Jemima Kirke admits to faking her British accent, her sister doesn’t have one

Jemima and Lola Kirke appeared on Busy Tonight Wednesday night. I know this because I was there for the taping. Busy’s learning curve as a talk show host has been expeditious. She figured out her strengths quickly and I’m really enjoying watching the show grow. In case anyone is curious, she’s that approachable off-camera too. The space is very intimate and she’s right in front of you. The Jennifer Lawrence engagement news broke right before taping and she and her crew led a “hooray” with the audience over it. It was fun. Also, one of her producers sat next to us and I passed on many of your (positively constructive) comments about the show to her.

Anyway, the show’s theme was sisters with a segment about Busy and her sister, who is an EP on the show, and guests Jemima and Lola. I’ve not watched much of Jemima but I loved Mozart in the Jungle so I’m more familiar with Lola’s work. There are three Kirke sisters. The oldest, who was not on the show, is named Domino. While the Kirkes were talking, Busy asked the question on all our minds, how does Jemima have a British accent and Lola doesn’t? I’m not going to lie, I went down The Parent Trap theory tunnel before Jemima admitted that no, she’s just faking it:

Busy: Jemima, you clearly speak with a British accent and Lola, you don’t

Lola:(joking) It’s weird because we are from Wisconsin. And it’s a thing that Jemima developed very early on and we didn’t want to tell her

Jemima: The truth is, that I am faking it. A little bit

Lola: Nurturing it

Jemima: I think that what happened is that, we had different values when we came into this country. And I, probably, was like, ‘I know what’s going to get me further in life, an English accent’ and you were like, ‘I know what’s going to get me further in life, completely American’

Lola: It’s all about vanity and how attention people will pay to us

Lola was kind of joking with that last comment, but I think there’s some truth there too. They explain a little later that their ages when they came to the US also played a big part. Jemima was 10 and Lola was five, so Jemima had an accent already. Jemima probably got some attention for it so she continued to ‘nurture’ it instead of let it fall off. Apparently, Domino’s accent is in between Jemima and Lola’s. But I don’t doubt that Jemima is playing it up and honestly, I really dig that she fessed up to it. They ladies are promoting their new film together, Untogether. It sounds good. The only dirt I got were the sex scenes between Jemima and Jamie Dornan were as hot as the trailer suggests and truthfully, that might be all I need to go see it.

Also on the show that night was Katelyn Ohashi, the UCLA gymnast whose flawless routine went viral. She’s just as vivacious in real life as she was in that video and we learned that she’s bounced back from a back injury that almost ended her gymnastic career. The only downer to the night was right at the end when Busy told us her guest at the next taping was going to be… Michelle Williams. I would have signed up for tickets both nights if I’d known!

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32 Responses to “Jemima Kirke admits to faking her British accent, her sister doesn’t have one”

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  1. Elena says:

    I loved Mozart in the Jungle☺

    • Ebi says:

      I loved Girls, binge watched it on Crave TV after it had finished it’s last season. There had been so much hate and negativity directed at it that I wasn’t sure what to expect. I loved the nakedness, the dialogue, the pettiness, infighting and then support for serious issues. Jemima Kirk was amazing, her character was complex, often unlikable and yet I was still onside for her. We were sad when the series finished.

      • Claudia says:

        Same here, I binged watched all of it last year and loved it. Jemina and Adam Driver were my favourites!

  2. French girl says:

    I have no idea about who this article is about

    • Kittycat says:

      Yeah me too.

    • RBC says:

      To be honest when I first saw the headline I thought it was going to be a post about a ex girlfriend of Prince William.

    • Caffenatedwench says:

      My condolences on the recent demise of your Google.

      • Brunswickstoval says:

        If you have to google someone on here are they really a “celebrity”? I googled her and still didn’t have a clue. girls wasn’t big where I live.

      • Sara C. says:

        @BRUNSWICKSTOVAL Someone is not necessarily *not* a celebrity because you personally had to google them. I would say I have a lot more celeb knowledge than the average person, but I’m not always familiar with every single A-lister from Golden Age Hollywood, for example.

        I think Jemima Kirke, as one of the lead actresses on what was a very popular show a few years back, has more claim to the title than most reality tv personalities, in any case.

      • Brunswickstoval says:

        Ok I was being tongue in cheek. I have no clue who she is and trust her worthiness by the fact so many do. Given my ancient age I tend to know most people over 40 but not younger or if mainly on US tv shows.

        I don’t watch reality tv so have no clue if any of those people are ever on this site either.

    • megs283 says:

      Same! And I could google…obviously…but I think it’s interesting how there can be these celebrities that I literally did not know existed. It’s like I plopped down on another planet. So I hear ya, French Girl. It’s just an odd feeling.

