Jemima Kirke (born 26 April 1985) is a British artist and actress best known for her role as Jessa Johansson on the television series Girls. She made her feature-length debut in the independent film Tiny Furniture, as a favor for her childhood friend Lena Dunham, although her actual film debut was in the indie short film Smile for the Camera.
Born in London to English parents, Kirke was raised in New York City.
She is the daughter of Simon Kirke, the former drummer of the rock bands Bad Company and Free. Her mother is Lorraine (née Dellal) Kirke, the owner of Geminola, a vintage boutique in New York City that supplied a number of outfits for the television series Sex and the City. Her character Jessa wore a wedding dress from Geminola in the season finale of the first season of Girls; also, earlier in her career, she was featured along with her sisters in a fashion piece in Teen Vogue in which they wore clothing from the store.
Her father is of English and Scottish descent and her mother is Jewish. Her maternal grandfather, Jack Dellal, was a British businessman of Iraqi Jewish descent, and Kirke's maternal grandmother was Israeli. Kirke has two sisters, Lola Kirke and Domino Kirke, the first of whom is also an actress. She is a cousin of curator Alexander Dellal, shoe designer Charlotte Olympia Dellal and model Alice Dellal.
Kirke majored in art as a student and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. In late 2011, she held an exhibition titled "A Brief History" through Skylight Projects. Kirke considers herself first and foremost an artist, although she fell into acting through roles she accepted for a number of her friends. Dunham asked Kirke to take on a supporting role in her debut film Tiny Furniture.Kirke and a number of other friends were called upon as a favour to Dunham since there wasn't enough money to pay professional actors. Although the film turned out to be profitable, Kirke received no payment. In 2011, Kirke appeared in the music video "Wring It Out" for the group Rival Schools. Both this music video and Smile for the Camera were directed by her friend Jordan Galland.
She resides in Brooklyn and East Hampton with her husband, Michael Mosberg, a lawyer. They have two children: daughter Rafaella Israel (born 2010) and son Memphis Kirke (born 2012). Kirke is close friends with Lena Dunham, who created Tiny Furniture and Girls. They became friends while attending Saint Ann's School in New York City. In an interview with Esquire, Kirke discussed how the characters she portrays in both were inspired somewhat by her personality. At first Jemima wasn't so interested in acting but now she says she likes it as much as painting and is now making other movies like Untogether and The Little Hours. She previously asked Lena to make her background information on Girls but before Season 5, they had a talk and Jemima said she wanted more, so she had a bigger role on the series.
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