02 February 2017 // Sanne Schrijver //Amersfoort

//JEMINA KIRK

Next week the last season of HBO’s “Girls” will start. A comedy about the experiences of a group of girls in their early 20s; Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna and Jessa.

Jemima Kirke is best known for her role as the snarky, spiky Jessa Johansson. A selfish rebel who it is hard to imagine ever making a list in her life. She became an actress by accident. Her close friend since high school, Lena Dunham, the creator, director and co-star of Girls, persuaded Jemima to appear in her first, low-budget indie film Tiny Furniture. When Dunham then asked her to be in her pilot for a television show, Jemima never imagined it would be running five years later, or would become the success it has.

There are, however, many differences in both circumstances and personality: Jessa, intimidating and inscrutable, has been divorced, after a brief, disastrous marriage, while Jemima is a happily married mother-of-two, living in Brooklyn with her husband, Michael Mosberg, and their children, daughter Rafalla, and son Memphis. And Jemima is warm, funny, open and quite self-aware, unlike her chaotic alter ego Jessa.  

Jemima’s main focus and passion has always been painting. She’s well-respected in the art world but discreet about her work. For years she kept calling her paintings her “stuff” but didn’t like it when people said “her work” because she thought there was something silly and pretentious about it. As Jemima explains; ‘The notion of “the artist” as someone special and unique, but you’re still like everyone else. You go to your office or studio, because you need to make money, and you make something to make that money.’