Lena Dunham said she struggled to work with “genius” Adam Driver on Girls when the hulking former Marine got upset.
Driver, who stands around 6 feet and 3 inches, played Dunham’s love interest in six seasons of her popular HBO show. In an excerpt from her memoir Famesick obtained by The Guardian, the 39-year-old Brooklyn writer and actor recalls Driver hurling a chair in her direction, punching a hole in his trailer wall and shouting at her.
“At the time, I didn’t have the skill to … it never entered my mind to say, ‘I am your boss, you can’t speak to me this way,'” she said.
Dunham was 23 years old when she sold Girls to HBO and 25 when production began.
“At that point in my 20s, I still thought that’s what great male geniuses do: eviscerate you,” she told the Guardian. “Which is weird, because I was raised by a male genius who would never do that.”
Her father is painter Carroll Dunham, whose work hangs in many of the world’s most esteemed museums. She reportedly praises him in her memoir for bringing her coffee in the morning when she’s feeling down and fondly recalls her dad taking her to doctors’ appointments.
Dunham also said she has a lot of male friends and his worked with men on projects that went smoothly.
“But there were years when I thought ‘Can’t I just make things that only have women in them?'” she confessed.
Dunham now lives in London with her husband, musician Luis Felber, whom she married in 2021.
Driver is known for his intense performances. The 42-year-old Academy Award nominee’s representative couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
