Jemima Kirke may forever be known for her star-making turn as the extremely boho Jessa on Girls, but in the new adaptation of Sally Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, Kirke has evolved past the role of the young woman finding herself. That domain is left to Frances (Alison Oliver, in the breakout, Paul Mescal-esque role) and her magnanimous best friend/ex-girlfriend Bobbi (Sasha Lane). Instead, Kirke steps capably into the role of Melissa, an accomplished writer and the self-possessed wife of Nick (Joe Alwyn), an actor.
Readers are often persnickety about how the screen adaptations of their favourite books are cast, but as a lover of Conversations with Friends before the show, I found Kirke to be perfectly cast, showcasing a pendulum-swing of emotions – confidence, defiance, manipulation, empathy – as the couple becomes entangled in a love quadrangle with Frances and Bobbi. Kirke captures the nuances of Melissa – a woman that her new, younger friends in turn lust after, fear and aspire to be.
This week, Vogue spoke with Kirke – who appeared on Zoom in a yellow suit, eye-shaped earrings and a plastic ring of her daughter’s – about being a broad, nerding out with Alwyn and the frequent presumption that she’s playing herself.
How are you? You’re in the position of having to talk a lot about this very anticipated show, and it seems like both you and Joe Alwyn have complex feelings about this process.
Well, I think everyone does and if they don’t, they’re lying. I mean, no one enjoys every moment of a press junket. There’s an enjoyment to it, for sure, but once you’re on the eighth interview of the day, I get frustrated with myself, like, “Oh, I’m just rattling off stock answers now,” so I try not to do that.
That wouldn’t be authentic to you.
No. I think authentic’s a word that people use a lot when they talk about me, and I think what they mean is something like enigmatic or wild or intense, and I don’t think that’s what authentic means to me. Authentic just means uninfluenced, right? I just wanted to get it out there: I’m not a wild child.
Another thing that always comes up is this idea of you playing yourself.
Yeah, it definitely does. Playing yourself is a very hard thing to do ’cause you’re still having to act, and in a way it's even more challenging than playing someone else because you have to stay as authentic as possible to yourself while saying scripted answers that maybe you wouldn’t say. I have had to play versions of myself. In Girls, you know, that was a character that we – Lena [Dunham] and I – sort of hodge-podged together from different people we knew and various archetypes, me being one of them. So, that wasn’t too far from the truth. It just wasn’t all of it.
What about Melissa? Are there parts of her that you personally connected to?
The character I get the most is that girl with the tough exterior and the mushy interior that we are so surprised was actually hurting all along, and that was not what I read on the page with Melissa at all. I think she was a much more well-rounded character. That tough exterior wasn’t a costume. It was something that came naturally to her. She is honest about how she’s feeling. She is vulnerable. I liked her because she was strong, not tough.
How do you see the difference?
I think tough is an act. I don’t think it’s a lie, but it is an armour that we use, right? I think the difference with strength is that it’s doing something, despite it being painful. A lot of times people tell me, if I’m going through a tough moment, “You’re so strong. You’re gonna get through this.” And I think to myself, “Well, what other choice do I have? What would not getting through this look like?” I think a strong person can be a puddle on the floor.
You’ve talked about being selective with your roles, especially as a single mum. So, what about Conversations with Friends made it worth it to you?
I got the script when I was still working on Sex Education and I was like, “I am not doing this ever again, leaving my kids this long.” It was shot in Wales and a TV show is so much longer than shooting a movie – it’s five or six months – so I said no right away to my agent. And then I read it and I read the book and I heard who was attached and I had to weigh out artistry and parenthood. ’Cause that’s no balance: You have to weigh them out at all times, and sometimes you choose artistry. I don’t think motherhood always comes first.
What was it about the script and the book that made you say, “I have to do this”?
Well, I knew it would be a challenge. The whole story, really, is coming from someone’s inner monologue, and the context is so mundane. We’ve got people having coffee. We’ve got, literally, a scene of someone ringing a doorbell and me answering. These kinds of everyday interactions will not be interesting if we don’t make them interesting as actors, so the sake of the show is on our shoulders, and that was something I was really ready for. We don’t have explosives. We don’t have insane sets. My house, by the way, was a set.
Oh, really? It was so nice.
That house was, full on, inside a studio, even the garden. It was wild. My kitchen, that’s all fake running water.
