It would be easy to assume that men don’t get as many juicy storylines as the women on HBO’s Girls. But one only has to tune in to Alex Karpovsky’s character Ray to see that there is plenty of action to go around.
Ray first appeared in season one of Lena Dunham’s hit series as a friend of Charlie’s (Christopher Abbott) and has since joined the inner circle by dating Shoshannah (Zosia Mamet), the over-the-top prissy youngster. In last week’s episode, Ray revealed that he was living out of his car.
Karpovksy was able to make the scene realistically painful by drawing on some of his own experiences. “When they do a lot of these scenes, I try to—without sounding too theoretical and dramatic about all this stuff—I do try to attach myself to specific and tangible notions rather than sort of overarching motivational backstory stuff,” the actor said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “That wasn’t phrased very well, but that’s sort of where I come from usually.”
In fact, despite the show’s success, Karpovsky still hasn’t moved onto a mature living situation.
“In my case, I’ve never had my own apartment in my life. I’ve never signed a lease in my life,” the actor admitted. “I want to, but I have commitment problems, and also I don’t have credit, which is worse than having bad credit. I’ve never had a credit card: I keep applying, and they don’t want to give it to me.”
Girls airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
