Who is Jemima Kirke, indie actress and painter who dynamites the rock’n’roll series City on Fire?

Gen Z discovered it in season 3 of Sex Educationon Netflix, as Hope Haddon, the new headmistress of Moordale who is falsely cool… Others have succumbed to her deep gaze in the new Apple TV+ series, City on Fire, a story of murder, mysterious fires and rock concerts illuminated by its sexy, grunge presence. But we have never forgotten the bohemian charm and evanescent nonchalance of Jemima Church38, aka Jessa in the series Girls (2012-2017) written by her friend Lena Dunham. The latter has stated several times in an interview that she was inspired by the fierce personality of her BFF Jemima Kirke, whom she met during her time at a private school, to create the role of Jessa Johansson. This young purebred New Yorker, globe-trotting, acerbic, exuberant and seductive, is undoubtedly one of the most complex and fascinating characters in the series. HBO. A series of rare intelligence which brilliantly translated the indecisions of an entire generation, and which is experiencing a revival on social networks where the looks of the actresses from the show are posted.

Jemima Kirke, unforgettable bohemian heroine of the series Girls by Lena Dunham

Thousands of millennials have identified with the attraction to danger (drugs and wild bacchanalia), the difficulty of settling down – professionally and romantically – as well as the hypersensitive nature of Jessa. The atypical beauty of Jemima Churchworthy of a Botticelli and magnified by sexy hippie looks, perfectly embodied the spirit of her neighborhood, Brooklyn. And her gaze always a little elsewhere held up an idealized mirror to the adolescent anxieties of the time. In the six seasons in which she appeared, Jessa captivated viewers with her mysterious air and her persistent melancholy. She seemed to go through life like a tourist, or a tightrope walker, without any career or life plan. A poetic attitude that also seems to inhabit the actress, evolving on the fringes of Hollywood canons.

Jemima Church exudes, in real life, the same kind of charisma, both wild and offbeat, as the character who made him known. She looks like those girls you meet on the Lower East Side who always seem to be animated by a thousand and one exciting projects. Born in 1985 in London, the Briton was raised in New York by a father, Simon Kirke, drummer in the rock groups Bad Company and Free, and a mother, Lorraine Dellal, who ran a second-hand clothing store called Geminola. It’s this vintage store in the Big Apple that has provided many of the looks of Sex and the City as well as a wedding dress from Jessa in Girls. At a very young age, Jemima Kirke, who quickly took on the features of a West Village version of Bardot, played the model by wearing clothes found by her mother. But the first love of the young girl, whose adolescence was marked by rebellion and drugs – she underwent rehab at the age of 19 – was art. She studied after her baccalaureate at a design school in Rhode Island. And at the end of her studies, she organized an exhibition entitled A Brief History. The first in a long series.

Jemima Kirke, an inhabited painter

Today, the New Yorker still paints. She imagines tortured portraits of women with sad eyes wearing wedding dresses and veils. Their lack of smiles questions the meaning of an institution – marriage – which may be outdated. The artist also stages pregnant women who always look melancholic. Sometimes she depicts herself, other times actress or artist friends. The New Yorker draws inspiration from her long relationship with a lawyer that ended in divorce. She had two children with this man who was very different from her, and her pregnancies seem to be at the center of her expressive and touching paintings. Haunted by procreation, Jemima Church also spoke publicly about the abortion she had at the University, for which she was unable to afford anesthesia. A way of raising public awareness of a taboo procedure that is unfortunately still debated in some states of her country.

A leading actress in generational series, from Sex Education to Conversations With Friends

And Jemima Church defines herself above all as an artist, she is known above all in France for her acting career, which she seems to approach as an amateur despite her presence in generational successes such as the series Girls, Sex Education, Conversations with Friends, the adaptation of the event book by Sally Rooney and the very rock City on Firecurrently streaming on Apple TV+. She first played, to help out, in films about friends like The Shining. Tiny Furniture (2010), made with three pieces of string by Lena Dunham and in which she filmed voluntarily. She also appears in dark and trashy feature films like Ava’s Possessions (2015) or The Good Sisters (2017).

As a good rocker’s daughter, we have also seen a lot Jemima Church in music videos such as those of the punk band Rival Schools, Mick Jagger (Gotta Get A Grip2017) and Zayn Malik (Dusk Till Dawn2017). Her most magnetic performances? Those, sublime and disconcerting, of the actress in the clips of her ex-husband, the crazy Australian crooner Alex Cameronand in particular in the video of Stranger’s Kiss (2017). As on their respective Instagram accounts, the couple staged themselves in an artistic, sensual and strange way, recalling the charisma and passion of the legendary Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Recently divorced, the New Yorker appears on her Instagram account freer and more uninhibited than ever, multiplying the bare grunge looks, cutting-edge fashion events and fiery evenings. Nonconformist, cool, talented and funny, Jemima Kirke appears as the dream best friend.

City on Fire (2023) Season 1 Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage with Jemima Kirke is available on Apple TV+.