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"   &amp;quot;Ooohhh, you know what we should do?&amp;quot; Kick Kennedy asks. Whenever Kick says this, it usually involves: a) an adventure, b) her dogs, or c) a combination thereof. Today that means we&amp;#039;re scrambling out on the breakwater near the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port with her dachshund Cupid to plant a JOE KENNEDY FOR CONGRESS sign at the very end. It will probably be visible only to passing boats, but hey, every vote counts. &amp;quot;This is the scary part \u2014 tide&amp;#039;s a-risin&amp;#039;!&amp;quot; she says as the rocks give way to a sunken patch (Uncle Teddy wisely fixed the other jetties on the Cape instead of the one closest to home), but she hops across it barefoot with the sureness of a sober sailor. Finally we reach the end, and she lashes the sign to a tower, raising her arms in the universal sign of victory. This is as about as openly political as it gets for the 24-year-old granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy. Kick prefers mountaintops to photo ops, pool tables to podiums, and high-fives to handshakes. Sure, she&amp;#039;ll pinch-hit for family and friends, but for the past few years she has devoted the bulk of her energy \u2014 and she has a lot of it \u2014 to two main acts: activism and acting. Her big thing is clean water, a cause she inherited from her dad, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Blood is thicker than water, but water in your blood is the thickest of all.) She champions the nonprofit Waterkeeper and even hiked Mount Kilimanjaro with actors Emile Hirsch and Jessica Biel to help raise water shortage awareness. &amp;quot;I like to say life is just a collection of experiences \u2014 some good, some bad \u2014 and the more you have the better,&amp;quot; Kick says later, over lunch at a pub in town. &amp;quot;Saying yes has just kind of worked for me so far.&amp;quot; Clad in a denim chambray shirt, driving moccasins, and round tortoiseshell sunglasses, she has the vintage beauty of a silent film star and a low, puckish voice that suggests she knows things \u2014 and if you&amp;#039;re lucky, she might tell you some.  Saying yes has worked for Kick on the showbiz side, too. She has appeared on Gossip Girl and The Newsroom, and she now divides her time between New York and Los Angeles in pursuit of the Big Break. Except, Kick being Kick, she&amp;#039;s in it for different reasons than the next gal over in the casting office waiting room. &amp;quot;I was born with a sticker \u2014 a name \u2014 that has made me totally uninterested in the fame factor of success,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I see all my actor friends really going for it in that way because it&amp;#039;s such a big part of the job, but it kind of turns me off. I&amp;#039;m frightened of it, or at least uninterested, unamused.&amp;quot; But even as she retreats from it, that fame factor has started to find Kick anyway. America is, after all, a country that craves its Kennedy moments, and for whatever reason we seem to be having one right now. Part of it may be that her cousin Joe III is trying to restart the 64-year streak of having at least one Kennedy in elective office that was broken when Patrick Kennedy retired in 2010. Part of it may be that Kick&amp;#039;s 18-year-old half brother Conor, a junior at Deerfield Academy, has become an Us Weekly fixture \u2014 and a blue-blazered hero to boys at boarding schools everywhere \u2014 by dating 23-year-old pop star Taylor Swift. Whatever it is, it hasn&amp;#039;t changed the view from inside Camelot. &amp;quot;People ask me, &amp;#039;What&amp;#039;s it like to be a Kennedy?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Kick says. &amp;quot;Maybe it&amp;#039;s just the temperature of the water, but I&amp;#039;m just like, &amp;#039;I have no idea.&amp;#039; When I see my face or name in the tabloids, I get a knot in my stomach. It&amp;#039;s just not me \u2014 it&amp;#039;s reading something that&amp;#039;s not real.&amp;quot; The real Kick Kennedy revealed herself early \u2014 very early. Born to Bobby and his first wife, Emily Black, in Westchester County in 1988, Kick escaped her crib when she was only 18 months old and managed to climb all the way to the top of her older brother&amp;#039;s bunk bed. &amp;quot;I hadn&amp;#039;t even learned to walk yet, and my dad found me leaning over the top of the bed saying, &amp;#039;Dangerous. Dangerous.&amp;#039; Other than &amp;#039;Dada,&amp;#039; that was my first word.&amp;quot; Kick&amp;#039;s taste for the extreme was fed by her dad&amp;#039;s eccentric environmentalism. Exhibit A: When she was six, word got out that a dead whale had washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. Bobby \u2014 who likes to study animal skulls and skeletons \u2014 ran down to the beach with a chainsaw, cut off the whale&amp;#039;s head, and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York. &amp;quot;Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,&amp;quot; Kick recalls. &amp;quot;We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.