Adam Driver ‘threw a chair, screamed at me’, ‘punched a hole in the wall over a bad haircut’: Inside Lena Dunham’s tell-all memoir

In her new tell-all memoir Famesick, actor Lena Dunham has opened up on her experience of working with Adam Driver in Girls. The HBO dramedy show ran for six seasons from 2012 to 2017, and had Dunham doubling up as the showrunner. She played writer Hannah Horvath, who was in a toxic on/off relationship with Driver‘s Adam. Her account in the book reveals that their offscreen relationship was not too different than what transpired on screen. In their first intimate scene, while Dunham tried to go for “careful blocking,” Driver took her by surprise when he “hurled me this way and that”. “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?,” she recalls. While she clarifies she didn’t feel “violated”, she was surely taken aback. “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. But I felt that something intimate, confusing and primal had played out in a scenario I was meant to control,” adds Dunham. In another instance, Dunham recalled rehearsing for an intense fight scene with Driver late at night. Overwhelmed by the pressure of running a show at the age of 24, Dunham caved in and forgot her lines. “When I opened my mouth, all that came out was a stammer — until finally, Adam screamed, ‘F*CKING SAY SOMETHING,’ and hurled a chair at the wall next to me. ‘WAKE THE F*CK UP,’ he told me. ‘I’M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE,'” writes Dunham. Dunham also recalled Driver “could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically imposing” that he once “punched a hole in his trailer wall” only because “he hated his new haircut”. She described another incident in which she apologised to him for “a perceived slight I couldn’t remember committing”. Driver got intimidatingly close to her and whispered, “Never forget that I know you. I really f*cking know you.” Dunham confesses that despite Driver’s unpredictable behaviour, she often wondered if he liked her. He could also be “protective, loving even” as he visited her every day of a week when she was battling anxiety. “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 minimising any authority I still had, and that, however it went, my heart — bruised but improbably not yet broken — would crack,” she adds. While they never discusses that episode again, Dunham felt “heartbroken” when Driver informed her that he’s engaged to longtime girlfriend Joanne Tucker. “It was absurd to be heartbroken, to have thought I meant anything, that I occupied any role beyond distraction,” writes Dunham. While they “had barely spoken in three years,” the two kept crying between takes while filming the finale in 2017. Also Read — ‘I don’t want to die here’: Vikram Bhatt opens up about health scare in Udaipur Central Jail “It felt, for just a moment, like he was saying sorry. Maybe I was, too — for never knowing how to manage him, what he needed, how to avoid making his face contort with frustration and rage,” writes Dunham. “I hope you know I’ll always love you,” Driver told her after the wrap. However, she confirms that she “never heard from him again”. This account explores complex professional and personal dynamics, including descriptions of emotional distress and volatile behavior. It is shared for informational purposes as a reflection of the author’s personal experiences and does not constitute professional psychological or relationship advice. Click for more updates and latest Hollywood News along with Bollywood and Entertainment updates. Also get latest news and top headlines from India and around the World at The Indian Express.