Lena Dunham's Girls is definitely on the list of HBO shows that got the world talking, and the discourse hasn't really slowed in the years since the 2017 series finale aired. Folks with an HBO Max subscription regularly re-watch the award-winning series, and that's happening even more as a result of her new memoir. And while Dunham's accusations about on-set conflicts with Adam Driver have gone viral, what has the House of Gucci actor said about working with her?
Lena Dunham recently released her new memoir Famesick, which includes details about her time working as showrunner/star/writer/director on Girls. Her comments about Driver quickly went viral, including claims he threw a chair and punched a wall during a disagreement with her. An interview with the 42-year-old actor for The Daily Beast has since resurfaced, where she spoke about working with Dunham on the Season 3 episode "Role-Play." In his words:
It’s always fun shooting Girls but that sequence, in particular, I tried to do a good job of staying focused but I just remember losing it so many times because I thought Lena was pretty genius in the way she plays it. It was really hard for me to keep it together because she’s so funny. The first time they meet at the bar when she was trying things out while we were shooting it I couldn’t stop laughing.
This certainly paints a different picture, with Driver gushing over his time working with Lena Dunham. Obviously, the show would continue for another three seasons, and during that time he became a movie star after debuting as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars movies (which are streaming with a Disney+ subscription). Still, his above comment will stand in juxtaposition to the incident she described in her new memoir.
Article continues belowElsewhere in her memoir, Lena Dunham admitted she was surprised by the public's response to the character of Adam in the show. Because while Hannah's love interest was fairly unwell throughout the early seasons, folks still found Adam Driver's performance charming. The two characters would go on to be one of Girls' biggest will-they-won't-they couples throughout the show's run on the air.
Even if there were some explosive conflicts during filming, the above quote seems to show how much fun Adam Driver had working with Lena Dunham on Girls. For her part, she doesn't seem to fault him, and instead was trying to talk about the challenge of being the boss on a major TV show at such a young age.
Later in the same interview, Adam Driver spoke about the unique challenges og being an actor, and what it's like diving into new roles. As he put it:
What is a struggle is that acting isn’t a place where you go to work and you do that thing. There aren’t set boundaries, like an office, where you go and work. For me, the work is always on my mind. I’m constantly thinking about the role, and there’s an infinite amount of questions you can ask yourself about a character to the point that it’s hard to find the boundaries of when to not work. I’m not speaking about anything personal, but I think it does lead to not quite being in the moment, or being self-involved.
This comment might turn heads after Lena Dunham's allegations about his behavior on set, especially the way that he talks about boundaries and being self-involved. Although to be clear, she maintains that she doesn't hold any major grudges against Driver.
While doing press for her new book, Dunham admitted she has some ideas for a Girls movie. I have to wonder if it would include the return of Adam, especially since he was last seen in an explosive relationship with Jemima Kirke's Jessa. Fingers crossed we get to see that follow-up project sometime in the future.
Girls is streaming in its entirety over on HBO Max. As for Adam Driver, he's attached to a number of upcoming film projects, both on the 2026 movie release list and beyond. You can buy Lena Dunham's memoir Famesick now.
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