Lena Dunham | |
|---|---|
 Dunham in 2024 | |
| Born | (1986-05-13)May 13, 1986 (age 39) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | The New School Oberlin College (BA) |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 2006–present |
| Spouse | |
| Parents |
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| Relatives | Cyrus Grace Dunham (sibling) |
Lena Dunham (/ˈliːnəˈdʌnəm/; born May 13, 1986)[1] is an American writer, director, actress, and producer. She is the creator, writer, and star of theHBO television seriesGirls (2012–2017), for which she received severalEmmy Award nominations and twoGolden Globe Awards.[2][3] Dunham also directed several episodes ofGirls and became the first woman to win theDirectors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series.[4] She started her career writing, directing, and starring in her semi-autobiographicalindependent filmTiny Furniture (2010), for which she won anIndependent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. She has since written and directed the 2022 filmsSharp Stick andCatherine Called Birdy. In 2025, she created the Netflix seriesToo Much starringMegan Stalter.
In 2013, Dunham was included in the annualTime 100 list of the most influential people in the world.[5] In 2014, Dunham released her first book,Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned".[6] In 2015, along withGirlsshowrunnerJenni Konner, Dunham created thepublicationLenny Letter, afeminist online newsletter.[7][8] The publication ran for three years before its discontinuation in late 2018.[9]
Dunham briefly appeared in films such asSupporting Characters andThis Is 40 (both 2012), andHappy Christmas (2014). She voiced Mary in the 2016 filmMy Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, which premiered at theToronto International Film Festival. On television, aside fromGirls, she has played guest roles inScandal andThe Simpsons (both 2015). In 2017, she portrayedValerie Solanas inAmerican Horror Story: Cult.[10]
Dunham's work, as well as her outspoken presence onsocial media and in interviews, have attracted significant controversy, praise, criticism, and media scrutiny throughout her career.[11][12]
Dunham was born in New York City.[13][14] Her father,Carroll Dunham, is a painter, and her mother,Laurie Simmons, is an artist and photographer, and a member ofThe Pictures Generation, known for her use of dolls and dollhouse furniture in her photographs of setup interior scenes.[15][16] Her father isProtestant of mostlyEnglish ancestry;[17] her mother isJewish.[18][19][20][21] Dunham has described herself as feeling "very culturally Jewish, although that's the biggest cliché for a Jewish woman to say." TheModern Hebrew poetry ofYehuda Amichai helped her to connect with herJudaism.[22][23][24]
Dunham attendedFriends Seminary before transferring in seventh grade toSaint Ann's School inBrooklyn, where she metTiny Furniture actress and futureGirls co-starJemima Kirke.[25][26] As a teen, Dunham also won aScholastic Art and Writing Award.[27] She attendedThe New School for a year before transferring toOberlin College,[28][16] where she graduated in 2008 with a degree in creative writing.[16]
She has a younger sibling,Cyrus, a 2014 graduate ofBrown University, who appeared in Dunham's first film,Creative Nonfiction, and starred in her second film,Tiny Furniture.[16][29] The siblings were raised in Brooklyn and spent summers inSalisbury, Connecticut.[30]
While a student atOberlin College, Dunham produced several independentshort films and uploaded them toYouTube. Many of her early films dealt with themes of sexual enlightenment and were produced in amumblecore filmmaking style, a dialogue-heavy style in which young people talk about their personal relationships. In 2006, she producedPressure, in which a girl and two friends talk about experiencing an orgasm for the first time, which makes Dunham's character feel pressured to do so as well.[31][32] "I didn't go to film school", Dunham explains. "Instead I went to liberal arts school and self-imposed a curriculum of creating tiny flawed video sketches, brief meditations on comic conundrums, and slapping them on the Internet."[33]
Another early film, entitledThe Fountain, which depicted her in a bikini brushing her teeth in the public fountain at Oberlin College, went viral on YouTube.[34][35] "Her blithe willingness to disrobe without shame caused an outburst of censure from viewers," observedThe New Yorker's Rebecca Mead.[16] Dunham was shocked by the backlash and decided to take the video down:
There were just pages ofYouTube comments about how fat I was, or how not fat I was," Dunham said. "I didn't want you to Google me and the first thing you see is a debate about whether my breasts are misshapen."[16]
