Lena Dunham reveals drama between Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet and more “Girls” anecdotes in new book

Sarah HearonWed, April 15, 2026 at 2:46 PM UTC

0

Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, and Zosia MametCredit: HBO / Courtesy: EverettKey points -

Lena Dunham's new book, Famesick, includes several stories about her time writing and starring in HBO's Girls.

Dunham reveals shocking details about her relationship with Adam Driver on and off screen, including his alleged hot temper.

She also writes about the dynamics among the women, including Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet fighting over a boy.

As Lena Dunham continues to make headlines for her bombshell revelations in her new memoir, Famesick, there are some anecdotes specifically for Girls fans.

Created by and starring Dunham, Girls debuted on HBO in 2012 and ran for six seasons. In the book, out now, she recalls casting the three women who played the best friends of her character, Hannah: Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, and Allison Williams.

"[Producer Judd Apatow] has a savant-like ability to understand what combinations of people will yield a tense humor, and that bell rang when he saw a video of Allison Williams, a recent Yale grad, singing a mash-up of the Mad Men theme song,” she writes of casting Williams as the relatively straitlaced Marnie. "'This could be really funny,’ he said. 'Seeing you with someone so normal. After all, Hannah's weird. [Kirke's character ] Jessa's weird. You can't all be weird.'"

Dunham was childhood friends with Kirke, who she pitched to HBO for Jessa. "Jemima had something that can only be described using the incredibly irritating term je ne sais quoi, a fragile confidence, a restlessness rooted in knowing she would never be happy," she wrote.

Kirke was pregnant with her first child at the time and initially declined, but Dunham convinced her to shoot the pilot since they wouldn’t be filming season 1 until months after the baby was born.

Mamet rounded out the group as Shoshanna, who Dunham’s then-collaborator Jenni Konner loved on Mad Men.

"In the video she sent, she was funny, but she was also strong and profoundly beautiful, her shoulders held high, her sandy hair falling down her shoulders. Later, she would tell me that she'd been afraid to send the tape, having been down with the flu and full of cold medicine,” Dunham writes of Mamet’s audition. "But all I saw was someone who wasn't simply playing a caricature but channeling, as if she'd tapped into the vein of this currently half-baked character and the blood would not stop flowing. So much of who Shoshanna became is down to this profound connection, which even Sudafed could not dampen."

Keep reading for the biggest takeaways about Girls from Famesick, available now:

The character of Adam is based off Lena Dunham’s real-life ex

Dunham based the character of Adam on her toxic ex-boyfriend. She describes her ex as 10 years older, "with a cleft lip" and "boyish in his lack of civility and desire never to be responsible for anyone else for as long as he lived."

She writes, "'He didn't act like he loved me,' I explained to the real-life Adam playing the TV Adam playing man with cleft lip. 'But ... and I can't explain it any better than this... I just know he did.'"

While Dunham felt somewhat seen in the bedroom with her ex, things got violent between them.

"I wish I could say that after he hit me, I never spoke to him again," she writes. "You already know that isn't true, that I continued to appear whenever and wherever he asked me to for a very long time."

The twosome were still in an on-again, off-again relationship during season 1 of the show.

"'Slap me,' I'd coo. 'Choke me. Punch me. Show me I'm nothing.' Confirm what I've always understood, but no one would say. I've always been fascinated by the breaking of boundaries, and this one was too wild not to follow until its last breath," she writes. "I didn't sense danger in the room, or for years afterward. After all, when I was a kid, when the doctor hit my knee with that little hammer, they often had trouble getting a response. Slow reflexes. Which is why, when Adam threw the chair, I didn't have any further questions. I didn't tell anyone. But I said my lines correctly after that."

The aforementioned chair story — in which Driver allegedly tossed a piece of furniture when Dunham forgot her lines in rehearsal — is an example of when the actors almost acted like their characters off camera.

"When I opened my mouth, all that came out was a stammer — until finally, Adam screamed, 'F—ING SAY SOMETHING' and hurled a chair at the wall next to me. 'WAKE THE F— UP,' he told me. 'I'M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE,'" she writes.

Driver did not return Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.

Dunham and Driver in season 3 of 'Girls'Credit: Jessica Miglio / HBO / Courtesy: Everett CollectionDunham's real-life relationship with Driver

Dunham and Driver never hooked up off screen — but they almost did, according to Dunham. In Famesick, she writes about how she "spent an inordinate amount of time" wondering if the future Oscar nominee liked her.

During season 1, when his girlfriend was away and she was home alone, they nearly went there. "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," she writes.

Advertisement

She claims Driver got engaged a month later and told her: "When my girl was away, I realized I'm no good alone. I need someone to keep me in line."

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.

