Let’s talk about How to Make It in America. Happy to see you guys got a second season. What should we be expecting from your character?I was so excited that we got the second season too, because it gave us a chance to really find our voice. And I think all shows, even really great shows, take a few seasons to find their stride, and the beauty of TV is it’s allowed to grow and change from season to season. This time around, we really identified that the show surrounds itself around passion, struggles, and people, and the unharnessed energy of those people. I’d be watching this show every week even if I wasn’t it.
I hear there’s some sex and a lot more nudity in it.
Yup. We’ve got a lot of beautiful women and sex happening on the screen. You know things that happen in New York are happening on the show. And sex is one of those things.
You grew up in New York, so do you feel like the show does justice to the New York you know?
I think it does justice to the New York I’ve come to know very well. And compared to the New York fifteen years ago when I was growing up, it’s just a whole different universe. The city doesn’t stay the same from year to year. The city doesn’t stay the same at all. You’ll even notice there’s a big difference from New York in the first season and the second season. When we shot the show, HBO wanted to wait a while to put it on, and we wanted to wait as long as possible to shoot it, to make sure it was an accurate portrayal of what’s going on in New York. Things change so quickly here. The world that was shot in the show is the world that we were living in.
I remember a couple summers ago, I responded to a craigslist add titled “new HBO show How to Make It in America: looking for brooklyn hipsters”
Yeah! There was actually an NYmag post about that too, and that’s a good point. It goes to show they wanted to be as genuine and raw as possible in their casting, so when we’re doing a party scene in Bushwick, we need to see what’s actually going on in Bushwick right now. And when we’re going to Kaplan’s world and going to Avenue, we need authentic, ridiculous, models. I don’t think there’s one universal look to the people on the show, and they do a good job of getting the best people in the city to be on camera.
Source: Full interview @ Black Book