Pressures (2006),Open the Door (2007),Hooker on Campus (2007), andThe Fountain (2007) were released asDVD extras withTiny Furniture.[36] In 2007, Dunham starred in a ten-episode web series forNerve.com entitledTight Shots,[37][38] described byThe New York Times Magazine'sVirginia Heffernan as "a daffy serial about kids trying to make a movie and be artsy and have tons of sex."[39]
In 2009, Dunham created theIndex Magazine web series,Delusional Downtown Divas, which satirized the New York City art scene. The production was unpaid, so Dunham and her friends "pooled their money from babysitting and art-assistant gigs and borrowed some camera gear."[40] Also in 2009, Dunham premieredCreative Nonfiction — a comedy where she plays Ella, a college student struggling to complete a screenplay[41] — at theSouth by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. She was initially rejected by the festival the year before; she re-edited and successfully resubmitted the film.[42]
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Dunham had a career breakthrough with her semi-autobiographical 2010 feature filmTiny Furniture; the film won Best Narrative Feature atSouth by Southwest Music and Media Conference, and subsequently screened at such festivals asMaryland Film Festival.[43] Dunham plays the lead role of Aura.[16]Laurie Simmons (Dunham's real-life mother) plays Aura's mother, and Dunham's real-life sibling Cyrus plays Aura's on-screen sibling. For her work onTiny Furniture, Dunham also won anIndependent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.[44][45][46]
The success ofTiny Furniture earned Dunham a blind script deal atHBO.[47] The network set Dunham up with veteran showrunnerJennifer Konner. Konner toldVulture'sJada Yuan that she got involved with Dunham because she was an obsessiveTiny Furniture fan:
I got a copy ofTiny Furniture from [HBO president]Sue Naegle. Actually, [New Girl creator]Liz Meriwether told me about it and said, 'Oh, there's this great movie. This girl, she's 23, she wrote, directed, and starred in it; she's in her underwear the whole time.' And I was like, 'I really don't want to see that.' And then she was like, 'Oh, trust me, it's great.' So Sue gave it to me just because she had it ... I used to, like, give out copies of the movie. But I'd just broken up with my writing partner and couldn't be less interested in the idea of supervising anybody. I really was like, 'I'm going to find my voice, and be on my own.' And then they called me and they were like, 'Oh, theTiny Furniture girl is doing a show, do you want to supervise her?' And I was like, 'Yes! One million percent. Sign me up. Totally on board.'[48]
Dunham's star was also raised considerably when she was profiled byDavid Carr inThe New York Times; he was later credited with introducing her toJudd Apatow.[49][50] Apatow watchedTiny Furniture, and was surprised Dunham had also written and directed the film. "I emailed her and told her I thought it was great", Apatow toldThe Hollywood Reporter. "It turned out she was in the middle of negotiating a deal to develop a show for HBO and that her partner was Jenni Konner, whom I had worked with onUndeclared and a bunch of other projects. They asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, and I was thrilled to jump in."[51]
Dunham's television series,Girls, was greenlit byHBO in early 2011.[52] Three episodes were screened to positive response at the 2012 South by Southwest Festival.[53] The series follows Hannah Horvath (portrayed by Dunham), a 20-something writer struggling to get by in New York City. Some of the struggles facing Dunham's character Hannah—including being cut off financially from her parents, becoming a writer and making unfortunate decisions—are inspired by Dunham's real-life experiences.[54]
Dunham saidGirls reflects a part of the population not portrayed in the 1998 HBO seriesSex and the City. "Gossip Girl was teens duking it out on theUpper East Side andSex and the City was women who [had] figured out work and friends and now want to nail romance and family life. There was this 'hole-in-between' space that hadn't really been addressed," she said.[54] The pilot intentionally referencesSex and the City, as producers wanted to make it clear that the driving force behindGirls is that the characters were inspired by the former HBO series and moved to New York to pursue their dreams.[54] Dunham herself says she "revere[s] that show just as much as any girl of my generation".[54]
