Age, Biography, and Wiki
Lena Dunham was born into a family of artists; her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter, and her mother, Laurie Simmons, is a renowned artist and photographer. She grew up in Brooklyn and spent summers in Salisbury, Connecticut. Dunham is known for her versatile career, which spans from acting to writing and directing. She has been recognized with numerous awards, including multiple Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe Award for her work on Girls.
| Occupation | Civil Rights Activists |
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| Date of Birth | 13 May 1986 |
| Age | 39 Years |
| Birth Place | New York City, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Lena Dunham's current height and weight are not widely reported, she is often described as having a distinctive presence on screen.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Lena Dunham was previously in a relationship with Jack Antonoff, a musician and producer, but they parted ways. As of recent years, there is limited public information about her current romantic relationships.
Her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter, and her mother, Laurie Simmons, is an artist and photographer, and a member of The Pictures Generation, known for her use of dolls and dollhouse furniture in her photographs of setup interior scenes. Her father is Protestant of mostly English ancestry; whereas her mother is Jewish. Dunham has described herself as feeling "very culturally Jewish, although that's the biggest cliché for a Jewish woman to say." The Modern Hebrew poetry of Yehuda Amichai helped her to connect with her Judaism.
Dunham had a career breakthrough with her semi-autobiographical 2010 feature film Tiny Furniture; the film won Best Narrative Feature at South by Southwest Music and Media Conference, and subsequently screened at such festivals as Maryland Film Festival. Dunham plays the lead role of Aura. Laurie Simmons (Dunham's real-life mother) plays Aura's mother, and Dunham's real-life sibling Cyrus plays Aura's on-screen sibling. For her work on Tiny Furniture, Dunham also won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.
The series follows Hannah Horvath (portrayed by Dunham), a 20-something writer struggling to get by in New York City. Some of the struggles facing Dunham's character Hannah—including being cut off financially from her parents, becoming a writer and making unfortunate decisions—are inspired by Dunham's real-life experiences.
In 2016, Dunham appeared in her mother's film, My Art, which had its world premiere at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. She also voiced Mary in My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, a 2016 American animated teen comedy drama film directed by Dash Shaw. It was selected to be screened in the Vanguard section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. Dunham also filmed scenes for the film Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, but they were cut from the final film.
In November 2017, Dunham defended Girls writer Murray Miller, whom actress Aurora Perrineau had accused of sexually assaulting her in 2012 when she was seventeen. Dunham responded to the accusations by saying: "While our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story, our insider knowledge of Murray's situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year." After an immediate backlash, Dunham apologized for that statement, saying that it was "absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement" and that "every woman who comes forward deserves to be heard, fully and completely, and our relationship to the accused should not be part of the calculation anyone makes when examining her case." Dunham was described as a "hipster racist" for her defense of Miller, as Perrineau is of mixed race. In December 2018, Dunham stated that, contrary to her previous statement, she had no "insider information" that exonerated Murray.
In 2012, Dunham began dating Jack Antonoff, the lead guitarist of the band fun. and the founder of Bleachers. Dunham and Antonoff remained together until December 2017; they subsequently separated announcing that the separation was "amicable".
After a mutual friend set them up on a blind date, Dunham began dating English-Peruvian musician Luis Felber in January 2021. In September 2021, Dunham and Felber married in a Jewish ceremony at the Union Club in Soho.
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| Husband | Luis Felber (m. 2021) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2024, Lena Dunham's net worth is estimated to be around $20 million, according to Equity Atlas. However, other sources suggest it might be closer to $12 million. Her earnings come from her successful television series Girls, her book Not That Kind of Girl, and various other projects. During her time on Girls, she reportedly earned $150,000 per episode.
Notable articles include an essay written by actress Jennifer Lawrence about the gender wage gap in Hollywood, and one written by singer Alicia Keys about her decision to start wearing little to no make-up.
Career, Business, and Investments
- Early Career: Dunham began her career in film with the 2010 independent film Tiny Furniture, which she wrote, directed, and starred in.
- Girls: She is best known for creating, writing, and starring in the HBO series Girls, which ran for six seasons and earned her multiple awards and nominations.
- Recent Projects: Dunham has continued to work on various television projects, including Camping and Industry, and is set to release Too Much in 2025.
- Business Ventures: Apart from her work in television and film, Dunham has invested in real estate, previously owning homes in Brooklyn and Hollywood.
Lena Dunham (born May 13, 1986) is an American writer, director, actress, and producer. She is the creator, writer, and star of the HBO television series Girls (2012–2017), for which she received several Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. Dunham also directed several episodes of Girls and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series. She started her career writing, directing, and starring in her semi-autobiographical independent film Tiny Furniture (2010), for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. She has since written and directed the 2022 films Sharp Stick and Catherine Called Birdy.
On January 5, 2015, days before the premiere of the fourth season, Girls was renewed for a fifth season, despite dwindling viewership. That year, Dunham launched A Casual Romance Productions, a production company to develop television and film projects. The company produced It's Me Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise. On February 20, 2015, it was reported that Dunham had been cast in a guest role in an episode of the ABC drama series Scandal, which aired March 19, 2015. In September 2015, Dunham stated that the sixth season of Girls was likely to be the last. This was later confirmed by HBO.