That takes me to my next question, about Melissa being this aspirational woman to Bobbi and Frances. She has this Architectural Digest home. She’s an accomplished writer with a hot husband. When you were younger, or now, were there women like that for you, who you looked at with this fascination?
Oh yeah, but it’s changed through the decades, the type of woman I would look up to. When I was a teenager, I looked up to my best friend’s sister. There were two friends, actually, who had the two coolest older sisters I’ve ever met in my life, and this one was a real punk. She had a mohawk, boots past her knees, and pimples, and she slept on benches. I would walk into her room and it was like church. Her name was Rafaella, and I named my daughter after her. And then as I got older, Ellen Barkin is someone I find to be not only a phenomenal actress, but just a really good broad. I realised early on that I wanted to be a broad. I don’t wanna be a girl; I don’t wanna be a lady; I wanna be a broad.
What does being a broad mean to you?
It’s a personality, but it’s an energy. It can be intimidating, but it’s soft, and it can be direct and aggressive, but it’s compassionate and it’s not being afraid to make fun of yourself, but everyone else gets made fun of, too. Someone who can, like, smoke cigars with the boys but will never tell them their secrets. When I was a teenager, I said “I’m a guy’s girl,” and Ellen Barkin said, “Don’t you ever say that.” She said, “There’s no way in hell you’re a guy’s girl. It just means you’re scared of other women.”
Melissa has that toughness, but also a vulnerability. She’s very open and liberal – she finds out her husband’s sleeping with Frances and tells him he can keep doing it – but she’s also hurt and betrayed.
I don’t think Melissa is cool with it. I think this is a moment where Melissa’s being tough. I think it would be a true moment of strength for her to ask herself, is she okay with this? And not is the person she wants to be okay with this. I think her behaviour is somewhat manipulative and is designed to push Frances out, by showing her that there’s a difference between them. And it may purely be that the things that Frances hates Melissa for are the things that make Melissa the better choice. That she is older. She does know how to love him unconditionally. She does know how to make sacrifices. She does know how to wait for his attention.
You said something about how Nick and Melissa’s marriage felt like it was written by a 22-year-old author, which is neither a good nor a bad thing. Did it feel like marriage from the perspective of someone who hasn’t experienced it?
What we were talking about was how it was written by a 22-year-old, through the eyes of a 22-year-old, and this is what we get. That’s not to say that Rooney can’t write a different kind of marriage. Maybe she was able to make up this seemingly loveless marriage because she’d never been married, or maybe she chose exactly to do that. You are allowed to make a marriage that seems unrealistic. I just wanted to make that clear so it doesn’t seem like it’s a criticism. But I think that she did make a marriage that seemed loveless, if I’m going to give her the most credit, because Frances needed to see it that way. She needed to see that they were not in love and they spent no time together, otherwise she’d be miserable.
The marriage being written that way – was it a struggle for you? Did it make it hard to dive into?
It was really unfamiliar territory. I don’t know any marriages that have no reason to be together, whether it’s a good reason or a bad reason or the wrong reason. There was no evidence of connection, hardly, and no evidence of how Nick served Melissa. I decided on what we don’t see – the history, everything that happened beforehand. I think he found her really funny. I think he found her really safe. Social anxiety is huge, and to have someone who is at your side who can buffer life for you is a big thing. And I think she stays with him because I think he has a softness and a way of pulling her out of the ruts that she’s been in.
This complicated, knotty marriage – what did this require of you and Joe Alwyn? It’s almost like you had to have the opposite of chemistry.
It was a challenge to find that tension, but Joe and I talked a lot about the relationship, and that’s one thing that we did with this show that I’ve never done on any other show – we practiced. We rehearsed, and it’s shocking that other shows don’t really do it, but we rehearsed outside of work days and we were free to become the acting nerds that we really are.
People are so intrigued by Joe Alwyn.
Are they? Is it because of the Taylor Swift thing?
Yes, although I just like him as an actor, personally.
When he plays drunk and stoned, he looks drunk and stoned. I’ve never seen that – his eyes go stoned.
What was your experience with him as a scene partner, and colleague?
Well, he’s brilliantly cast because of the reserved nature. Joe isn’t nearly as reserved as Nick, but it’s a tendency to let others have the floor. He just tends to be more interested in everyone else, what they’re saying, which is a lovely quality. I have a special affinity for Joe because I feel like we criticise ourselves in a similar way. I could see, at times, him thinking or shaking his head and just really trying his hardest. That’s how I feel I approach it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.