Lena Dunham on her memoir 'Famesick' and the intense bond between 'Girls' co-stars

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0:02 Hi, I'm Allison Adwarney and this is NPR's Book of the Day.

0:06 Lena Dunham got famous more than a decade ago

0:09 for creating and starring in the HBO show Girls,

0:12 about 20-something women trying to figure out how to be in the world.

0:17 In her latest memoir, "Fame Sick",

0:19 she similarly grapples with how to be in the world in a way

0:23 that feels honest and creative without letting

0:25 that openness and vulnerability turn into a liability.

0:30 She spoke with NPR's Rachel Martin on the Wild Card podcast.

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2:02 We're going to pull out of the game and talk about your book Fame Sick.

2:06 It's just a wonderful read.

2:07 Um so let's get into some of the themes in it.

2:11 First the the time bands because this is about about a particular decade, right?

2:17 Of your life.

2:18 So the book basically goes The book book basically goes from 2009 to 2021,

2:27 but it really focuses on the kind of period between 2010

2:30 and 2000 It's sort of like there's a little pre precursor in 2009,

2:35 a little coda in 2021, but it's really about that decade between It's

2:39 really about What do we call 2010 to 2020?

2:42 Was it the It's not the aughts.

2:44 It's the call that?

2:46 I don't know.

2:47 A nightmare?

2:48 Do we call it a nightmare, RACHEL?

2:52 [laughter] I THINK THAT'S A GOOD TERM.

2:54 personal hell?

2:55 Um [laughter] no, it's about that those years which did have a lot of magic

3:00 in them and a lot of joy and a lot of education and there

3:03 was also some really challenging stuff that looking back I can looking back

3:10 I'm able to see how how what a thicket I was moving through,

3:15 but at the [clears throat] time that had become pretty normalized for me.

3:18 So can you ground us in time?

3:20 I mean how old were you when you started Girls?

3:24 We shot the pilot in the fall of 2010 when I was I recently turned 24.

3:30 Um and then You're like barely out of the womb.

3:35 Like it must be said.

3:36 24 [laughter] Well, I see that now.

3:38 Like when I see I literally said recently someone said I'm 24 and I said,

3:42 "You should still be inside your mother."

3:44 Like what are you doing walking around?

3:48 [laughter]

3:47 I mean it was it was a truly wild thing to be given access to this job

3:53 that I was had such reverence for and and also this world of, you know,

3:59 I'd always been a kid who loved films

4:01 and who was interested in Hollywood and who, you know,

4:04 read Us Weekly on Wednesdays, not every It came out on Wednesdays and I'd

4:08 pick it up at the newsstand near our house.

4:10 Not because I wanted had some idea that I wanted to be famous,

4:13 because I was just like many young people compelled

4:16 by this the narrative um magic of these Hollywood lives.

4:25 And so suddenly to be engaging

4:27 with actors and making this work was unbelievable.

4:32 And then for it to then be sort of welcomed into some kind of cultural

4:37 conversation and to be kind of have the the carpet laid out for you,

4:43 but I was not prepared for everything that came with that and I was

4:47 I mean, it's just It's huge.

4:49 It was so huge.

4:49 It's hard If people younger people won't remember,

4:52 but this was such a phenomenon and you were thrust in the spotlight.

4:55 You know, young when I see young people in the public eye now,

4:59 there's much of more of a people know the term media training.

5:02 They understand that what the internet is and what it's capable of.

5:07 There's doesn't mean that they don't get up to trouble,

5:10 but there's a different kind of consciousness if you've grown

5:13 up with it and this was sort of the wild west.

5:18 So so these years were very dense with creative

5:22 um education and I had amazing I mean,

5:27 Judd Apatow was my television mentor and he took me through

5:30 this process and I worked with an incredible cast and an incredible crew,

5:35 but I also was extreme feeling I am

5:41 by nature um which sometimes surprise I'm very introverted.

5:45 I think if we're defining introvert by sort

5:47 of being around people either gives you energy or reduces

5:50 your energy not based on how loud your voice

5:53 is which I think was the old definition.

5:55 And I need a lot of time alone.

5:58 I need a lot of time to recharge and I also

6:01 have chronic health issues that I've had my whole life that I

6:04 didn't have any language around because we know that especially for women

6:08 that like delayed diagnosis for so many of these things is huge.

6:12 So all of that was hitting at the same time and so the book

6:15 is a lot about grappling through this and there's a lot of comedy

6:18 to it because it's funny to be you know standing at the Met Gala

6:23 unprepared or talking to Barbara Walters about

6:25 anal sex or whatever may befall you.

6:28 But there was also a lot of pain and confusion and fear.

6:32 The way you write about your castmates from Girls in the book is so lovely.

6:36 I mean it wasn't it wasn't just

6:39 a regular work relationship or even regular friendships.

6:43 Like it was such an intense bonding experience that you all had.

6:46 It was beautiful.

6:47 I feel like they'll be my sisters always.

