LOTS OF PEOPLE ask Lola Kirke what it’s like to play a musician on TV. She’s the star of Amazon Studios’ series Mozart in the Jungle, which follows her character, aspiring professional oboist Hailey Rutledge, as she tries to forge a classical music career in New York City. But last year Kirke released her own EP, which features zero oboe solos.
“The correlation between the music that my character plays on that TV show and the music I play in real life, there’s really not that much connection,” Kirke says. “Classical music is a beast of its own.”
The LA- and New York-based actor/musician says she started writing songs “to decompress and reclaim control” after arduous 12-plus-hour workdays, and also cites inspiration from the TV show Girls (her older sister Jemima plays the free-spirited Jessa Johansson).
“There’s a line Lena Dunham’s character says in season one where she’s like, ‘I’ve got a couple good folk albums in me,’” Kirke explains. “And I always thought that was kind of funny, because I was like, ‘Oh yeah, maybe I do too.’”
But music runs in the family—her father is Simon Kirke, drummer of English rock bands Free and Bad Company.