The first season premiered on HBO on April 15, 2012, and received critical acclaim.The New York Times applauded the series, writing that "Girls may be themillennial generation's rebuttal toSex and the City, but the first season was at times as cruelly insightful and bleakly funny asLouie on FX orCurb Your Enthusiasm on HBO."[55] James Poniewozik fromTime reserved high praise for the series, calling it "raw, audacious, nuanced and richly, often excruciatingly funny".[56] Despite the acclaim, the series also generated significant criticism over its lack of racial representation and Dunham's frequent on-screen nudity.[57][58]
The first season garnered Dunham fourEmmy Award nominations for her roles in acting, writing, and directing the series, as well as twoGolden Globe Awards forBest Television Series – Musical or Comedy andBest Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy.[59][60] In February 2013, Dunham became the first woman to win aDirectors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series for her work onGirls.[61]
Girls was renewed for a second season in April 2012, before the first season had finished airing.[62] The first-season finale drew over one million viewers.[63] The second season ofGirls continued to receive critical acclaim. David Wiegland of theSan Francisco Chronicle said: "The entire constellation of impetuous, ambitious, determined and insecure young urbanites inGirls is realigning in the new season, but at no point in the four episodes sent to critics for review do you feel that any of it is artificial".[64] Verne Gay ofNewsday said: "Sharper, smarter, more richly layered, detailed and acted".[65] Ken Tucker ofEntertainment Weekly felt that "As bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as it was in its first season,Girls may now be even spunkier, funnier, and riskier".[66] The second season ran on HBO from January 2013 to March 2013, with third and fourth seasons subsequently being renewed. The third season ofGirls premiered in January 2014 with over one million viewers.[67] The following month, Dunham hosted an episode ofSaturday Night Live with musical guestThe National.[68]
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In late 2012, Dunham signed a $3.5 million deal withRandom House to publish her first book.[69] The book, an essay collection calledNot That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned", was published in September 2014.[70] It reached number two onThe New York Times Best Seller list in October 2014.[71] On January 5, 2015, days before the premiere of the fourth season,Girls was renewed for a fifth season,[72] despite dwindling viewership.[73] That year, Dunham launched A Casual Romance Productions, a production company to develop television and film projects.[74] The company producedIt's Me Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise.[75] On February 20, 2015, it was reported that Dunham had been cast in a guest role in an episode of theABC drama seriesScandal, which aired March 19, 2015.[76]
In September 2015, Dunham stated that the sixth season ofGirls was likely to be the last.[77] This was later confirmed by HBO.[78] In 2016, Dunham appeared in her mother's film,My Art,[79] which had its world premiere at the73rd Venice International Film Festival.[80] She also voiced Mary inMy Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, a 2016 Americananimatedteencomedy drama film directed byDash Shaw.[81] It was selected to be screened in the Vanguard section at the2016 Toronto International Film Festival.[82] Dunham also filmed scenes for the filmNeighbors 2: Sorority Rising, but they were cut from the final film. In 2017, Dunham portrayedValerie Solanas, the real-life radical feminist andSCUM Manifesto author who attempted to murderAndy Warhol in the late 1960s, inAmerican Horror Story: Cult.[10]Girls' sixth and final season concluded on April 16, 2017, leaving a total of 62 episodes in the series.[83][84]
Since 2016, Dunham has been working on a second book that will be published by Random House.[85] In February 2018, A Casual Romance Productions announced that it would be producingCamping, a remake of the British comedy seriesof the same name for HBO, withJennifer Garner in the lead and Dunham and Konner as showrunners and writers.[86][87] On July 25, 2018, the series held a panel at theTelevision Critics Association's annual summer press tour featuring executive producerJenni Konner and cast member Jennifer Garner.[88] The following day, a teaser trailer for the series was released.[89]Camping was met with a mixed to negative response from critics upon its premiere. On the review aggregation websiteRotten Tomatoes, the first season holds a 28% approval rating, with an average rating of 5.1 out of 10 based on 32 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads: "The first season ofCamping makes it difficult to determine who the least happy campers are: those on the screen or those watching it."[90]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 49 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[91]