6:50 Like there are things I experienced with Zosia and Jemima

6:53 and Allison that no one else will ever understand

6:57 but when we were together you always knew that there

7:00 was a hand that you could reach over and squeeze.

7:03 Like you always knew there was someone's head you could

7:05 put your lap in lap you could put your head in.

7:08 Or head in your lap in.

7:10 [laughter] Um and it was it was a very powerful formative relationship.

7:17 I mean those were Zosia and Allison were 22 when we started.

7:21 Jemima and I were 24.

7:24 Yeah and we felt like they were like our little sisters.

7:26 We're like we know so much that you're going to know when you hit

7:29 when you have two more years of life you're going to know it too.

7:33 Um Adam Driver is someone you also had a close relationship the degree to which

7:38 you could with who he is and you You about it in in the book.

7:42 Um he was such an important part of that show.

7:45 Deeply and he's such a defining his he was not meant

7:49 to be necessarily move through the six seasons of the show.

7:53 He was meant to be the sort of in a little bit

7:55 of the way that Sex and the City is like the boyfriend of the week.

7:58 I think that was more the role that he was going to play.

8:00 Yeah.

8:01 And he was so clearly just had this that character just had

8:05 this gravitational pull and it was clear that and he and he

8:11 had his career exploded and to his credit he stayed with us

8:14 and he stuck it out and he cared so much about that character.

8:18 Yeah.

8:19 You two had a complicated relationship with things the um easiest way to put it.

8:26 Yeah.

8:26 And at one point in the book you include this scene when

8:30 you were in a fight about something related to the show and he

8:35 you got angry and he let his anger get the best of him

8:37 and he threw a chair at the wall that you were standing against.

8:40 It didn't hit you, but that's a frightening experience.

8:43 And as a reader you uh take it's jarring

8:46 to read that and that feels very scary and explosive.

8:50 And I guess my question is why did

8:52 that feel like a detail you wanted to include?

8:57 I think it was really important to me to make it clear

8:59 in the writing that it was not I didn't I he did not hurt me.

9:05 His aim was great.

9:06 He didn't get me.

9:07 He was in some way trying to get my attention.

9:10 He was trying to end something that we were

9:13 always coming up against which I think I was

9:16 trying is that you have these work relationships

9:18 with people that you might never encounter in regular life.

9:22 Like Adam and I have different interests.

9:24 We have we come from different places.

9:27 Um we have had really different life stories.

9:30 Adam is from Mishawaka, Indiana.

9:32 I come from downtown New York.

9:34 We Adam had been through the military and Julliard.

9:37 I had to have this sort of hippy-dippy liberal arts education.

9:40 We had We were formed in really different ovens.

9:44 But I think it was really important to me to show that we

9:47 were sort of doing the best we could to understand each other,

9:52 but we were almost like two different species circling each other in the woods.

9:55 And I can see that so clearly now, you know,

9:59 15 years later that we were we were missing each other's signals.

10:06 We both had just inherent qualities

10:09 that were very I'm extremely non-confrontational.

10:12 I am like a I will do anything to keep it sweet.

10:15 All my confrontation I can do it on camera, but off it's very hard for me.

10:20 And I think sometimes that surprises people

10:22 because my writing is considered provocative or intense,

10:24 but and he was someone who thrived on like honesty and intensity.

10:30 And he also was someone who needed a lot of space,

10:32 and I was somebody who felt like, you know,

10:35 we should all be besties at the slumber party.

10:38 And and we were clashing.

10:42 And so I wanted to find a way

10:43 to talk about that, and I felt like that particular

10:46 incident made it very clear sort of how how

10:51 deep some at times the frustration ran on both ends.

10:54 But then there's also a scene later in the book when

10:56 the when the show ends and and we're hugging and we're crying,

10:59 and he kind of said I sort of apologized to him for I'm sorry for any

11:02 times I misunderstood you or for any times

11:05 that I didn't give you what you needed.

11:07 And him sort of saying it was all as it was supposed to be.

11:11 And he's I mean, he was in Star Wars,

11:12 so he gave me that gave me that [laughter] Jedi wisdom, and he was out.

11:17 So, all all hail Adam Driver.

11:22 Deep gratitude, deep appreciation,

11:24 and [music] I hope that that can be felt in the writing.

11:32 [music] Thanks so much for listening.

11:36 If you like [music] this conversation,

11:38 I would recommend my episode with the creator of another hit HBO show, Issa Rae.

11:44 [music] Issa and I talk about the impressive career moves

11:45 she has made since creating and starring in Insecure,

11:49 and she tells me about the fateful Paris trip [music] she did not end up taking.

11:54 Check it out.

11:55 This episode was produced by Courtney Thiafen and Lee Hale.

11:58 It was edited by Dave Blanchard [music] and mastered by Becky Brown.

12:01 Wild Card's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni,

12:04 [music] and our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei.

12:07 You can reach out to us at wildcard@npr.org.

12:11 We're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week.

12:13 [music] Talk to you then.

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