Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty; Photo by Helen Holmes/The Daily Beast
It’s 10 p.m. on a Sunday evening in December, and Jemima Kirke has just managed to get her 13-year-old daughter, Rafaella, to go to sleep. If the actress, writer, and painter—best known for playing the hipster vagabond Jessa on Girls—is exhausted, she doesn’t show it, instead enthusiastically ushering me into her cozy home in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We exchange hushed hellos, not wanting to disturb her kids—Kirke’s son, 11-year-old Memphis, is sleeping upstairs too. (Her ex-husband, Michael Mosberg, lives elsewhere.)
She points out the explosive pink color of the flowers in the classic melodrama that’s playing on the TV above her fireplace. Kirke is obsessed with confections; girly things. A vintage dollhouse has pride of place in her furnished basement studio, and an enormous bow-shaped headboard leans against the wall of her vestibule. She told me she hasn’t figured out how she’s going to use it yet.
Our interview was three weeks in the making, with Kirke postponing several times before texting to confirm the late-night hang: “Drink coffee or something. Or bring cocaine. See you then!”