Jemima Kirke

“I hesitate to make this public,” Jemima Kirke tells me as we sit on her rustic back porch, shaded from the sun and listening to her two hairless cats meow for attention from behind the closed screen door. I lean forward. Is she going to confess something shocking about her work, her life, her loves?

Jemima Kirke doesn’t use her own relationship woes in her work. The 37-year-old actress divorced Michael Mosberg – the father of her children Rafaella, 11, and nine-year-old Memphis – in 2019 but she insisted it wouldn’t have been appropriate to draw on her personal experiences for her role in ‘Conversations With Friends’.

The complicated dynamics and relationships of Conversations With Friends are exactly what drew Jemima Kirke to the role of Melissa. Ahead of the May 15 premiere of Hulu's new adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel, Kirke and her co-star, Sasha Lane, opened up to PopCulture.com about taking Rooney's novel off the page and onto the screen.

Hulu's "Conversations With Friends" transports viewers to Dublin, Ireland, and a literary scene populated by pretentious 20- and 30-somethings trying to figure out the best way to live and love and make art. There's Bobbi, played by Sasha Lane, a young American college student who performs poetry with her best friend and ex-girlfriend Frances (Alison Oliver). And there's Melissa, played by Jemima Kirke, a successful-ish writer in a struggling marriage with Nick (Joe Alwyn), a floundering actor. Melissa and Bobbi's immediate connection incites the events of the story, but viewers don't spend a ton of time with them together on screen. Lane and Kirke tell POPSUGAR how they made their character's connection feel real.

Sally Rooney fans, get ready, because Hulu's second limited-series adaptation of the Irish author's work is almost here. The creative minds behind the critically acclaimed Normal People reunited to bring Rooney's debut novel, Conversations With Friends, to the small screen. Set in Dublin, Conversations With Friends follows 21-year-old college student...

Jemima Kirke is best known for her role as the eccentric, unapologetic Jessa Johansson in HBO's acclaimed comedy-drama series "Girls." Outside of "Girls," Kirke also has acting credits in Netflix's "Sex Education" and will star in Hulu's upcoming series "Conversations With Friends," based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Sally Rooney.

The 36-year-old stars as Melissa, a successful writer, in the forthcoming Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney's debut novel.

Xavier Clyde, Max Milner, Alexandra Doke, Omid Abtahia and Kathleen Munroe are also joining the New York-set drama, based on a novel by Garth Risk Hallberg, from Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.

In a competitive streaming market, Apple TV+ has proven itself more than efficient at forging its own path. It's too early to know if their upcoming drama series, City on Fire, will receive the same clout, but if the service continues its ascension, the series should become yet another conversation starter — notably with a newly-announced cast of TV favorites that includes Jemima Kirke, Nico Tortorella, Ashley Zuckerman, Xavier Clyde, and John Cameron Mitchell.