Eight years after Girls ended, Lena Dunham is returning to the small screen with Netflix‘s Too Much.
The Golden Globe winner recently explained why she took an “intentional break” from acting and public life after facing backlash around several controversies involving her breakout HBO comedy-drama, which ran for six seasons from 2012 to 2017.
“I didn’t really understand how to distinguish between what was and wasn’t necessary for the public. I felt confused about how I was supposed to respond,” she told The Times. “I thought if I explain properly who I am, or give a glimpse of who I am, people are going to have a different perception of me, that we would be friends. But no one cares — and that’s fine.”
Dunham added, “I always joke that I need a T-shirt that says, ‘I survived New York media in 2012 and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.’ And all I got was this lousy PTSD.”
In addition to criticism around the show’s lack of diversity and other controversies, Dunham faced backlash for her support of series writer/executive producer Murray Miller after actress Aurora Perrineau accused him of sexual assault in 2017.
Going to rehab for an addiction to prescription anxiety medication, Dunham “felt like all the maturing and changing that had been kept at bay by the experience of being in that cocoon of the show was suddenly happening at a speed that was overwhelming. It was a painful metamorphosis. I definitely took an intentional break [from public life].”
Premiering July 10 on Netflix, Too Much stars Meg Stalter as New Yorker Jessica, who moves to London after a disastrous breakup and sparks a romance with musician Felix (Will Sharpe). Co-created by Dunham and husband Luis Felber, the Girls alum plays Jessica’s older sister, who has similarly retreated from public life after a messy divorce sent her moving back in with their mom.
Dunham originally opted not to appear in the series, explaining she “was not willing to have another experience like what I’d experienced around Girls at this point in my life” with the body shaming she faced on the show. “Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again,” she told The New Yorker last July.
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