was really fun. It really did help to create chemistry with all of us. We’d go to each other’s houses … any time I talk about drinking to American publications, there’s always a laugh, as if it’s taboo in some way. But I am speaking to an Australian and there’s not one bit of reaction, I love it. It’s always nice to get a bit drunk with people that you want to get to know better. It makes everyone a bit more vulnerable.”

What challenges did you face as actors portraying a married couple?

JK: “The challenge that Joe and I had was creating a marriage. The marriage was (told) from the perspective of Frances – and she sees very little, and she also sees what she wants to see, which is a relationship that is fragile and maybe even not there. It wouldn’t be very interesting to act out the marriage that Frances saw because that’s where the tension has to come from. That’s the whole point of turning a book into moving images – then you get to see things from a point of view other than the narrator.”

In a previous interview with US Vogue earlier in your career, you reflected on the idea of fame, saying: “I don’t need to be famous – I don’t need to engage with that side of it”. How do you feel about fame now?

JK: “Let’s be real that my calibre is somewhere in the lower to intermediate – I’m fine with that. I think that’s, there’s something intentional in that for me. I have been sent Marvel scripts and I am not going to read them. At the time when I was sent them, I couldn’t picture myself doing those kinds of productions. Things have changed, I do accept that this is now my job. I accept what comes along with that. It’s not a massive price to pay for getting to do what I now love doing.”

Girls girls girls! Zosia Mamet, Allison Williams, Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke in 2017. Picture: AFP

As a mother – and a style icon in your own right – what do you think about the pressure on young women to conform to fast fashion and social media trends?

JK: “I think there’s always been pressure on young women, from pre-teens and up to women in their 30s, and older, to conform and to have our outfit or our look approved by men and women. What is specific and interesting about today’s fashion is that everyone is looking the same because of Instagram. Everyone, and I mean everyone in that age group, I have noticed – my daughter is a pre-teen – and all the pre-teens are wearing the same outfits. Everyone is now wearing gold chains now. There’s always something that I am noticing that’s been circulating around Instagram and now I am seeing everywhere. And I’m certain to an extent mine is (style). I am sure I get ideas and inspiration from that, that I am not even aware of. Instagram is the new magazine stand.”

You’re known for your eclectic personal style. How do you approach fashion?

JK: “My approach? I have lots of opinions on fashion – I am a stylist’s nightmare because I come in with a list of nos.”

What is on that list?
JK: “I won’t do a floral unless it’s very specific. I won’t do anything that feels bohemian, I won’t do anything with a prairie hem. I can’t stand it. I hate anything that has a drop waist, especially one with a tie. I don’t like a dart down the front of a trouser. I don’t like a peep-toe, the list goes on. I try, especially if I am going to be photographed, not to wear something that is Instagram-approved. I would like for things to not be so cookie-cutter. Another way I approach it is, in my everyday life, it changes. Right now I am really into wearing bright colours, as you can see. And I’ve always collected T-shirts, I have a million T-shirts, old T-shirts. I don’t like a rock T-shirt, can’t stand a band tee. I don’t know why. That started in the early 2000s, when people wear them with a beautiful suit or skirt. What are you doing? You ruined it! I don’t like the casual mixed with more glamorous looks, I hate that. That’s just my preference.”

It’s been 10 years since Girls premiered. How do you reflect on it now?

JK: “I feels so far away. At the time it was such a taboo show, if it came out today it would be so different. The experience? I view it fondly. I do feel like I was so inexperienced. I wasn’t in control of my career … I hadn’t developed a real skill set yet. There are days where I think, f***, if that had happened on Girls, if I made that mistake back then I would have been mortified, whereas now, I don’t feel that bothered when I make a mistake. I do reflect … sometimes I even wish I could go back.”

Conversations with Friends is streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

Originally published as Jemima Kirke on Conversations With Friends, Girls, and being a ‘stylist’s nightmare’