In 2010 Lena Dunham created TV show Girls, and quickly became one of the most talked about people on the planet. For the past four years every tweet, throwaway comment and outfit choice she's made has been subject to intense speculation. She's faced as much criticism as she has praise, and her views on feminism, sex and body image seem to spawn about zillion new think pieces each day.
Which is why an opportunity to meet Lena IRL is not to be missed. Shorter than you think, ordering tea and crumpets ('They're just so British!') and lying on a sofa in some ripped jeans and Converse because her back's been hurting, in one sense she's like any other 20-something.
Until she starts talking. About the Ched Evans case, how it's pretty awkward that David Cameron won't wear a feminist t-shirt, and her debut book Not That Kind Of Girl. And you realise she's got some views it's worth adopting and passing off as your own... ****
The Debrief: HELLO LENA DUNHAM! H****ow’s the book tour been for Not That Kind Of Girl? You’ve been everywhere!
Lena: The tour’s been amazing. I think the coolest thing about tour has been that I meet so many women who have like the same sense of humour as me. Like the same way Twitter has been a really good opportunity for us to meet tons of girls that we connect to. It was basically like making my Twitter a live hugging session; and you know when you’re doing a show you don’t get to meet that many people, so it’s been a really remarkable thing to meet some lovely folks.
**DB: So what has the reaction been to the book?
**
****L: Girls have been lovely. My favourite is obviously when people share their similar experiences with me and make me feel like a little less like a weirdo girl. I also love when guys respond to it too - there's a really good assortment of smart, sensitive men in the house.
**DB: A lot of authors write memories when they’re older and they reflect on their twenties like ‘oh that was ages ago’ but you've retold all the awkward memories that happened not that long ago. Did you find it scary writing so honestly? **
L: Yeah it was part of the reason I wanted to write a book now because I wanted to reflect on what was happening in the moment. Like I feel like your teens and twenties are such a time of transition and I wanted to be able to talk about it in a really unique way.
READ MORE: Lena Dunham Has Released A Ton Of Brilliant Advice Videos In YouTube
DB: I can’t remember what I had for dinner even a month ago. You write in such amazing detail, did you have to ring any friends and ask them to jog your memory?
L:** **I have one of those freaky memories where just like certain details and smells just stand out.
It’s kind of always been my blessing and my curse although a lot of my friends I feel they have less good memories than I do so they deny things that I say. They’re like, 'that didn’t happen….'
DB: The chapter that appears to have really resonated with our readers is the one where you talk about a drunken evening, after which you realise that you were raped. Such a brave thing to have written about.
L: Thank you so much. It was a big deal for me to write about it. It’s a topic that you know I’m not the only person talking about right now and I’m not talking about it in a vacuum and there are a lot of other women who have made me feel the confidence to start that dialogue and that’s really meaningful. Like we’re having a real moment of reckoning culturally with ideas about what consent is and what it means. I feel like it’s cropping up everywhere.
DB: There’s a big story in the UK about a footballer Ched Evans and whether he should be allowed to return to professional sport after serving his rape conviction. What are your views on that?
L: URGHH! The fact that the girl’s been subject to so much abuse that she had to basically move to another country! Like the entire thing is so dark. The thing that’s interesting is that when I published that chapter I had women who were close to me say they had that experience. Women who I thought I knew every detail of their lives but they had somehow not felt comfortable saying to me ‘I was in this situation’, ‘I was assaulted’, I had to deal with the consequences of it’.
Even though there has been some criticism of it by the American right wing or whatever else, those interactions with women make it all worthwhile and just really feel like your part of something, like you’re redefining a conversation that’s been really destructive for women up to this point.
I read about that Ched Evans thing because people forwarded me these stories to give me a sense of ‘this is a global problem’ and something I see over and over again is women who are afraid to talk about it because they’re afraid that in addition to what they’ve already been through they’re now going to suffer abuse and isolation. It’s really remarkable that we’re living in a culture where the victim not the perpetrator is dealing with those fears. It’s like so Twilight Zone crazy.
DB: You've also been very vocal about contraception and abortion laws, especially on Twitter. Do you make a conscious effort when writing the GIRLS sex scenes to put a focus on** contraception in there?**
L: Yes. Something I’ve always disliked about movies and was trying to counteract is the way that it seems like people like seamlessly made love and there was no discussion of like, ‘Well how are you not going to get pregnant?” or 'How are you not going to get chlamydia?'
One of the reasons I've partnered with Planned Parenthood in the US and I’ve been so happy to advocate with them is because they do two things. They actually treat women, they actually provide reproductive health care for women; and girls and teenagers and family planning stuff; and they also support candidates who support women so it’s like that 2 pronged attack of both treating women on a super personal level and trying to deal with the all the law making around it.
DB: At the moment in the UK our Prime Minister David Cameron won’t wear a feminist T-shirt...**
**
L: WHAT?! HE HAS TO!!
DB: Would your American politians wear the T-shirt?
L: There’s a big dialogue happening about feminism and women's needs and luckily I think Obama - he’s like actually walking the walk about women's rights and he really cares. He’s an amazing husband, he’s a father of two daughters and he gives a shit about women. But there’s a lot of politicians who don’t and there is a lot of celebrities who won’t identify as feminists, because they feel like somehow it’s unsexy.
What’s so cool is that some of our nation's top women from Beyonce to Taylor Swift identify themselves as feminists and the amount that that must influence young girls is just immeasurable because I have a very niche audience. You know a lot of people who I talk to were liberal already, have always been feminists, have always you know come into it with these politics whereas Taylor and Beyonce - they have the power to change people's minds because when you have a pop platform like that people are listening in a whole different way. So to watch them embrace that language it like makes my heart flutter.