They continued to work together for five more seasons of Girls, a period that overlapped with Driver's entry into the Star Wars universe. In Famesick, Dunham recalls the ride they shared together on the night Girls wrapped.

"In the car, he held my hand in silence. When we reached our block, he took me in his arms. I let him kiss my cheek, my forehead. 'You, too,' I warbled. 'I know we've had our hard moments, that we are really different people. I'm sorry if the way I am ever wasn't good for... the way you are.’ I didn't know how else to say it," she writes. "'It was just as it needed to be,' he said, sounding like a Jedi (maybe he'd picked up a few tricks). 'I hope you know I'll always love you.'"

While Dunahm thought that their working relationship or friendship might extend post-Girls, she writes, "I never heard from him again."

Shoshanna wasn't supposed to be a main character

Dunham reveals that the fourth girl "was meant to stay with us for an episode or so, but Zosia Mamet brought so much unexpected pathos that she became, arguably, the most lovable member of our permanent quartet."

Actresses who auditioned for Girls

According to Dunham, Elizabeth Olsen, Dakota Johson, Cristin Milioti, and Amy Schumer all auditioned for the HBO show. She also crossed paths with Allison Mack in the audition process — and was nearly recruited for the sex cult NXIVM. (Mack served 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy for her role in the group.)

"I recognized a woman named Allison Mack from Smallville; she wasn't right for any of the roles but invited me via email to her 'intimate women's group' every week for the next year (there but for the grace of God go I)," Dunham writes.

Sex scenes with Driver

Dunham recalls the first sex scene between Hannah and Adam that set the tone for her and Driver. "If Adam had been lackluster in rehearsal, now he was focused, as if the sex scene were a mission that had to be completed with as much vigor as basic training. As in his audition, when in character he was a man possessed," she wrote. "He would often shout filthy improvisations, seemingly unbidden. The same was true here, as my careful blocking went out the window and he hurled me this way and that. It felt so real, part of me was afraid that when I turned around, I would find I was suddenly in a full-penetration 1970s porno. But after a few mimed thrusts, I called cut."

After seeing the positive reaction on set, Dunham and Driver "made a silent agreement — we would do what was required to make these scenes surprising, to make them true, to make them sing."

"We would trust each other not to abuse the privilege," she wrote. "It was the rare situation where, in the lack of boundaries, there was a safety — he trusted me to write scenes that weren't gratuitous, had something to say. I trusted him to try things, knowing that certain lines wouldn't be crossed and others would be, but for the sake of the work."

The cast of 'Girls' in season 5Credit: Mark Schafer/HBODunham was told she was "too thin" for season 1

A common theme throughout the book is Dunham’s relationship with coshowrunner Jenni Konner, with the twosome ultimately cutting ties in a therapy session. She wrote about an early uncomfortable moment between them in which Konner allegedly told Dunham she was "too thin" for Girls' funny scenes in season 1. When Dunham admitted that she was struggling with eating because of the anxiety and pressures, Konner reportedly said, "It's not that hard.… Just put food in your mouth."

Dunham said she got emotional. "It wasn't until later as I bit into the first of two massive slices of pizza from John's … that she met my eyes: 'Good girl.'" Dunham wrote that she "ate like my job depended on it" and gained 15 pounds in a month.

Tension between Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet

At one point in the book, Dunham casually mentions a falling out between Kirke and Mamet over a romantic interest.

"By season two, cast dynamics were making themselves clear. Jemima and Zosia had bonded quickly in season one and made the very big mistake of moving in together, Zosia taking the spare room in Jemima's apartment,” she wrote. "What began as a love affair — scouring flea markets, matching tattoos — ended in heartbreak when Zosia began to casually date someone Jemima said she had claimed dibs on, despite the fact that she was married with a child."

Kirke quit — then took it back

Dunham and Kirke's friendship outside of the show had ups and downs during production, with Dunham revealing in the book that Kirke "didn't like having me as a boss."

"One day, as she drove home from set, she called me to announce that she was quitting the show: 'I never signed up for all this. It was meant to just be, like, a fun thing. Nobody is going to take me seriously as a painter. I hate learning lines. So can you just write me out?'" she recalls.

Dunham says that collaborators Konner and Apatow reminded her that Kirke had signed a seven-year contract, but Dunham worried about having to enforce it. Dunham subsequently pitched writing Kirke out of the show, noting that "her character is meant to be a flake anyway," but Kirke later changed her mind and confessed she was just "afraid" about telling Dunham that she was pregnant with her second baby.

"I looked at her stomach, poking out of her stirrup leggings — how had I missed it? Maybe it was because, even without child, her weight changed like the weather," she wrote. "Sometimes she was soft and zaftig, other times sinewy and hard, but when I looked at her, all I ever saw was the most beautiful girl in the world."

on Entertainment Weekly

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”