Lena Dunham

The creator of the TV blockbuster Girls is back but avoiding the limelight, writes Barbara Ellen

- Barbara Ellen

Are we entering a new era of Lena Dunham? Eight years after the conclusion of her fabled HBO show, Girls, Dunham's new Netflix series Too Much has all her signature autobiographical hallmarks. In the story, thirtysomething New Yorker Jessica (Megan Stalter from Hacks) suffers a bad break-up, moves to London and meets an indie musician, played by Will Sharpe (The White Lotus).

Dunham, 39, also experienced a painful break-up (from musician and producer Jack Antonoff). In 2021, she likewise moved to the UK, where, the same year, she met and married British-Peruvian musician Luis Felber (with whom she co-created Too Much). That Dunham did not cast herself as the lead - instead, she plays Jessica’s sister - seems partly to do with the body shaming she endured during Girls’ six-series run from 2012 to 2017.

Dunham told the New Yorker last year: “Physically I was just not up for having my body dissected again.”

If Dunham has reached for fame’s dimmer switch, it would be understandable. She wrote the pilot for Girls when she was only 24. Co-written/produced by Jenni Konner, executive produced by Judd Apatow (This Is 40), the ensemble comedy-drama spun an uber-hipster fairytale of the 2010s featuring messy twentysomethings with messy New York lives.

Launching new talent - including Adam Driver and Jemima Kirke - Girls was garlanded with awards, including two Golden Globes. In 2013, Dunham featured on the Time 100 most influential list. In Girls, she played self-absorbed writer Hannah Horvath. Hannah dressed like a disturbed toddler, but it was with her nudity and sex scenes, flaunting her supposed “flaws”, that Dunham single-handedly changed the conversation about which female body types were “permitted” on screen.