Lena Dunham is looking back on how she navigated her “Girls” fame — missteps and all.
According to the creator, the challenges of her sudden rise and the media’s response led in part to her “break” from the public eye (including as an onscreen actor) after wrapping the iconic HBO series.
Dunham led “Girls” as Hannah, a millennial Brooklynite would-be writer whose romantic ploys drew comparisons to Carrie Bradshaw. The subversive comedy series not only put hipsters and Williamsburg on cable TV but also marked Dunham as the “voice of a generation,” as her character would say. However, the series was plagued with criticisms for not being racially diverse, and the cast’s personal lives led to the public assuming they were playing versions of themselves onscreen.
In the lead-up to her new show “Too Much” premiering on Netflix this month, Dunham told The Times that after six seasons of “Girls,” which aired from 2012 to 2017, she opted to stay out of the spotlight as an actor and creator. “I always joke that I need a T-shirt that says, ‘I survived New York media in 2012 and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.’ And all I got was this lousy PTSD,” Dunham said.
The “Tiny Furniture” filmmaker added, “I didn’t really understand how to distinguish between what was and wasn’t necessary for the public. I felt confused about how I was supposed to respond,” she said. “I thought if I explain properly who I am, or give a glimpse of who I am, people are going to have a different perception of me, that we would be friends. But no one cares — and that’s fine.”
Dunham explained that leaving the “cocoon of the show” led her to have a stark awakening with her career “suddenly happening at a speed that was overwhelming.” She said, “It was a painful metamorphosis. I definitely took an intentional break [from public life].”
Her first project after “Girls” was HBO’s “Camping,” which she co-created with her “Girls” collaborator Jenni Konner, in 2018, but Dunham didn’t appear in the show. Her next onscreen role came with a small part in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” before directing her next feature, “Sharp Stick,” in which Dunham co-starred.
Dunham will soon be back onscreen with her semi-autobiographical Netflix series “Too Much.” Yet it was a tough decision to return to the screen. Dunham told The New Yorker that at first she was skeptical about starring in the series; instead, she appears in a supporting role.
“I was not willing to have another experience like what I’d experienced around ‘Girls’ at this point in my life,” she said. “Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again. It was a hard choice, not to cast [Megan Stalter in the lead] — because I knew I wanted Meg — but to admit that to myself. I used to think that winning meant you just keep doing it and you don’t care what anybody thinks. I forgot that winning is actually just protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to keep making work.”
“Too Much” premieres on Netflix July 10.