In August 2018, it was announced Dunham would appear in the filmOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood, directed byQuentin Tarantino, which released on July 26, 2019.[92] Dunham portrayed the role ofCatherine "Gypsy" Share.[93] In October 2018, coinciding with the expiration of their joint HBO contract, Dunham and Konner split as producing partners and dissolved their production company.[94] In August 2019, Dunham launched a new production company namedGood Thing Going, which had a first look deal with HBO.[95] In 2019, Dunham and Alissa Bennett started a podcast calledThe C-Word Podcast produced byLuminary.[96]
In response to the2020 coronavirus pandemic, in March 2020 Dunham announced she would write a serialized novel,Verified Strangers, as a response to social isolation. She added that the act was a response to help herself and the readers in a time of anxiety.[97][98] The serialization started later that month on theVogue website.[99] Dunham directed and served as an executive producer on the first episode of HBO'sIndustry.[100] That same year, she appeared inThe Stand In directed byJamie Babbit.[101] In 2021, Dunham had a small role inMusic, directed bySia.[102] She also served as an executive producer onGeneration, a dramedy forHBO Max.[103]
In 2022, Dunham's second feature film,Sharp Stick, starringKristine Froseth, Dunham, andJon Bernthal, was released to mixed reviews. She also directed, wrote, and produced her third film,Catherine Called Birdy, an adaption of thechildren's novel of the same name byKaren Cushman forWorking Title Films.[104][105] The film had its world premiere at theToronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2022. It was released in alimited release on September 23, 2022, byAmazon Studios, prior to streaming onPrime Video on October 7, 2022. In December 2023,Netflix announced thatToo Much, a new series co-created, written, executive produced, and directed by Dunham, would enter production the following year in theUnited Kingdom.[106]
In July 2025, Dunham and her husbandLuis Felber created and released theNetflix seriesromantic comedy television seriesToo Much starringMegan Stalter andWill Sharp under theWorking Title Television and Dunham's companyGood Thing Going. Dunham directed, produced and wrote the series and received positive reviews from critics.[107] After the release of the show in September, Dunham announced her second memoirFamestick.[108]
Dunham has appeared on several magazine covers, includingVogue,Elle,Marie Claire,Popular Mechanics, andRolling Stone. After Dunham posed with bare legs forGlamour's February 2017 cover, she praised the magazine for featuring an unedited photo and leaving thecellulite on her thighs visible.[109][110]
In 2015, Dunham, withJenni Konner, co-foundedLenny Letter, afeminist online newsletter.[7][8]Lenny Letter was initially supported byHearst Corporation advertising,[111] and subsequently byCondé Nast.[112] In addition to the regular newsletter,Lenny Letter published a Fiction Issue and a Poetry Issue during fall 2015.[113]
Notable articles include an essay written by actressJennifer Lawrence about thegender wage gap in Hollywood,[114] and one written by singerAlicia Keys about her decision to start wearing little to nomake-up.[115]
In November 2017, following Dunham and Konner's controversial letter denouncingAurora Perrineau's accusation of sexual assault byMurray Miller,Zinzi Clemmons announced that she would no longer contribute to the newsletter, saying Dunham's racism was "well-known" and called for all women of color to "divest" from Dunham.[116]
In October 2018, Dunham and Konner announced thatLenny Letter would be shutting down,[9][117] reportedly due to a decline in subscribers and failure to build momentum upon other platforms.[118]
Dunham has received criticism for her production of the filmOrgasm Inc.: The Story of OneTaste. Hundreds of women and men claim that Dunham's production company was responsible for using their images without their consent, filing a lawsuit against Netflix to disallow the film, signing petitions, and creating viral videos protesting the violation.[119][120][121] The film reportedly relies on "personal journals" attorneys have claimed to be fabricated despite the film presenting itself as a documentary.[122]
 | This"criticism" or "controversy" sectionmay compromise the article'sneutrality. Please helpintegrate negative information into other sections or removeundue focus on minor aspects throughdiscussion on thetalk page.(April 2025) |
