Everyone gets naked in the second season of “Girls,” which debuts this Sunday on HBO– according to our PAULA SCHWARTZ.
The “Girls” 2.0 premiere was Wednesday at N.Y.U.’s Skirball Center. The glitzy after-party was at Capitale in the Meatpacking district, where guests entered into the main ballroom by walking across a crossway that was designed to look like the Brooklyn Bridge.
Lena Dunham, who has a new sophisticated new pixie haircut that’s kind of like Anne Hathaway’s, wore a strapless black jumpsuit edged with white, and super-high spike heels. Hats off to Dunham, who’s secure enough in her body to wear an outfit that would make even a size 4 woman look like a dumpling.
Close by her side until midnight when they exited was her boyfriend Jack Antonoff, who heads rock group Fun, which is featured on the season two “Girls” soundtrack.
On the red carpet Dunham said the show would continue to “push the envelope,” a challenging proposition considering last season’s no holds-barred sex scenes. But after last night’s premiere screening we can report Dunham succeeded. It’s also no spoiler to mention that Dunham has a black boyfriend and the show opens with them having wild, noisy sex. Wonder if this is a response to last season’s critics gripping about the lack of black characters in the show.
There’s also an anal sex scene but I won’t spoil it for you. And co-star Alex Karpovsky has a nude scene as well.
Rita Wilson is a new cast edition as Marnie’s (Alison Williams) sarcastic and body-obsessed mother, who is having an affair with a caterer-waiter. Peter Scolari, who plays Hannah’s father, co-starred with Wilson’s husband Tom Hanks in their early underrated cult series”Bosom Buddies.” (The two team up again in the spring in Norah Ephron’s “Lucky Guy.”)
Everyone gets naked sooner in “Girls.” Last season Scolari had a hilarious shower sex scene where we saw a body part of his we never expected we’d see.
I asked the 57 year-old-actor if his character gets naked again in Season two. He told me he turns up in the back half of this second season in episodes 7 through 10 and yes clothes come off.
“There’s another nudity scene that occurs for my character that’s pretty personal and a little unsettling that developed in the writing with Lena and executive producer Jenny Konner,” he said, “so what happens for Dad in this season is very meaningful to me.”
How so? “It’s a progression that I guess you could say of the state of psychic distress that is a hallmark of ‘Girls’ we see in her Dad, and I was very taken, in all seriousness, taken with that writing and that direction that Lena and Jenny Konner brought to me. I feel like a lucky old dog to be able to be a part of this youthful, sexy show,” he said. “I’ve never felt so not at work as I am at work making these episodes.”
Does it feel peculiar to do naked sex scenes at his age? “With all due modesty put aside, I’ve never been healthier or more available to do work. I didn’t know that, but I’m much healthier at 57 than I was at 47 or 37, so not peculiar. I feel some great timing is at work in my life, and I’m not making the timing. I’m just around.”
He introduced me his date Tracy Shayne, an actress, who he described as his “soon to be wife.”
I asked Shayne if she fell in love with Scolari after seeing him in the shower scene, which inspired endless chat room discussions about his penis.
“I fell in love with him many years before that,” Shayne said.
“Girls” cast members Zosia Mamet, Williams and Jemima Kirke–all daughters of famous people David Mamet, Brian Williams, and Simon Kirke– hung out late into the late.
They don’t seem to have any of the show’s boyfriend problems. Kirke, 27, who just had her second child, a son, last month, cuddled with husband Michael Mosberg at a banquette, While in another corner, Williams sat on long-time boyfriend College.Humor.com co-founder Ricky Van Veen’s lap.
