HBO’s hit show “Girls” is back for its fourth season on Sunday at 9PM.
We spoke with many of the show’s stars about working on “Girls,” with Lena and what fans can expect from their characters this season.
Alex Karpovsky
Congrats on the new season, what can we expect from Ray?
Well I think Ray has found a more constructive and civically driven outlet to express his frustrations and grievances with what he sees around him. He wants to change it for the good.
Is Ray getting back together with Shoshanna? What’s going on?
I think they’re exploring a different way of complimenting each other and supporting each other and growing from each other. But not necessarily in a way that allows them to get frisky with each other.
Was it fun to play that relationship with Marnie last season?
It was awesome, Allison is so funny and such an incredible improvisor and is so goofy and relaxed, so any scenes I get to do with her, sexual or non-sexual are a hoot.
Are there any other projects that you’d like to share?
Yeah, I’m working on a web series as well about internet dating in Los Angeles called “Side Swiped,” which explores the horrors of online dating in a really difficult city so that’ll be good. It will be dark.
Gaby Hoffmann
What can we expect from your character this season?
Well when we left her last season, she had just found out she was pregnant, so we can expect her to be very very pregnant and having to get that baby out.
What has it been like to work with Lena?
So much fun. You can’t even use the word work. I just show up and act outrageous and laugh a lot and have a ball and eat some good food and go home with a smile on my face.
Speaking of outrageous, your character is very over-the-top, is it fun to channel that?
Are you kidding? Yes!
What has it been like to work with Adam as your brother?
Oh my god, any actor that has a chance to do a scene with Adam Driver should take it because he is the best and I accidentally bit him once, very very hard and he forgave me within five minutes so what can I say? He’s a good man.
You have a great scene in “Wild,” congratulations on that. Can you speak about working with Jean-Marc Vallée?
I was only there for a couple of days, given the brief scene, but it was wonderful. He’s an incredible, very sensitive, thoughtful sympathetic man who really knows what he wants from his actors and how to get it without being oppressive.
You also had a great scene with Reese Witherspoon, what was it like sitting across from her at the table and playing that out?
Any time you get to sit across from a great actor and play with them, it’s a privilege and she’s as wonderful as it gets. I was really grateful to be a part of it and I had a ball.
Do you have any other projects that you would like to share?
I’m on a show on Amazon called “Transparent” and we’re in between seasons now and I’m taking a break because I just a had a baby, so I’m just waiting for us to start up again next summer and until then I’m probably laying low.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach
What can we expect from your character this season?
Tears and fits of anger and artistic soliloquies..
So I’m getting the vibe that his relationship with Marnie isn’t so great this season?
I think it’s a real relationship, which I guess is a way of saying it’s not all dreamy and perfect.
What has it been like to work with Lena?
It’s been unequivocally fantastic to work with her, I love her to death.
What about working with Allison, has that been fun?
Yeah Allison’s great, too. I feel really lucky, I feel like it’s boring, I keep saying it, but I love this job, it’s great.
Can you speak a little bit about the music? Do you rehearse a lot for the performances? How does that work?
We’ll get a demo tape. Lena will write the lyrics and Jack Antonoff writes the music. So we get the demo, listen to it for a couple weeks, learn it and then we’ll spend a day in a recording studio with this other really wonderful musician, a guy named Nathan Larson who is a great composer and he’ll record with us. I mostly play the guitar part, Nathan plays some of them. It’s fun, I feel like every actor wants to be a musician and so many musicians want to be actors.
Were you a musician before this experience ?
Music has always been important to me, I’ve always played instruments, but I’ve never been a musician.
Do you now have hopes to pursue music as a career?
It seems like the wrong time to be getting into that business, I like to play with my friends and that’s good enough for me.
Andrew Rannells
Are you a fan of the Museum of Natural History?
Yeah, I haven’t been here in years though.
Do you have any fond memories?
I’m super excited about getting to go to the party under the whale.
Why?
Because they’re having a party under the whale, like what’s not fun about that?
Are you a science geek at heart?
No.
What’s the biggest change for your character this season?
Well he gets to go to the midwest. He gets to go to Iowa. To see Elijah, in Iowa, it’s pretty spectacular, he weirdly takes to it surprisingly well.
Whats the biggest change for you as an actor this season?
It was such a great year for me, as an actor. I got to do things I didn’t expect I’d get to do. I was so happy to be welcomed back to “Girls.” I was really fortunate I got to work with Nancy Meyers on this movie “The Intern” that she’s doing with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. I did that over the summer. Then I got to go back to Broadway in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” which I did for a few months this fall which was all much more than I expected I would get to do so I was very, very fortunate.