DB: Yeah it’s awesome, like when Caitlin Moran says that if you make something really cool, everyone wants to part of it. Like a massive feminist party.
L: Yeah well right now I do feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment where feminism is suddenly like the cool club. It's like suddenly we have cool shoes and cool hair and we’re doing it. And it’s not just a group of enraged bra burners. Believe me, I'm grateful for the enraged bra burners. They made it possible for us to exist in the capacity that we do now and I recognise that to the moon and back and I actually do admire their chic fashion sense. But it’s a cool moment to consider yourself a feminist. Even beside the politics there’s just cute fashion.
READ MORE: Caitlin Moran On How To Deal With Life When You're Still Figuring It Out
DB: Can we talk about Taylor Swift? We're obsessed with her.
L: Did you listen to her new album?
DB: YES! And we interviewed your boyfriend Jack a few months ago (who worked on the album)...
L: I know he told me!
DB: And during that interview he was being kind of cryptic about his music making with Taylor...
L: I know I think he thought, 'I'm going to get sued if I even say a word.' The album is so good… like leaving aside the fact that she’s my friend and he’s my boyfriend, I would be obsessed with this album. He texted me like, ‘How do you feel as an OG Swiftie [that's Original Gang, fyi] about the album?' Because I am. I’ve been listening since she was 15 and playing Teardrops on my guitar. Like I love the album and what I love about it is that it's like a kind of sexy, angry, complicated album. It’s less about love - which believe me I LOVED WHEN she wrote about love - but this one's much more about like coming into who you are and owning your own power as a woman.
READ MORE: Jack Antonoff From Bleachers Talks About Anxiety And Being Lena Dunham's Boyfriend
DB: We love how she takes people down if they ask annoying sexist questions in interviews....
L: If I could just absorb an eighth of what she has; like her interview prowess, I would be very proud.
DB: We wrote a story this week on The Debrief based on you and Taylor Swift about why we should celebrate other women's success more.
L: We’re so lucky to be part of a community of women we’re all just psyched for each other’s accomplishments.
DB: We like the quote "One woman's success is a success for all women".
L: Yeah! A rising tide lifts all boats. When something great happens to one of my friends and something great happens to me and I think they all feel the same way and it makes us all feel empowered and it’s like the happiest thing in the world and I could not feel luckier.
There’s this article Anne Friedman wrote about ‘Shine Theory’ which is the idea if like I shine you shine; like your shine rubs off on me.
I also think like women being pitted against each other is definitely something the media has pushed on us since we were young girls so it's hard to know what’s our idea and what’s this image of female friendship, which has been hoisted on us which is this idea that somehow we’re not happy for each other which is bonkers because for me - you know - my mom, my sisters, my friends, their accomplishments are more exciting for me then my own in a lot of ways which sounds like ‘oh I’m so selfless’ but it’s not selfless it’s just the selfish joy of getting to be around women who are kicking ass.
**DB: Yeah so true. How do you find the time to keep up with all social media in between the book...GIRLS...all your different projects? **
L: People are like how do you find the time? I always say, ‘Well I don’t exercise which helps a lot.’ Frees up a whole hour in the day. I don’t exercise or sleep enough and it frees up a lot of hours.
**DB: Do you ever have anxiety? **
L: I have anxiety all day everyday.
DB: Is there anything you do to counteract it?
L: I meditate, I talk to friends, I write, I take naps, I try to remind myself that the Internet is a fast moving river and all of the trash gets swept down it quickly and … stuff doesn’t last.
DB: You must have changed a lot since GIRLS first started.
L: ****Yeah I started working on girls when I was 23 and now I’m 28 and a half.
DB: Is this growth reflected in the new series would you say?
L: Yeah I think it is. I think like Hannah is growing and changing and shedding a little of her narcissistic mania and that’s a really really exciting thing just as an actor. It's exciting to play somebody who’s growing and changing.
DB: So who do you love in the UK?
L: The whole cast of Call The Midwife. I love them. I love Lily Allen. I love FKA Twigs. I love… Oh my god there’s so many people I love in the UK now I’m feeling all stocked up with love. Also my friend Polly Stenham. Shes a playwright and I love her. I have some friends who are fashion designers like Erdem and Peter Jensen and I get to see them, which is really nice. I really love Nina Stibbe who’s a writer; she’s incredible and I love her books so I’m going to get to meet her. Obviously I would not be upset if I saw Cara Delevingne kicking around because I love her. Impressing everyone with her eyebrows.
READ MORE: Lily Allen Exclusive: If You Want To Remembered You Have To Stand For Something
DB: One of the questions from The Debrief team was ‘Please can Lena do a Girls in the UK?”
L: That’s amazing. I mean I would love nothing more then to see Girls UK because I love BBC and its been like… British television is a huge influence on me, everything from Ab Fab to Prime Suspect, I love the way television is made over here because I feel like it’s really been elevated to an art form here even before it was in the US. You know I love a funny British girl, I’ve got one on my own show!
DB: Yes!
L: Even though Jessa's accent I’ve been told by people in the actual UK is a little bit wonky.
You can buy Lena's Not That Kind Of Girl now.
Like this? Then you might be interested in:
Significant Life Lessons We've Learnt From Lena Dunham's Book Not That Kind Of Girl
An Open Letter To The Women Who Think They Don't Need Feminism. Clue: You Do
Follow Emma on Twitter @girllostincity
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.