Dunham claimed in her bookNot That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" that she had been sexually assaulted by a person she called "Barry". Other details in the book indicated that "Barry" was a formerOberlin College classmate.[123][124][125] In the book, Dunham describes "Barry" as a man who wore cowboy boots, sported a mustache, hosted a radio show, worked at a campus library, and graduated from Oberlin in 2005; this description was characterized by the attorney of Dunham's former classmate as detailed enough to point towards his client. Dunham later apologized and Random House reprinted the book with a disclaimer, releasing a statement saying: "Random House, on our own behalf and on behalf of our author, regrets the confusion."[126]
Other passages in the book recountinteractions of a sexual nature between siblings involving Dunham and her siblingCyrus, beginning in Cyrus’ infancy.[127] Dunham's description of these interactions prompted numerouseditorials aboutchildren's sexuality andsexual abuse.[128][129][130]
Dunham's work and her outspoken presence on social media and in interviews have attracted significant controversy, criticism, and media scrutiny throughout her career.[11][12] On several occasions, Dunham has been accused of making racially insensitive remarks.[131][132] Upon release,Girls was met with criticism regarding the all-white main cast in the otherwiseculturally diverse setting of New York City.[133][134] However, some pointed out that many Americans are friends with other people of the same race, and adding a "token" African-American or Asian-American friend would be "immature" to reality.[135]Donald Glover guest starred as Sandy, a black Republican and Hannah's love interest, in the first two episodes of season two, which was criticized astokenism in response to the initial backlash from the first season.[136]
Dunham spoke publicly about the criticism on several occasions; in an interview withIndieWire, she said:
I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I wrote two Jews and two WASPs. Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in casting. If I had one of the four girls, if, for example, she was African-American, I feel like—not that the experience of an African-American girl and a white girl are drastically different, but there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn't able to speak to. I really wrote the show from a gut-level place, and each character was a piece of me or based on someone close to me. And only later did I realize that it was four white girls. As much as I can say it was an accident, it was only later as the criticism came out, I thought, 'I hear this and I want to respond to it.' And this is a hard issue to speak to because all I want to do is sound sensitive and not say anything that will horrify anyone or make them feel more isolated, but I did write something that was super-specific to my experience, and I always want to avoid rendering an experience I can't speak to accurately.[137]
In September 2016, Dunham criticizedNFL playerOdell Beckham Jr. for his interactions with her at theMet Gala. Dunham said: "I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, 'That's a marshmallow. That's a child. That's a dog.' It wasn't mean — he just seemed confused. The vibe was very much like, 'Do I want to f--- it? Is it wearing a ... yep, it's wearing a tuxedo. I'm going to go back to my cell phone." She added, "It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrollingInstagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, 'This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes'."[138] Dunham was criticized for her comments, which some considered to be an example of "white entitlement".[139][140] She later apologized for her characterization of his interactions and thoughts.[141]
In December 2016, Dunham declared on a podcast that she wished she had had anabortion, explaining that she wanted to better understand women who have. The comment was widely condemned as insensitive.[142][143] Dunham later issued a lengthy apology on her Instagram.[144][145]
In November 2017, Dunham defendedGirls writerMurray Miller, whom actressAurora Perrineau had accused of sexually assaulting her in 2012 when she was seventeen. Dunham responded to the accusations by saying: "While our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story, our insider knowledge of Murray's situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year."[146] After an immediate backlash, Dunham apologized for that statement, saying that it was "absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement" and that "every woman who comes forward deserves to be heard, fully and completely, and our relationship to the accused should not be part of the calculation anyone makes when examining her case."[146] Dunham was described as a "hipster racist" for her defense of Miller, as Perrineau is of mixed race.[147][148] In December 2018, Dunham stated that, contrary to her previous statement, she had no "insider information" that exonerated Murray.[149][150][151]
