Cheyenne Roundtree
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Lena Dunham and Adam Driver in 'Girls.' Craig Blankenhorn/HBO In the HBO show Girls, characters Hannah Horvath and Adam Sackler’s relationship was filled with intense emotional flare-ups and crushing heartaches, with the contention playing out across six seasons.
And the real-life dynamic between creator and star Lena Dunham and actor Adam Driver sometimes mirrored what was happening on screen, Dunham has revealed in her new book, Famesick: A Memoir, according to Variety.
The multi-hyphenate wrote that while filming the beloved series, which ran from 2012 to 2017, she continually found herself on unsure footing around Driver, whose “anger could make him spit and throw things, was proportionate to the intensity of our creative connection.”
A representative for Driver did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
Dunham went on to list a series of incidents that occurred during filming, including early-on in Season One when they were shooting their first sex scene. “He hurled me this way and that,” Dunham wrote. “Stunned, 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 sexual life that I hadn’t allowed to happen, and for no pay,” she continued. “But I felt that something intimate, confusing and primal had played out in a scenario I was meant to control.”
Another time, while rehearsing in her trailer, Dunham said she was stammering over her lines when Driver allegedly lashed out, “hurl[ing] a chair at the wall next to me,” and screaming, “FUCKING SAY SOMETHING … WAKE THE FUCK UP … I’M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE.”
Though Driver “could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically imposing,” Dunham wrote, the actor could also be “protective, loving even,” recalling a time when Driver comforted her during a prolonged, anxiety-filled week.
