When “Enough Said” director Nicole Holofcener was asked to meet with fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson for one of the teenage roles in the film, she didn’t balk — but she didn’t have high expectations either.
“I didn’t know who she was at all,” Holofcener says of the precocious blogger who lit the fashion world on fire when she sat front-row at New York Fashion Week in September 2009 at the tender age of 13.
“I initially thought someone who was a fashion blogger would be all wrong for the part,” Holofcener tells The Post. “I pictured a very slick girl walking in stilettos. Like a Carrie Bradshaw.”
The director — who had been wavering between a few different young actresses — was surprised by the low-key, 16-year-old blonde who showed up at the LA casting session last year.
“She was not like that at all. She wasn’t done up at all. She was adorable, like a puppy. She was just really natural,” Holofcener adds.
Gevinson, who had never acted in a feature film before, won over Holofcener — and won the part of Chloe. As the slightly wounded friend of Julia Louis- Dreyfus’ daughter, she forms a maternal attachment to Louis-Dreyfus’ character.
The highly anticipated comedy, out now, is also James Gandolfini’s second-to-last film, made before the beloved actor died suddenly of a heart attack in June.
It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the now-17-year-old Gevinson turned up looking every bit the chic, polished ingenue.
Her new grown-up aesthetic shocked the fashion set and Hollywood.
After all, Gevinson — who started a blog called “Style Rookie” at age 11 in the suburbs of Chicago — made her name posting photos of herself in distinctly kooky outfits, alongside musings on trends.
She quickly caught the eye of the fashion establishment and eventually designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, who called Gevinson their muse.
Starting in the fall of 2009, the pint-size blogger became a New York Fashion Week fixture, sporting granny-style dresses, multi-hued hair (including a gray wedge) and funky fascinators — sometimes angering more established fashionistas who may have lost a front-row seat to Marc Jacobs in the process.
In September 2011, Gevinson stopped blogging about fashion to start Rookie — a general-interest online magazine for teens, which has featured such boldface contributors as Lena Dunham and Paul Rudd.
But she always harbored acting aspirations.
“I’d been doing theater locally and at school since I was in third grade. I was a big theater nerd . . . That idea excited me,” Gevinson, a high-school senior, tells The Post via e-mail (“I am writing to you on my phone in study hall in my public high school in a suburb of Chicago”).
Last April, United Talent Agency approached her.
“[UTA] basically said, ‘We want you to have resources for whatever you want to do with Rookie or with expressing yourself,’ ” recounts Gevinson.
She said she wanted to see scripts.
But after nailing the role of Chloe, Gevinson still had to act opposite two legendary actors — Louis-Dreyfus and the imposing Gandolfini. The three share a poignant scene at the breakfast table where Chloe tests Gandolfini’s character on TV trivia.
“I had only one scene with Jim but was so taken by his sense of humor and warmth. He actually already knew about Rookie, which I thought was just the coolest,” she says, adding, “Julia made it so easy to cozy up and paint her toenails and try to make her my mom. She is by nature a calming presence.”
Not only was it her first feature role, it was a break from running the show at Rookie.
“It was a relief. I’m a boss to 80 people,” says Gevinson.
Holofcener describes the teen as “warm, polite and shy.”
“Nobody would know she was running an empire. She acted like a respectful actor who knew this was her first job and was in the company of icons and incredible actors,” says the director.
Gevinson is now busy applying to colleges and hopes to attend an East Coast school, preferably in the Big Apple, to take “various English classes” and study “writing, visual arts, maybe acting or film, [and] pop culture.”
And despite recently telling the Daily Beast she would put acting on hold to focus on college, Gevinson now says she hopes to have it all: “I’ve worked too hard since I was 12 to just put this all on pause.”
She cites Emma Watson as a professional inspiration.
“I like that Emma Watson went to college and took all kinds of classes and continued to work. She leads a very full life with a variety of interests and passions.”
As for her sleek red-carpet style, the freshly bobbed Gevinson says she turned to labels like Wren, Orla Kiely and smaller Canadian and Australian designers.
“Right now I just really appreciate an outfit that makes me feel put together but still has one little thing off. I carried around a bunny- shaped purse for [the Toronto film festival] so I wouldn’t start to feel too grown-up.”
And Gevinson says she has no regrets over her past eccentric get-ups, insisting, “Nope, I was having too much fun.”
So, how does a teenager who has spent her formative years hobnobbing with fashion and Hollywood royalty maintain perspective?
“I just try to surround myself with people and things that I love and to work hard . . . I know how to relax if I’m having a bad day,” says Gevinson.
Despite her astonishing success, the prodigy shows no signs of peaking.
As Holofcener puts it: “Tavi could be the president of the United States if she wanted to be.”