In October 2018, Dunham was hired to write the screenplay for an untitled film based upon the memoirA Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival, byMelissa Fleming, which follows the true story ofDoaa Al Zamel, who fled Egypt for Europe and became one of few survivors of ashipwrecked refugee boat, surviving days in open water and supporting herself and two orphaned children with only an inflatable water ring.[152]Steven Spielberg andJ. J. Abrams are set to produce the film.[153] Dunham's hiring received backlash from those who felt that, instead of Dunham, a Syrian woman should have been hired.[154][155][156] Daniel Medina, a journalist, wrote: "Lena Dunham constantly talks about representation as crucial to enrich storytelling. Yet, in practice, she has shown a disregard for actually elevating those voices. Now, she's been signed on to write a Syrian refugee's story?".[157] AuthorAlia Malek stated: "The idea that Lena Dunham is better situated to tell the story of a Syrian than somebody else implicit in that is a kind of hierarchy."[158]
In January 2022, ahead of the film'sSundance premiere,autisticself-advocate andsex educator Amy Gravino posted a Twitter thread alleging that she was approached to be a consultant on Dunham's filmSharp Stick, but was subsequently "ghosted" before she had a chance to meet with Dunham in person.[159][160] In aVariety article covering the subject, Gravino claimed that the film's star,Kristine Froseth, had approached her business manager while doing research for her character Sarah Jo, whom she concluded displayed characteristics that suggested she was autistic. Gravino also claimed that Dunham had personally done research on her work and was excited to meet with her. However, according to the film's producers, Dunham rejected Froseth's suggestion to approach Gravino, and clarified to Froseth that she had never intended to depict Sarah Jo as autistic.
An unnamed spokesperson also released a statement toVariety that read, "Sarah Jo was never written nor imagined as aneurodivergent woman. Nothing about Sarah Jo wascoded to suggest or convey neurodivergence." Gravino responded to this defense by saying, "You can’t just say the character isn’t going to be neurodiverse; the coding is still there and it comes across that way in the writing and acting choices, even though it’s not explicitly stated." She also criticized the film for its "infantilization" of Sarah Jo, though the producers countered this assessment by stating that the character's childlike qualities were included to reflect the trauma she experienced, rather than to suggest that she was autistic.[159]
In 2012, Dunham began datingJack Antonoff, the lead guitarist of the bandfun. and the founder ofBleachers.[161][162] Dunham and Antonoff remained together until December 2017; they subsequently separated announcing that the separation was "amicable".[163][164]
Dunham was diagnosed withobsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) as a child, and continued to take a low dose of ananxiolytic (Klonopin) to relieve heranxiety until 2018.[165][166] In 2018 Dunham entered rehab for an addiction tobenzodiazepines.[167] In April 2020, she celebrated two years of sobriety.[168][169][170]
In February 2018, Dunham wrote an essay forVogue about her decision to have ahysterectomy due toendometriosis.[171]
In 2019, Dunham revealed that she hasEhlers–Danlos syndrome (EDS).[172]
In July 2020, Dunham reported onInstagram her experience withCOVID-19 because she observed people were not takingsocial distancing seriously. Though she was not hospitalized, she did have "severe symptoms for three weeks".[173]
After a mutual friend set them up on a blind date, Dunham began dating English-Peruvian musicianLuis Felber in January 2021.[174][175][176] In September 2021, Dunham and Felber married in a Jewish ceremony at the Union Club inSoho.[176][175]
A 2024 episode ofFinding Your Roots revealed that Dunham is a descendant ofStephanus van Cortlandt (1643–1700), the first native-born mayor of New York City.[177]
Dunham supportsgun control,[178]immigrant rights,[179] andLGBT rights.[180]