&amp;quot; So there was nature, nurture, and Mother Nature, but to fully understand where Kick got her Kickness you need to know the woman she was named after, her great-aunt Kathleen Kennedy, JFK&amp;#039;s younger sister. Kick 1.0 boldly fell in love with an Anglican \u2014 a no-no for a Catholic, even if he were from the royal family, which, actually, he was \u2014 and was blackballed for marrying him. When Kick died, in a plane crash after World War II, her own mother skipped the funeral. &amp;quot;I always thought Dad and I were the same person, but I got fascinated by Kick a few years ago, and it&amp;#039;s funny how similar we are,&amp;quot; the current Kick says. &amp;quot;She was fun and social and a performer in many ways. Of course, I don&amp;#039;t think my parents would ever call my own death divine retribution. Well, maybe if I became a Republican.&amp;quot; When it came time to leave for college, Kick shipped off to Stanford, where she majored in history. But while her peers were doing keg stands at Sigma Chi, Kick was sneaking off to do extra-extracurriculars, such as climbing Kilimanjaro, rafting the Grand Canyon for an IMAX movie, and making her society debut at the Crillon Ball in Paris. She&amp;#039;s every bit the great-niece of JFK, who at the same age worked at the American embassy in London, traveled through South America, and received a Purple Heart for his valor in the Navy during WWII. The Kennedy legacy also includes Hollywood. Kick&amp;#039;s namesake put up posters of her favorite movie stars, and JFK Jr. harbored dreams of becoming an actor. It was during college that Kick got her first part on TV. For a cameo on Curb Your Enthusiasm, she skipped class, raced down to L.A., and got pulled over and slapped with a $500 speeding ticket en route. &amp;quot;I arrived in a panic, which is actually pretty much how I arrive everywhere, because I&amp;#039;m notoriously late, and almost missed my spot.&amp;quot; As novelist Christopher Buckley, whose daughter has been friends with Kick since kindergarten, puts it, &amp;quot;Our Kick very much takes after her predecessor: lively, funny, pretty, bright, and full of mischief. If she can manage the mischief, then the world will be her stage, and it will be a grand entertainment.&amp;quot; Even our cab ride back from lunch to the compound is an escapade. She gives the address in an Eastern European accent, peppers the driver with questions about his handlebar mustache (How long does it take to trim? How does he get it to curl down like that?), asks me if I will please shave my facial hair into a handlebar when we get home, and requests a pit stop at a convenience store to get some goodies. When we get back into the taxi, there&amp;#039;s some mild confusion about directions. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the Kennedy compound,&amp;quot; Kick says politely. &amp;quot;The Kennedys?!&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re going to drop in on them,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;They seem like a nice bunch, don&amp;#039;t they?&amp;quot; The thing is, they actually are. It&amp;#039;s something that may have gotten lost in all the attention surrounding the tragic suicide, last May, of Kick&amp;#039;s stepmother Mary Richardson Kennedy, from whom Bobby filed for divorce in 2010 and who had been battling addiction. The coverage was gratuitous; who&amp;#039;s to say what goes on inside a family? &amp;quot;It was a rough summer,&amp;quot; says Kick, who came back from California to spend it with her family. (Mary left four children behind, including Conor.) Kick also decided to refocus on work. &amp;quot;Back in April, before Mary died, it seemed like things were slowing down in my life,&amp;quot; Kick says. &amp;quot;L.A. has a lot going on for an actor, but if you&amp;#039;re not happy, you&amp;#039;re not going to be taking advantage of any of it. You need to revitalize yourself as an artist \u2014 have some fun, experience some pain.&amp;quot; Director Anna Elizabeth James, who looked at more than 250 actresses before casting Kick in her short film Haven&amp;#039;s Point, says she is one of those rare talents who, while dedicated to improving her technique, was born with an &amp;quot;extremely cinematic&amp;quot; quality found only in the Johnny Depps and Meryl Streeps of the world. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re pulled in and intrigued by watching her onscreen,&amp;quot; James says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s great she has the name, but my hope is for people to look at her as an artist, because she&amp;#039;s different and so confident and will commit to a role full-throttle.