Lena Dunham Said Adam Driver Was ‘Feral’ and Violent on ‘Girls’ Set
Lena Dunham recently opened up about her on-set relationship with Adam Driver while filming Girls. Driver played Adam, the on-and-off again boyfriend of Dunham’s character, Hannah. In her new book Famesick, Dunham alleged that Driver was combative and occasionally violent on set.
Lena Dunham wrote about Adam Driver’s behavior on the set of ‘Girls’
Dunham and Driver starred opposite each other in all six seasons of Girls. She admitted that their relationship behind the scenes was fraught. Per The Independent, she described him as “something feral” and “half-man, half-beast” in her new book.
Dunham alleged that Driver became violent with her on more than one occasion. She claimed he threw a chair at her while they were running lines.
“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,” she wrote. “‘WAKE THE F*** UP,’ he told me. ‘I’M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE.’”
She also claimed that he punched a hole in the wall of his trailer because he didn’t like his haircut and screamed in her face more than once.
Lena Dunham said she didn’t know how to address Adam Driver’s behavior
Dunham was both the star and creator of Girls. While it was her show, she said she didn’t know how to respond to Driver’s alleged behavior.
“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 told The Guardian. “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.”
She said that she has worked with many good men over the years. Still, her experiences with Driver made her wish she could work on a women-only set.
“I have lots of amazing men in my life,” she said. “Judd [Apatow] is a great hero of mine; Tim Bevan at Working Title is a huge part of my life and so is cinematographer Sam Levy. I just worked with Mark Ruffalo, the most thoughtful, sensitive, politically engaged, beautiful person. There’s plenty of them walking around. But there were years when I thought: Can’t I just make things that only have women in them?”
She admitted she didn’t expect viewers to like his character
Driver’s character became a fan favorite. Dunham said that this hadn’t been her intent.
“What was interesting was that those dynamics, which in life were scary and lonely, would be recreated on television and people thought they were funny and sexy!” she told The New York Times. “I didn’t write Adam’s character to be a romantic hero. By the end, everyone was like: I want a boyfriend like that! I want a boyfriend who throws two-by-fours and spanks me. That is not what I was going for.”
Famesick is out on April 14.
