Everyone Gets Naked

"I may be deflowered, but I’m not devalued..."

Back in April, as the first series of HBO’s hit dramedy Girls was being broadcast, a Photoshopped version of the show’s publicity poster broke out on the web like HPV on a college campus. The acclaimed series about four hip young women making their way in the world — or, at least, in Brooklyn — had already developed both a following and a backlash. In the remixed poster, its title had been changed to Nepotism, and the four lead actors’ names replaced with those of their parents: Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke (father of Jemima); NBC news anchor Brian Williams (father of Allison); artist Laurie Simmons (mother of Lena Dunham); and the playwright and film-maker David Mamet (father of Zosia). Zosia hasn’t seen the image, but when described to her, she laughs and reluctantly admits that it’s funny, kind of. "But it was a total coincidence that we all have well-known parents. We didn’t all know each other before the show. It wasn’t like we all decided that we had famous parents, 'So, hey, let’s do a show together!'"

Zosia has had two memorable roles in hit TV series in the past few years: first as Joyce, Peggy Olson’s sardonic lesbian pal in Mad Men; then as Shoshanna, the pink-wearing, NYU-attending, Sex and the City-watching Jewish American virgin in Girls. Both characters consort with New York hipsters at coffee houses and warehouse parties; the difference between them is half a century. In person, she has Joyce’s cool, without the character’s caustic edge, and Shoshanna’s sweetness, without the batshit-crazy element. Her role in Girls wasn’t intended to last beyond the pilot episode, but plans changed and Shoshanna became a recurring character; first glimpsed in her bedroom waving a smudge stick as she thanks "the higher powers for all the gifts I have already received: a keen mathematical mind and fairly fast-growing hair." It's a testament to Girls that a moment like this feels as authentic as it is funny.


The show itself, meanwhile, caught a wave of public attention — mostly positive, some not so much — and saw its creator and Zosia’s co-star Lena Dunham hailed as the voice of her disaffected, underemployed, self-obsessed generation. The characters' well-intentioned efforts at good times are often stressful and humiliating. (And sometimes cringe-inducing for viewers, for whom Girls, unlike most TV shows, serves as a graphic reminder that sex between young people can be shockingly un-sexy.) The brilliant thing about Lena’s writing, says Mamet, is that there are no touch-ups. "She writes as real as possible, and we’re shown in the most real, often unattractive light." On the subject of unattractive lighting, one of the most talked-about aspects of the show is its frank and frequent nudity. Dunham is naked on screen more than almost any TV star in memory — including the cast members of Game of Thrones — and even the uptight Shoshanna, who spends most of series one a virgin, had two awkward sex scenes in its first season, with more doubtless to come in the second. "I will pretty much do anything Lena Dunham asks me to," Zosia explains. "Our show operates with the utmost professionalism. We try to keep it as minimal as possible, as real as we can, but do what we need to to make us feel comfortable. We also have an incredible costume designer and a wonderful hair and make-up team. So once we know that one of us is going to be nude, it’s all prepared for very quickly: 'Do we need tanner?' 'What are the underwear options?”'"

Such information is offered up almost unthinkingly by Mamet these days, so often is she asked intrusive questions about those delicate scenes, which required what seemed like total nudity. "I had a nude cover on, which is basically a Band-Aid that sticks right here and ends right at the top of here," she reveals, pointing pretty much to where you would expect. Asked if she was naked running down the street in that crack-smoking episode, she says she wore underwear and pantyhose. "I’ve had people stop me on the street and be like, 'I have to know, were you naked?'"

Jemima Kirke, who plays the free-spirited Jessa, previously admitted such scenes can be mortifying, particularly because of the number of people watching. "It is worse shooting it at the time," she said. "Now I see it as one big performance; one effort as this package of girls. It doesn't embarrass me as much because it's all related and all part of something bigger. When I do it myself, on set, and I'm doing a real orgasm - not "real," but the way I know it sounds in real life, because I don't know how to fake it - I'm embarrassed in front of the cameraman. That's embarrassing. For some reason, when it's on TV, I'm proud of it as part of the work."

It is the reason Kirke wasn't too dismayed to discover her character was going to get her period while fooling around with that guy in the bathroom. "When I was reading it. I was like, "Girl shit. That's what happens to girls," she laughed. "But when you see it on TV, it's quite shocking. I got it as a good show, and I got maybe 80 percent of what Lena was trying to do, but then when I saw it, I understood. I've never read a script before so I read it and I don't have much frame of reference. I don't look at the script and, visually, I don't see it onscreen. I just read it and, to me, it's very standard. That's what happens to girls: Periods." Kirke does admit, though, she had problems with the more risque scenes for the upcoming season. "They're difficult when you're four months pregnant, your body is changing in ways that are not desirable, and you've got 30 men starring at you," she says. "It's actually like a nightmare!"

