As Lena Dunham’s memoir Famesick, released on Tuesday, April 14, hit shelves, her unsettling claims about former co-star Adam Driver stirred heated controversy and quickly caught the internet’s attention.
The actress and creator of Girls alleged that Driver displayed “physically imposing” and “verbally aggressive” behavior on set, leaving fans questioning the actor’s alleged personality.
Highlights
- Lena Dunham’s memoir has reignited debate about her on-set dynamic with Adam Driver, with her claims painting a tense, emotionally charged working relationship.
- From alleged outbursts to moments of unexpected tenderness, Dunham describes a complex bond that at times blurred the line.
- As excerpts from the memoir circulate online, fans remain divided, with some backing Dunham’s perspective and others questioning the timing and intent of her revelations.
As excerpts from the memoir began circulating online, netizens were sharply divided, with some rallying behind Dunham while others came to Driver’s defense.
“F**king slander if you ask me. Why throw him under the bus 10+ years later,” one skeptical user wrote.
Lena Dunham made several disturbing allegations against her former co-star, Adam Driver, in her recently released memoir
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Famesick is a raw, retrospective memoir that explores Lena Dunham's physical and mental health during her rapid rise to stardom.
Reportedly, Dunham reflects on her experience creating, producing, and starring in the hit HBO series Girls, which ran from 2012 to 2017, all while she was still in her early 20s.
She also details the real-life dynamic she shared with co-star Adam Driver, which she claims at times mirrored the intense and volatile relationship between their characters, Hannah Horvath and Adam Sackler.
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In the book, Dunham alleges that Driver once hurled a chair at a wall next to her during a rehearsal after she forgot her lines.
She further claims that he punched a hole in his trailer wall over a haircut and would frequently scream in her face.
Reflecting on her mental state at the time, Lena wrote, “At work, I found it was hard to act or direct when I wasn’t, in fact, a person. I wondered if everyone on set could tell that an alien had replaced me. I wondered if my scene partners could feel how barely human I was.”
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Addressing the chair-hurling incident, she continued, “I remember doing a fight scene with Adam and how scary it was… Late one night, as we practiced lines in my trailer, I found that mine were suddenly gone. I knew I’d written them. I’d known them only minutes before.”
“But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a stammer — until finally, Adam screamed, ‘F**KING SAY SOMETHING’ and hurled a chair at the wall next to me. ‘WAKE THE F**K UP,’ he told me. ‘I’M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE.'”
Dunham added, “I reasoned that the intensity of his anger at me, anger that could make him spit and throw things, was proportionate to the intensity of our creative connection.”
The actress and creator of Girls alleged that Driver displayed “physically imposing” and “verbally aggressive” behavior on set
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The American Horror Story star also recalled Driver “hurling” her around during intimate scenes, clarifying that while she didn’t feel “violated,” she felt she had lost directorial control.
Lena said, “I couldn’t speak for a moment, unsure of what had happened — had I lost directorial authority, allowed the scene to go off the rails, not given proper instructions? Would I be removed from my command post immediately?”
“It wasn’t that I felt violated — and I also wouldn’t know if I had, as there was little in my s*xual life that I hadn’t allowed to happen, and for no pay,” she added. “But I felt that something intimate, confusing, and primal had played out in a scenario I was meant to control.”
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Addressing the alleged outburst of the Marriage Story star, Dunham told The Guardian in a recent interview, “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.’”
Hinting at her father, painter Carroll Dunham, Lena continued, “And, at that point in my 20s, I still thought that’s what great male geniuses do: eviscerate you. Which is weird, because I was raised by a male genius who would never do that.”
Despite these claims, Dunham also described a complex “creative connection” and moments of tenderness in her memoir, recalling Driver as “protective” and “loving” at times.
“She could have fired him! She was the director! This woman is so annoying,” one comment read
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She wrote, “He could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically imposing. He could also be protective, loving even.”
Lena also recounted an incident where the two almost “crossed whatever boundary we were threatening to cross.”
At one point, when Adam’s then-girlfriend Joanne Tucker was out of town, the actor would visit Lena at her apartment almost every night for about a week to keep her company.
She alleged that one night, during a phone call, Driver told her, “I’m warning you, if I come up, I’m not leaving this time.”
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Recalling that night, Dunham wrote, “I crouched at the window, watching him park his bike, pull out his phone, and dial. But I didn’t answer. It felt as simple as ignoring your doorbell, as pretending to be asleep…”
“But some part of me knew — some wise part of me, some bold part of me —that if we crossed whatever boundary we were threatening to cross, the return to work would be tinged with humiliation, that I’d be minimizing any authority I still had, and that, however it went, my heart — bruised but improbably not yet broken — would crack.”
They did not discuss that night until shortly after Adam shared the news of his engagement to his now-wife, Joanne, with Lena.
Dunham called her memoir description of Adam “an attempt to capture that [relationship] in an honest way”
Image credits: Variety
While filming their final scenes in the last season of the show, despite having “barely spoken in three years,” Adam and Lena reportedly kept crying between takes.
Describing the emotional moment, Dunham said, “It felt, for just a moment, like he was saying sorry. Maybe I was, too — for never knowing how to manage him, what he needed, how to avoid making his face contort with frustration and rage.”
While promoting Famesick, Lena gave an exclusive interview to People, published on Monday, April 13, where she described Adam as “very talented” and “charismatic,” noting that she has “a lot of empathy” for the intense career path he navigated while filming Girls.
Dunham stated that her goal wasn’t to portray him as an “outlier” or a villain, but rather to use their history as a way to explore “how complex and confusing those first experiences of trying to be a boss were” when she was in her 20s.
She concluded by saying, “It was an attempt to capture that [relationship] in an honest way, and also really talk about how much being around this very talented, charismatic, complex and powerful person affected me in ways that were really positive and in ways that were a bit harder.”
Despite their long and complex history, Lena has shared that she has not heard from Adam since they finished Girls in 2017.
Moreover, the actor’s representatives have not yet addressed her claims.
“I feel like a memoir from Lena is unnecessary, and I wish she’d just live life for 10 more years before writing a book,” wrote one netizen
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