Just as Girls’ Adam Sackler is becoming something of a moral compass by which to measure Hannah’s decreasing ability to act like a rational human being, in comes another character to show just how mucked up Adam really is. His sister, Caroline, played by Gaby Hoffmann, is a wild-eyed, hair-brained liar who likes to cause a massive scene wherever she goes. She makes Jessa look like Shoshanna and the conflict she causes make for the series’ standout moments.
We won’t go into spoilers, we all know how no-one watches Girls when they’re meant to watch it. But, safe to say ,it’s not really a spoiler to tell you that Gaby gets her fanny out at one point and it’s all au naturel.
When asked by friends about the fake hair, she says she responds ‘No, that’s just me. I’m a human, I have hair.’ Far from a fashion statement propelled forward by everyone from American Apparel bosses to Gwyneth Paltrow preaching the new-found values of a full bush, she leaves her pubic hair to flourish just because that’s what she feels like: ‘I’ve always looked the same, and every 10 years I’m a little bit in fashion’ Gaby told The Evening Standard.
‘But when people want me to talk about whether I think the bush is back, and whether that’s great for feminism, I’m like “You know what’s great for feminism? Respecting everybody’s own choice."' In the incredibly quotable interview, she also spoke about how offensive that the nudity in Girls causes so much controversy, just because the bodies aren’t the ones we’re used to seeing naked: ‘I just don’t think it’s a big deal. But people like to use the word “brave” about Lena and me. And I find that deeply offensive. Why is it brave? Because we don’t look like Angelina Jolie?’ ‘I think calling it “brave” actually sort of reinforces the problem. It’s a very twisted, puritanical world we’re living in.’
Other great things Gaby Hoffman, 32, said include:
-
What it was like to live in rock-star-glam hotel* The Chelsea in New York with her video artist mother, Viva from age 0-12: ‘I had friends on every floor, people taught me to rollerskate down the corridors and how to smoke pot; the lobby was my playground. Yes, there were vials of heroin in the stairwell. But if you grew up in New York in the Eighties that shit was everywhere anyway – it wasn’t unique to the Chelsea.’
-
The time she knew Andy Warhol, but it totally wasn’t a big deal: ‘He brought me a toy dog, which I loved, but he was just somebody who came over to the apartment. He did when I was five, but I went to his funeral’
-
How she acted as a child with Kevin Costner, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in films like Field of Dreams and Sleepless In Seattle, but again, it totally wasn’t a big deal: ‘I had no idea how huge they all were. There were just the people I worked with that I liked, and the people that I didn’t like.’
-
The poverty she experienced growing up leading to her becoming a child actress: ‘We were on and off welfare’
Oh, and she knew Lena Dunham while growing up (that’s partly how she got the role of Caroline), and was also in same year of school as Claire Danes and Julia Stiles, who she still remains friends with. Then, when she moved to LA with her mum, she ended up at the same school as Nicole Richie, the Kardashians and Paris and Nicky Hilton. And, after living with artist Cindy Sherman and doing a degree, she spent a few post-grad years roaming Italy, before living in a shack in the Catskills Mountains.
Ok, so Gaby might be one of our new favourite people. Just as long as her bohemian upbringing, and that mass of pubic hair, is the only thing she has in common with volatile Caroline.
*Famous inhabitants include Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jarck Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Nico and Edie Sedgwick.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.