The final member of Dunham's posse, Allison Williams, has always insisted she does not intend to fully strip on screen, as Lena's character often does. But then, she also thinks the nudity on Girls differs from other shows or movies because of the way it's shot. "The fact there's no glossy lighting and there aren't candles burning," says Williams. "The funniest thing is there actually is a sex scene with Charlie and I in episode two of Season 1 where there are candles burning. It's the closest thing we have to one of those typical scenes in the show, and it's terrible. The whole point of the scene is that it's terrible. The sex and nudity are all supposed to remind you of the worst moments you've had sexually, or the most uncomfortable stories you've heard, and that's what people are reacting to. It's not the naked body. We see those our whole lives. The newness is in the way the nudity is depicted, floating in and out of an episode like it's nothing. It's not the big crescendo of a film or the centerpiece of the scene. It's just sort of an asterisk."

Implicit in her words is a feeling the sex scenes thus filmed could make her more comfortable with the idea of being naked in front of the camera. "It makes me feel like I'm part of a show that's aiming to portray a very real reckoning of what's going on," she concedes. "It wouldn't be the full picture if viewers weren't seeing the characters in in these private moments, and that's something we all signed up for at the beginning. And sometimes it means shooting a pretty challenging scene, but it's all for the good of the show. I trust Lena. We look at what she does and just follow."

Where that leads, when season two debuts this Sunday on HBO, is to everyone getting more naked. It’s no spoiler, reveals Paula Schwartz, to mention that Dunham now has a black boyfriend and the show opens with them having wild, noisy sex. In the nude (naturally), in coitus and dirty-talking her way through a metaphoric foreshadowing of her season two character arc between thrusts: "I wanted this so bad. Now I’m finally getting it. It’s about fucking time." There’s also an anal sex scene but less revealed about that the better.

Co-star Alex Karpovsky, as Ray, has a nude scene as well. "It's not tough," he says. "I've been nude in independent films and I've shown my junk, and once you do that... Lena does a great job creating a comfortable space for the actors. I've never had to wear the apparatus. I care, but it's mostly blankets over my tuchis and I'm kind of on top love-making. I hope Zosia was cool with it!" As Elijah, Andrew Rannells had a similar challenge. "I took that nudity waiver as a badge of honor," he explains. "I took a picture of it, I sent it to my friends. I didn’t even really read it. That’s the embarrassing part. I was so excited to sign it: 'I’ll show anything!'" As it turned out, there was one item of clothing to spare his embarrassment. "Yes, I did have to wear the cock sock," he smiles. "And for the women, it's really archaic, it's an adhesive patch. So Allison and I looked like weird Ken and Barbie dolls. She's gorgeous!" Williams adds: "There are things stuck to you, people telling you to kiss this way and that way. You just prepare by laughing." Rannells states he would have been offended if they had not asked him to be naked. "Everybody else gets to do it," he says. "Why can't I? I couldn't have asked for a better first sex scene partner. She was my first; I'll always remember her! She shared her shimmer body lotion with me, which made me feel very confident."

In addition, Rita Wilson- a new cast edition as Marnie’s sarcastic and body-obsessed mother- is having an affair with a caterer-waiter. While Peter Scolari, who plays Hannah’s father, has already had an hilarious shower sex scene where we saw a body part of his we never expected we’d see. When the 57 year-old-actor was asked if his character gets naked again, he answered he turns up in the back half of this second season in episodes 7 through 10 and yes clothes come off. "There’s another nudity scene that occurs for my character that’s pretty personal and a little unsettling that developed in the writing with Lena and executive producer Jenny Konner," he said, "so what happens for Dad in this season is very meaningful to me."

How so? "It’s a progression that I guess you could say of the state of psychic distress that is a hallmark of Girls we see in her Dad, and I was very taken, in all seriousness, taken with that writing and that direction that Lena and Jenny Konner brought to me. I feel like a lucky old dog to be able to be a part of this youthful, sexy show," he said. "I’ve never felt so not at work as I am at work making these episodes." When asked if it feels peculiar to do naked sex scenes at his age, Scolari replied: "With all due modesty put aside, I’ve never been healthier or more available to do work. I didn’t know that, but I’m much healthier at 57 than I was at 47 or 37, so not peculiar. I feel some great timing is at work in my life, and I’m not making the timing. I’m just around."