Girl Talk

PHOTO: DAVID FEENEY-MOSIER. © 2015 20th CENTURY FOX FILM CORP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 

Noah Baumbach‘s latest film, Mistress America, out this month, is a screwball comedy with a serious message about female friendship. Struggling to find her place amid her new surroundings, college freshman Tracy, played by Lola Kirke, finds a BFF and mentor in her soon-to-be-stepsister Brooke (Baumbach’s frequent collaborator and real-life girlfriend, Greta Gerwig). The two are polar opposites: Where Tracy is awkward and introverted, Brooke is impulsive, effervescent, and sincere in her sense of self. As Tracy becomes enmeshed in Brooke’s whirlwind life, their relationship develops from a mixture of envy and admiration to genuine affection. “I grew up around a lot of powerful women like Brooke who scared the shit out of me and inspired the shit into me—namely my older sister Jemima,” says the 24-year-old Kirke, who previously appeared in Gone Girl and the Amazon original series Mozart in the Jungle. “It wasn’t hard to re-create that dynamic.”

MISTRESS AMERICA IS OUT THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, IN SELECT THEATRES.