  3. 90sgirl says:

    She is a good actress. She was one of the more interesting on Girls.
    I like her , she doesn’t take it all so serious.

    I have to get up on Mozart in the Jungle, only saw a few espisodes.

  4. KJ says:

    What looks different about Lola? I didn’t recognize her at first.

    • outoftheshadows says:

      Her styling is so different. No bangs, curls toward the face, and the turtleneck (which doesn’t do her face any favors, and I say this because she is drop-dead gorgeous on the show and i am sure in life.) I am a fan of both of these women though I was no fan of girls. Jemima was outside of my neighborhood bar when my daughter was very tiny (she was a preemie and probably weighed about 5 pounds at 4 months, when I saw Jemima.) I recognized her and she gave me and the baby a big smile… a lot of actresses in BK would have looked away. (I saw other celebrities around/in that bar–none of them were ever friendly. But I know she has kids too.)

  5. LA says:

    Several take aways here. Not least among them – so Dornan CAN do actual, compelling love scenes, then?!

  6. Xi Tang says:

    That thing she was doing was a british accent….?

  7. lucy2 says:

    Eh, if she didn’t move to the US until she was ten, it makes sense she’d still have some accent, especially if she didn’t try to get rid of it. That to me is different than “she’s faking it”. But whatever.

    So a new movie with Jamie Dornan….zzzz…..zzzz…..zzzz….sorry fell asleep there for a moment.

    • Gell says:

      Yeah, I’ve got friends who moved to the states as kids and teens and who make an effort to sort of ‘upkeep’ their accent since it’s what they grew up with. But that’s the cool thing about languages and accents, they evolve, your surroundings have a big impact on you.

    • tealily says:

      Yeah, I wouldn’t really call that “faking” it.

  8. Moco says:

    I took her as joking when she said she was faking the accent. I feel like I’ve read that if you move to a new country before the age of 7 you will lose your old accent, but after that, it’s too ingrained in your speech to disappear completely.

    • Sunnee says:

      Yes, I believe that! I was seven when I moved here and some people can detect an accent. My sister was ten and she has zero accent, I think she tried very hard to assimilate. My brother who was thirteen has the strongest accent. My younger brothers and sisters all speak like extras from “Goodfellas”. We grew up in NYC.

    • sa says:

      I agree. She was joking about faking it. I didn’t know 7 years old as a marker, but I believe it, with the caveat that each person will be a little different. I have a handful of friends that have dramatically different accents than their siblings because of their ages when they moved to the U.S.

    • fbc says:

      I mean she also lived with British parents…so it’s actually weirder that her other sister has an American accent I think.

  9. JustSayin' says:

    Her british accent sounds like a parody. I feel bad for saying it but it sounds really fake….

  10. Dee says:

    Jemima is so beautiful, I can’t even believe it.

  11. marika says:

    massive girlcrush ob jemina. find all the sisters interesting. the domino one has an interesting view on motherhood and birthing, she is a midwife. There is a ’whats underneath’ video of her on youtube. Also: love jemimas art. God, she is so sexy!

  12. Steff says:

    Her Girls character and Lena’s were the main reason I stopped watching that show. They annoyed the crap out of me.

  13. ans says:

    this episode was so good!!

  14. Iknowit says:

    I had a friend in primary school who moved back to Asia from Australia to attend an international school and she and her sister immediately dropped their Australian accents to adopt the us ones common in international schools in Asia. It’s that global citizen, quote unquote, sophistication they wanted. Another girl I knew in college attended an Aussie boarding school since teens after international schools in Asia and always had a fairly Aussie accent, the average accent of younger Aussies like margot Robbie has – not the exaggerated, broad one like Steve Irwin. Now she had the fakest American accent even after mostly living in Oz since hs and college,though they recently moved to the us. Her husband is a really high profile virtual office guy and she attends a lot of quote unquote society events that get covered in local media and I always chuckle when I hear her speak. She never, ever had that accent in college! It’s like she’s puts it on to make herself sound so exotic. Precise diction or not is part of how we choose present ourselves but a whole nother accent is in another level.

    • Nicole R says:

      I don’t know if I’m missing something, but if your friend lives in the US and has an American husband, I don’t think she is faking an American accent to sound exotic.
      An Australian accent would be much more exotic! Americans love accents, especially Australian… so she is probably trying to blend in (unsuccessfully)

  15. Iknowit says:

    Nicole R, confusing and long-winded, I know. To clarify, her husband’s Australian and she was educated in Australia from around age 11 (previously in American/international schools in an Asian country) and has lived in Australia until recently.