Lena Dunham

Actress, Writer, Director & Producer

About This Expert

Lena Dunham, American actress, writer, director, and producer known for advancing a feminist perspective coloured by the experiences of the millennial generation, most visibly on the television series Girls. In 2013, Dunham was named one of Time’s most influential people in the world.

Dunham made a huge splash in the entertainment business for her HBO series Girls, which premiered in 2012. The edgy show follows a bunch of 20-something women living in New York City. The characters and storylines are often inspired by events from the creator’s life. Dunham, named “Coolest Person of the Year” by TIME magazine in 2012, fulfills several roles for Girls—actress, director, producer and writer. Her series has already been approved for a third season. Plus, she took home two Golden Globe awards in 2013: one for her performance as Hannah on the show, the other for her work behind the scenes.

After graduating from Oberlin, Dunham produced her own web series, Delusion Downtown Divas, about three young women raised in the art world. The up-and-comer’s next project, however, would be her big break: In 2010, at age 23, Dunham produced the short Tiny Furniture, a semi-autobiographical story about a college grad who gets ditched by her significant other, and, subsequently, moves back home with her mom and sister. Dunham spent only $45,000 on the film, which she shot in her family’s apartment in just 18 days. The work wound up winning the South by Southwest Film Festival’s best narrative feature award.

Tiny Furniture’s success led Dunham to writer and filmmaker Judd Apatow, producer of blockbusters such as Bridesmaids and Knocked Up. Apatow signed on to executive produce Dunham’s debut original series, Girls, which airs on HBO, and follows the constant dramatic disasters and rare triumphs of a group of 20-something women living in New York City. In addition to creating and continuing to write episodes for Girls, Dunham directs and stars in the series; she plays Hannah Horvath, an aspiring writer who pays the bills as a barista, on the show. (Dunham has never taken acting lessons. However, before Girls, she had bit parts in the 2011 HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce and the indie horror movie The Innkeepers.)

Girls is known for its dark comedy antics, frequent nude scenes and risqué subject matter. Despite often being a target of critics, the show has garnered acclaim for pushing the envelope in its portrayal of young, sexually focused women, and earned Dunham several Emmy nominations and two 2013 Golden Globe Awards. The star scored media buzz following her Golden Globe acceptance speech in January 2013; during her narrative, she thanked actor Chad Lowe, poking fun at Lowe’s ex, Hilary Swank, for forgetting to mention her then-husband in her 2000 Oscar-winning speech.

Dunham has continued to earn praise for her work on Girls. In 2014, she received an Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Hannah Horvath. She also appeared in the dramatic comedy Happy Christmas with Anna Kendrick that same year.

Dunham also stole the spotlight in 2012 for appearing in a controversial commercial for President Barack Obama during his campaign, in which she compared voting for the first time to having sex for the first time.

In late 2012, Dunham signed a reported $3.7 million deal with Random House for a book featuring essays about sex and love, tentatively titled Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s Learned.

A triple threat in the entertainment industry as a writer, filmmaker and actress, Dunham seems unstoppable. As she told Vanity Fair in 2012, “Hard work pays off. I am so annoyed at my father for being right about that.”