&amp;quot; Before long the cab finds its way to the compound. A couple of quick points of order here: It isn&amp;#039;t so much a compound as a cluster of houses with Kennedys, dogs, and kids running in and out, day and night. There isn&amp;#039;t a flotilla of yachts, just a few rusty, trusty vessels, such as Kick&amp;#039;s whaler Chumbucket, which is filled with water skis, bags of McDonald&amp;#039;s, and barnacled treasures she and her partner in crime, Uncle Max \u2014 the 47-year-old son of Bobby and Ethel \u2014 have salvaged from the bottom of the sea. Everyone brings so many guests to the house that no one knows who belongs to whom, and occasionally a tourist will simply wander into one of the houses for lunch. &amp;quot;Everyone just thinks it&amp;#039;s someone else&amp;#039;s friend,&amp;quot; Kick says. &amp;quot;And eventually it ends with them wanting to take a picture or something, and we&amp;#039;re like, &amp;#039;Wait, who is this guy?&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Helping to keep the whole operation running \u2014 with humor, grace, and bons mots \u2014 is Kick&amp;#039;s 84-year-old grandmother, Ethel Kennedy, the reigning Kennedy matriarch, who lives in RFK&amp;#039;s old house. Whenever they&amp;#039;re both on the compound, Kick crosses the lawn for dinner and tells her grandma what&amp;#039;s new in the world of Kick. &amp;quot;She is tremendously independent,&amp;quot; Ethel tells me, with palpable pride. &amp;quot;I admire her creativity, commitment, insight, patience, and her way of thinking things through.&amp;quot; While Ethel&amp;#039;s new next-door neighbor may or may not be Taylor Swift, one of Kick&amp;#039;s favorite stories about her grandmother involves a different singer: J. Lo ex Marc Anthony. &amp;quot;She used to make us listen to his song &amp;#039;I Need to Know,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Kick recalls. &amp;quot;She loved this song so much \u2014 it was her jam.&amp;quot; One day Marc Anthony called up and said he would like to come over for dinner, so Ethel invited everyone over for a big night. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re all dressed up waiting for Marc Anthony, and my grandmother is blasting the song,&amp;quot; says Kick, &amp;quot;and this old white-haired guy shows up with his wife and sits down at the dinner table.&amp;quot; Finally one of the Kennedys introduced himself. &amp;quot;The guy was like, &amp;#039;Hi, my name is Mark. Mark Anthony.&amp;#039; My grandmother had sat next to him on an airplane years before and had no recollection of meeting him, and this was the guy who had called. Of course, half the dinner table starts cracking up, and everyone else is in the laundry room just hysterically laughing.&amp;quot; Day two with Kick begins as you might imagine: more hijinks. Her dog Ronan, a one-year-old Gordon setter, has run off in the night, and we can&amp;#039;t go look for him because her car has a flat tire. Sitting on the steps double-fisting a cell phone and a land line, she finally locates Ronan at an animal shelter 20 miles down the Cape. &amp;quot;We should make FREE RONAN T-shirts,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll certainly be able to use them again.&amp;quot; Three hours, two rabies certifications, and one long car ride later (&amp;quot;Drivin&amp;#039; on a spare and I just don&amp;#039;t care,&amp;quot; she sings merrily), Ronan is safe at home, so we decamp for a dive bar in town to play Kick&amp;#039;s new favorite pastime: pool. She&amp;#039;s on a team in New York called the Filthy English, part of a league composed almost exclusively of rough-and-tumble fellers over the age of 60. Rack &amp;#039;em up! Kick likes to win (&amp;quot;What is that, nine games to two?&amp;quot;), Kick likes to distract (she&amp;#039;s not above a little tap dancing and/or jazz-handing while you&amp;#039;re shooting for the eight ball), and Kick likes to trash-talk (&amp;quot;Impress me,&amp;quot; she says as you line up a shot, or, if you sink your first ball late in the game, &amp;quot;Oh, now the party&amp;#039;s started&amp;quot;). But the truth is, she got game. She throws Taylor Swift on the jukebox (&amp;quot;Taylor&amp;#039;s sweet, and so catchy I can&amp;#039;t believe it. I can&amp;#039;t get her songs out of my head&amp;quot;), we order more beers, and eventually the talk turns to her next great adventure: a trip to Venezuela with Uncle Max to dive for a pair of Sir Walter Raleigh&amp;#039;s cannons at the bottom of a river rapid. Of course, the 87-foot tub they&amp;#039;re using for the expedition had to be retrieved in Vancouver, and Uncle Max has already tussled with Canadian border patrol. &amp;quot;He crossed the border five times in one day,&amp;quot; Kick says. &amp;quot;Sounds suspicious \u2014 and pretty fun.&amp;quot; Which means she&amp;#039;ll be aboard soon enough. &amp;quot;There are two whales engraved on each cannon, and the Native Americans who surround each bank have said that each one is visible once every 40 years,&amp;quot; Kick says excitedly. &amp;quot;I was like, &amp;#039;Max, why hasn&amp;#039;t anyone else gotten them? What do I do to get them?!&amp;#039; And he&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Because no one cares about two rusty cannons.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; She switches to an aw-gee Appalachian accent. &amp;quot;But I like junk, he likes junk, and we&amp;#039;re gonna go hunt it!&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a924/kick-kennedy-interview/?click=main_sr>