Recommendations of the Editorial team
In the HBO series “Girls,” the relationship between characters Hannah Horvath and Adam Sackler was marked by intense emotional outbursts and crushing heartbreaks – a potential for conflict that unfolded over six seasons.
And the behind-the-scenes dynamic between creator and star Lena Dunham and actor Adam Driver sometimes mirrored what was seen on screen – Dunham has now revealed in her new book “Famesick: A Memoir,” Variety reports.
She writes in it that she repeatedly found herself in uncertain territory alongside Driver while filming the much-loved series, which ran from 2012 to 2017. Whose “anger could make him spit and throw things was proportional to the intensity of our creative connection.”
No comment from Driver
A spokesman for Driver did not immediately respond to ROLLING STONE’s request for comment.
Dunham details a number of incidents that happened during filming – including one early in the first season when they were filming their first sex scene. “He threw me here and there,” Dunham writes. “Stunned, I couldn’t make a sound, unsure of what had just happened – had I given up control, derailed the scene, given no clear instructions? Would I be removed from my post immediately?”
“Not that I felt violated – and I probably wouldn’t have even noticed, because there was little in my sex life that I didn’t allow, and without any payment,” she continues. “But I felt like something intimate, confusing and primal had happened in a moment that I should have been in control of.”
Throwing stools during rehearsals
On another occasion, during a rehearsal in her trailer, she stumbled on her lines, causing Driver to reportedly freak out: he “threw a chair against the wall next to me” and yelled, “SAY SOMETHING…WAKE UP THE FUCK…I’M SICK OF WATCHING YOU STARING.”
Although Driver could be “short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically intimidating,” Dunham writes, he was also “protective, even loving” – she recalls a period of fear and tension in which he held her up.
She was deeply affected by the news that Driver had become engaged to his current wife, Joanne Tucker. “It was absurd to be down, to have thought I mattered to him, to have any role beyond a distraction,” Dunham writes. “I was his scene partner, of course – and when we were in a scene, his attention was pervasive, his presence dominating everything. But in life? It would never be me who kept him in check. I didn’t have the tools for that. I couldn’t even manage it at work, of all places where I should have set the rules.”
Last day of filming, last word
After filming their final scene together in season six – in a Brooklyn diner, where their characters clumsily spooned soup – Driver told her he would always love her. They haven’t spoken to each other since then.
