Lola Kirke felt as if her acting career was finally in the perfect place. She’d been booking roles — slowly but steadily — since her breakout in 2015’s Mistress America, and she was set to produce and star in her own series in addition to an exciting movie on the horizon. Then the pandemic hit, the projects stalled, her agency ICM merged with CAA, and she found herself getting dropped by her agents of more than a decade in a two-minute-long phone call.
“I hesitate to say this,” she says, hesitantly, “but I do feel like in a way it was the best thing that ever happened to me. The things I’ve discovered about myself from not getting what I want have been immense.”
Kirke learned, among other things, that she could write. She spent her newfound downtime trying different projects — first, a novel that used the stories of Ashley, Wynonna and Naomi Judd to explore the dynamics in her own family life (“It was basically just a recap of their Oprah Winfrey Network reality show,” she says with a laugh) and then autofiction that she published on Substack. A literary agent came across her work and offered her a contract for a book of personal essays — and so, on Jan. 28, Wild West Village hits shelves.
Though she was born in London, Kirke grew up in a brownstone in downtown Manhattan, where her rock star father (Simon Kirke played drums in Bad Company and Free) and fashion designer mother, Lorraine, led the sort of bohemian lifestyle that creates good art and deep trauma. Kirke uses self-deprecation and tenderness to reminisce in her writing on the ways her childhood shaped her and her famous sisters (Jemima became an actress best known for her role on Girls; Domino is a singer turned doula and is married to actor Penn Badgley). She describes wild parties, accidentally meeting Joan Didion while researching a middle school project, the experience of learning that her father had a second family, her sisters’ trips to rehab and her struggles with her own self-image. “My family has a comfort with being in the spotlight, and I felt very free when I was writing the book, but once it came time to share it with them, a lot of trepidation kicked in,” she says. “I’m still grappling with the ethics of it, but I don’t think anyone has a totally clear conscience about turning their life into art.”
Kirke also uses the pages of Wild West Village to examine her relationship with Hollywood. She came close to huge stardom on occasion, like a set of auditions for the starring role in Fifty Shades of Grey. “Obviously if I had gotten that, I would be dating Chris Martin,” she jokes while sipping a latte at a café in the East Village. “But I don’t think about that one very often, because it was so clearly the right choice on their part — I’m not actually cut out for that kind of life.”
She isn’t dissatisfied with what the industry has offered her, per se, but she has no illusions about the psychic damage it causes. She’s been developing a growing case of body dysmorphia that came to a head while filming a sex scene for the television adaptation of Lisa Taddeo’s blockbuster book Three Women; she hasn’t been able to bring herself to watch even a frame of the series. “As I’ve gotten older, there’s such a difference between the way I feel in the world and the way I look on TV,” she says. “It does feel like a useless and self-centered worry, but it’s been hard for me.”
Writing the book offered a reprieve from everything that, frankly, sucks about pursuing an acting career. The publishing industry is far less fickle than Hollywood — once you sell a manuscript, as long as you finish it, it will come to fruition. And more importantly, nobody cares what you look like or how much you weigh. Kirke realized, with a jolt, that when she met with Simon & Schuster, it was the first time she’d gone into any professional environment without having to present herself in a certain (read: slimming) way — she wore a bulky sweater.
“As an actor, I also always had to ask for permission to cut my hair, and lo and behold, anytime I cut it I wouldn’t work for a year,” she says, gesturing to her current bob. “I’ve really enjoyed the agency I have in my writing career. It’s fucking freeing.”
Though Kirke technically resides in Nashville now — her boyfriend, a music producer, is based there, and Kirke has been recording her own country music — she never gave up her apartment in New York, and she’s keeping one foot in the acting business, too. In April, she’ll appear in Ryan Coogler’s Jim Crow-era horror film Sinners (she worked on Wild West Village revisions during the movie’s night shoots in New Orleans).
“Sometimes I think Hollywood feels like being in a really new car,” she says. “It’s nice, and it works, but then if you spend too much time in it, you’re overwhelmed by the odor of the new car. I guess what I’m saying is it makes me sick, but there are also things I totally love about it.”
And for those moments, she’ll always have books.
This story appeared in the Jan. 29 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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