In fall of 2012, Dunham appeared in a video advertisement promoting PresidentBarack Obama's re-election, delivering a monologue, which, according to a blog quoted inThe Atlantic, tried to "get the youth vote by comparing voting for the first time to having sex for the first time".[181]Fox News reported criticism from conservatives such asMedia Research Center's Lauren Thompson, public relations professionalRonn Torossian, and media trainer Louise Pennell, who labeled the advertisement as tasteless, inappropriate, and a ploy to lure the younger female vote.[182] It included a comment from Steve Hall of Ad Rants saying that "not everyone was so offended." A friend of Dunham said the actress was not paid for her performance on the spot, and Dunham defended the ad by tweeting "The video may be light but the message is serious: vote for women's rights." InThe Nation,Ari Melber wrote "the ad's style is vintage Lena: edgy and informed, controversial but achingly self-aware, sexually proud and affirmatively feminist."[183]
In 2014, Dunham was named the Recipient of Horizon Award 2014 byPoint Foundation for her support of the gay community.[184]
In April 2016, she wrote in support ofHillary Clinton, pledging to move toVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, ifDonald Trump won the election.[185][186] Dunham rebuked Trump for theAccess Hollywood tape.[187] After Trump's win, Dunham wrote she will not be moving to Canada, saying, "I can survive staying in this country, MY country, to fight and love and use my embarrassment of blessings to do what's right."[188]
In June 2017, Dunham endorsedJim Johnson, a Democratic New Jersey gubernatorial candidate.[189] Later that month, Dunham endorsedJeremy Corbyn, leader of theLabour Party, in theUnited Kingdom general election.[190]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Dealing | Georgia | Short film Also writer and director |
| 2007 | Una & Jacques | Video short | |
| 2009 | The House of the Devil | 911 Operator | Voice |
| 2009 | Creative Nonfiction | Ella | Also writer, director and editor |
| The Viewer | Voice | Short film | |
| Family Tree | Lena | Short film | |
| 2010 | Gabi on the Roof in July | Colby | |
| Tiny Furniture | Aura | Also director and writer | |
| 2011 | The Innkeepers | Barista | |
| 2012 | Nobody Walks | — | Co-writer |
| Supporting Characters | Alexa | ||
| This Is 40 | Cat | ||
| 2014 | Happy Christmas | Carson | |
| 2015 | Sky | Billie | |
| 2016 | Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising | Joan of Arc | Scenes cut[191] |
| My Art | Meryl | ||
| My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea | Mary | Voice | |
| 2019 | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | "Gypsy" | |
| 2020 | The Stand In | Lisa | |
| Honeydew | Delilah | Cameo | |
| 2021 | Music | Administrator on Phone with Zu | |
| 2022 | Sharp Stick | Heather | Also writer, producer and director |
| Catherine Called Birdy | — | Writer, producer and director | |
| 2023 | Judy Blume Forever | Herself | Documentary |
| 2024 | Treasure | Ruth | Also producer |
| I Wish You All the Best | |||
| 2027 | Good Sex | — | Writer, producer and director |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Tight Shots | Main role Also writer, director, editor | |
| 2009 | Delusional Downtown Divas | Oona | Main role Also writer, director, producer |
| 2011 | Mildred Pierce | Nurse | 2 episodes |
| 2012–2017 | Girls | Hannah Horvath | Main role Also creator, director, writer, executive producer |
| 2014–2016 | Adventure Time | Betty Grof | Voice, 3 episodes |
| 2014 | Saturday Night Live | Host | Episode: "Lena Dunham/The National" |
| 2015 | Scandal | Susanne Thomas | Episode: "It's Good to Be Kink" |
| 2015 | 7 Days in Hell | Lanny Denver | Television film |
| 2015 | The Simpsons | Candace / Hannah Horvath | Voice, episode: "Every Man's Dream" |
| 2017 | Travel Man | Herself | Episode: "48 Hours in Tenerife" |
| 2017 | American Horror Story: Cult | Valerie Solanas | Episode: "Valerie Solanas Died for Your Sins: Scumbag" |
| 2018 | Camping | — | Creator, executive producer and writer |
| 2020 | Industry | — | Director: "Induction" |
| 2021 | Generation | — | Executive producer Writer: "Gays and Confused" |
| 2025 | Too Much | Nora South | Also co-creator, executive producer, writer, director[106] |
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Books
Essays and reporting
Lena Dunham: "I learned it from my Jewish mother."
both first-generation Jewish Americans.
Most wealthy white girls in America are surrounded by other wealthy white girls, so that's who they choose to be friends with. So what? Are we so immature that we need to throw in a token African-American or Asian to make us better about the fact that some white people have zero exposure to diversity?
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
