Jemima Kirke broke new ground with her star turn in Lena Dunham’s era-defining Girls, playing the strong-willed New York hipster, Jessa, with the carefree attitude to match. But landing the role of the new headteacher, Hope, at Sex Education’s Moordale High is a moment, even for an experienced actor like Jemima, with such iconic seminal roles already on her CV.
“It’s f**king hilarious and this season so far, from what I’ve seen, is really exceptional,” the 36-year-old tells me via Zoom. “There’s really never a dull moment. There’s no boring storyline.” And Jemima is right, for a show famous for its sensitive approach to storylines ranging from premature ejacuatlions to pansexuality, season three breaks further ground, tackling everything from penis length to non-binary idenities.
At the centre of it all is Jemima’s Hope, a former student who returns to Moordale to makeover its wild reputation and turn it into a ‘pillar of excellence.’ But as Jemima reveals, whilst Hope systematically seeks to quieten the student’s individuality, maybe she isn’t the iron fisted headmistress – with the stunning bob – that she pretends to be.
Here British-born, Jemima opens up about new girl nerves, experimenting as a teenager and why she wants her two children, Rafaella, 11, and Memphis, 9, to watch Sex Education when they are teenagers…
Sex Education season three is incredible – did you get new girl, first day nerves?
The first day was a bit clunky for me, but they always are when I shoot anything. It’s like moving into a new house – you’re just getting your bearings! Before you start the job, everything’s just an idea, the character, all the notes you’ve taken and then you have to put it into practice. Also usually, you’re shooting out of order so something I do often is to write down everything that’s happened narratively, so that I can go back to the list and check what’s happened before the moment we’re about to shoot. So, first day sh*t!
Sex Education has ignited so many game changing conversations. Which topics, that the show covers, would have helped you the most growing up?
The [sexual] experimentation that goes on in the show would have been so liberating for me. What I hope for my own children – and why I would let them watch it as teenagers – is that what you do sexually as a young person doesn’t necessarily define you. Experimentation is our sexual right. I remember my first kiss as a teenager was with a girl. I remember thinking that meant that I was gay and then I was completely confused about that. I think if I’d seen a show that made it okay and normalized experimentation, I wouldn’t have had to label anything, which I think it’s so important when you’re a teenager to not have to decide. Unless you’re sure, then it’s great, but not all of us are.
Being a teenager is like being in a pressure cooker of expectation. What pressures do you feel were placed on you?
Definitely the pressure to be cool and to be seen. I didn’t want to necessarily be a wallflower, in case I slipped through the cracks and wasn’t noticed or seen. But you don’t want to be too different from everyone else. So there’s this impossible balance that you’re playing with whilst trying out ways of speaking, subjects of conversation, ideas and you don’t really know what the hell you’re talking about! I just wish I knew how to be myself more, which I remember hearing and seeing everywhere with parents and grownups telling me, ‘Be yourself!’ I’m like, ‘What is that? I don’t know!’…
I remember when everyone found out that I kissed a girl, and then I got accused – accused, was the key word here – of being a lesbian. At the time in the ’90s, where I went to school, it was an accusation. I would hope that we’re moving towards where that’s no longer an accusation, but it’s a neutrality. I hope that everyone can experiment with everyone else, and not be told what they are and what they’re not.
What have been some turning points in you feeling that you could express yourself?
Well I think, acting in general. It’s not something that I set out to do and it is something that I was afraid of at first. I was a painter before any of this started and I was very adamant in all my interviews that I’m not an actor. I am an artist. But also, acting has allowed me to look at myself and aspects of myself, really draw from them or heighten them and the things that I didn’t know were there. Some moments of acting have created turning points in my life.
As an actor people constantly try to put you in boxes. What boxes have you tried to break out of, or push through?
I’m constantly pushing the typecast – as many people are – as the tough girl with the secretly soft interior. That’s what I get, because of the role on Girls. People often assume that that’s all you can do, or you do that well, so they put you in that box. That’s why it was particularly refreshing to be asked to do a vastly different character but that is a box I’ve struggled with.
What has breaking out of that box and playing Hope taught you?
Every character I play teaches me something about humanity. Hope in particular is someone who has a really thick wall up against who she really is – which as I’m saying this, I’m realizing – it’s got its parallels with Jessa from Girls. She’s got this tough exterior, this very controlling, orderly and aggressive exterior. What Sex Education does so well with its characters is it peels back the layers of a person, you see that we’ve got their persona, and then we’ve got what’s just beneath the persona. As you’ll see later, she isn’t exactly what she seems. Everyone’s got a story to tell, and everyone’s got a reason that they are the way they are.
One of the topics Sex Education deals with so well is how much control is still exercised over women’s bodies. How have you seen that conversation change in your own life?
For some reason, people assume that I am extremely self-possessed and confident with my body [because] I’m outspoken. But I’d like to say that it’s really untrue. I’m just as insecure as anyone else and maybe more so, because I’m in the spotlight to a degree. So I do love, as cheesy as it can get and ‘slogany’ as it can get sometimes, the ‘self-love movement.’ It can be misconstrued as taking a bubble bath, which it is not. How you look or present, being super important and valuable is starting to dissipate and I’m trying to get on that train, because it still matters to me. It’s going to matter to everyone to a degree, but the goal is for it to matter less than the love you have for yourself.
The self love journey is one of the hardest we go on, isn’t it…
It’s something that, as a parent – I think these new wave and new age parenting techniques are gearing towards – is how do we remove the self-hatred, the self-doubt and the self-loathing – because everyone has it, look around us. I hear people say all the time, ‘My mom did this. Look how I turned out.’ I’m like, ‘yes, that’s exactly why we’re trying to change parenting, because everyone has this critic in their heads that stops them from living their fullest life.’ I’m on board to try any kind of technique to help my kids not have that voice.
Are you able to practice self love now and be your own ally?
No, not yet. I still need my friends to remind me, they always say, ‘talk to yourself as if you were your daughter. Would you talk to your daughter the way you talk to yourself?’ It’s so funny how we think we’re not as deserving of kindness as our children are. So no, I haven’t gotten there yet. I’m trying.
Sex Education season three will be released on Netflix on 17th September
