Actress Lena Dunham is opening up about the complicated relationship she had with her “Girls” co-star Adam Driver. The two played an on-again, off-again couple on the HBO comedy series, which ran for six seasons. In her new memoir, “Famesick,” Dunham alleged that he could be volatile and even threw a chair on one occasion. Despite this, she alleged that there was a time when their working relationship almost crossed a boundary when his then-girlfriend, now his wife, was out of town.
Lena Dunham Goes Into Detail On Her Relationship With ‘Girls’ Costar Adam Driver
In her new memoir, “Famesick,” Lena Dunham looked back on her complicated relationship with Adam Driver, which played out both on the small screen and in real life. In her tell-all book, she details how she once saw him hurl a chair at a wall next to her while they were rehearsing a scene. She also claims that she watched him punch a hole through the wall of his trailer on another occasion.
In addition to an allegation that he would scream directly in her face, Dunham also claimed that the pair almost crossed a boundary one month before he got engaged to his now-wife, Joanne Tucker, when Dunham’s parents were out of town, and his then-girlfriend was filming a play in Cincinnati while they lived in New York City.
Lena Dunham Felt Like ‘Partners’ Despite The Chair Incident
In excerpts from the book obtained by Entertainment Weekly, Dunham describes how “we had felt like partners” during the first season of the show, despite the “chair incident.”
“I ran decisions by him that weren’t his to make. We rehearsed on weekends in his spare white living room, even when the scene was easy and didn’t require it,” she wrote. “He hugged me tight in the morning and again at the end of the day.”
She claimed that one time they were standing in the kitchen and she “looked up to see him smiling at me with something so tender, it felt like it could only have been love.” She said that she felt so “disarmed” that she dropped her glass of water.
Lena Dunham Alleges Adam Driver Was ‘Short-Tempered and Verbally Aggressive’
Despite that encounter, Dunham said that they were prone to arguments during those extra rehearsals. “I reasoned that the intensity of his anger at me, anger that could make him spit and throw things, was proportionate to the intensity of our creative connection,” she wrote.
“I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if Adam liked me,” she continued. “He could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically imposing. He could also be protective, loving even.”
She recalled how the “Marriage Story” actor would often be protective of her when she told him she had been mistreated by other men. “The entire feeling was very ‘nobody talks sh-t about my mother but me.’ But did he see me as a mother? A boss? A girl? F-ckable? Unf-ckable? Irritating? Brilliant? He showed flashes of all of these.”
Lena Dunham Alleges She And Adam Driver Almost Crossed A Boundary
Dunham states that their on-screen relationship almost spilled into real life when her parents were out of town, and Tucker was performing a play in Cincinnati.
“That week, the week of my empty apartment, he came over almost every night,” she wrote. “I was still frail and fawning, a careful and terrified version of myself — and maybe he liked me most that way. Maybe it made his heart go out to me, or maybe it just leveled the balance of power.”
By the end of the week, she claimed he had called her while he was leaving a theater. She alleges that he asked, “You still home alone, Dunham?” Then said, “Okay. I’m riding down to you. But I’m warning you, if I come up, I’m not leaving this time.”
She said that she replied, “Call me when you’re outside.”
Lena Dunham Claims She Pretended To Be Asleep To Stop The Encounter
Dunham explained that she stayed up waiting for him; however, when he arrived and called her to tell her that he was outside, she did not answer.
“It felt as simple as ignoring your doorbell, as pretending to be asleep, as impossible as stopping your blood from flowing,” she wrote. “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 claimed that they never spoke about the alleged incident again.
Adam Driver Allegedly Called To Tell Her He Was Engaged A Month Later
One month later, Dunham claimed that Driver called her to say he was engaged, rather than telling her in person. She alleges that he said, “When my girl was away, I realized I’m no good alone. I need someone to keep me in line.”
“It was absurd to be heartbroken, to have thought I meant anything, that I occupied any role beyond distraction. I was his scene partner, sure, and so when we were in a scene, his attention was piercing, his presence all-consuming,” she wrote. “But in life? It would never be me who kept him in line. I didn’t have the chops. Even at work, I couldn’t do it, in the one place I was meant to make the rules.”
Adam Driver has yet to comment on the allegations. He reportedly met Tucker when they were both at school at Juilliard, and they married in June 2013. They welcomed a son in 2016, the same year “Girls” wrapped its final season, and a daughter in early 2023.