In response to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, in March 2020 Dunham announced she would write a serialized novel, Verified Strangers, as a response to social isolation. She added that the act was a response to help herself and the readers in a time of anxiety. The serialization started later that month on the Vogue website. Dunham directed and served as an executive producer on the first episode of HBO's Industry. That same year, she appeared in The Stand In directed by Jamie Babbit.
In 2015, Dunham, with Jenni Konner, co-founded Lenny Letter, a feminist online newsletter. Lenny Letter was initially supported by Hearst Corporation advertising, and subsequently by Condé Nast. In addition to the regular newsletter, Lenny Letter published a Fiction Issue and a Poetry Issue during fall 2015.
Social Network
Lena Dunham is active on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, where she engages with her fans and shares insights into her personal and professional life.
Dunham briefly appeared in films such as Supporting Characters and This Is 40 (both 2012), and Happy Christmas (2014). She voiced Mary in the 2016 film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. On television, aside from Girls, she has played guest roles in Scandal and The Simpsons (both 2015). In 2017, she portrayed Valerie Solanas in American Horror Story: Cult.
Dunham's work, as well as her outspoken presence on social media and in interviews, have attracted significant controversy, praise, criticism, and media scrutiny throughout her career.
While a student at Oberlin College, Dunham produced several independent short films and uploaded them to YouTube. Many of her early films dealt with themes of sexual enlightenment and were produced in a mumblecore filmmaking style, a dialogue-heavy style in which young people talk about their personal relationships. In 2006, she produced Pressure, in which a girl and two friends talk about experiencing an orgasm for the first time, which makes Dunham's character feel pressured to do so as well. "I didn't go to film school", Dunham explains. "Instead I went to liberal arts school and self-imposed a curriculum of creating tiny flawed video sketches, brief meditations on comic conundrums, and slapping them on the Internet."
Another early film, entitled The Fountain, which depicted her in a bikini brushing her teeth in the public fountain at Oberlin College, went viral on YouTube. "Her blithe willingness to disrobe without shame caused an outburst of censure from viewers," observed The New Yorker Rebecca Mead. Dunham was shocked by the backlash and decided to take the video down:
"There were just pages of YouTube comments about how fat I was, or how not fat I was,' Dunham said. 'I didn't want you to Google me and the first thing you see is a debate about whether my breasts are misshapen.'"
"I got a copy of Tiny Furniture from [HBO president] Sue Naegle. Actually, [New Girl creator] Liz Meriwether told me about it and said, 'Oh, there's this great movie. This girl, she's 23, she wrote, directed, and starred in it; she's in her underwear the whole time.' And I was like, 'I really don't want to see that.' And then she was like, 'Oh, trust me, it's great.' So Sue gave it to me just because she had it ... I used to, like, give out copies of the movie. But I'd just broken up with my writing partner and couldn't be less interested in the idea of supervising anybody. I really was like, 'I'm going to find my voice, and be on my own.' And then they called me and they were like, 'Oh, the Tiny Furniture girl is doing a show, do you want to supervise her?' And I was like, 'Yes! One million percent. Sign me up. Totally on board.'"
In 2017, Dunham portrayed Valerie Solanas, the real-life radical feminist and SCUM Manifesto author who attempted to murder Andy Warhol in the late 1960s, in American Horror Story: Cult.
In August 2018, it was announced Dunham would appear in the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, directed by Quentin Tarantino, which released on July 26, 2019. Dunham portrayed the role of Catherine "Gypsy" Share. In October 2018, coinciding with the expiration of their joint HBO contract, Dunham and Konner split as producing partners and dissolved their production company. In August 2019, Dunham launched a new production company named Good Thing Going, which had a first look deal with HBO.
Dunham has received criticism for her production of the film Orgasm Inc.: The Story of OneTaste. Hundreds of women and men claim that Dunham's production company was responsible for using their images without their consent, filing a lawsuit against Netflix to disallow the film, signing petitions, and creating viral videos protesting the violation. The film reportedly relies on "personal journals" attorneys have claimed to be fabricated despite the film presenting itself as a documentary.
Dunham's work and her outspoken presence on social media and in interviews have attracted significant controversy, criticism, and media scrutiny throughout her career. On several occasions, Dunham has been accused of making racially insensitive remarks. Upon release, Girls was met with criticism regarding the all-white main cast in the otherwise culturally diverse setting of New York City. Though some pointed out that many Americans are friends with other people of the same race, and adding a "token" African-American or Asian-American friend would be "immature" to reality. Donald Glover guest starred as Sandy, a black Republican and Hannah's love interest, in the first two episodes of season two, which was criticized as tokenism in response to the initial backlash from the first season.
Dunham spoke publicly about the criticism on several occasions; in an interview with IndieWire, she said: "I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I wrote two Jews and two WASPs. Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in casting. If I had one of the four girls, if, for example, she was African-American, I feel like—not that the experience of an African-American girl and a white girl are drastically different, but there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn't able to speak to. I really wrote the show from a gut-level place, and each character was a piece of me or based on someone close to me. And only later did I realize that it was four white girls. As much as I can say it was an accident, it was only later as the criticism came out, I thought, 'I hear this and I want to respond to it.' And this is a hard issue to speak to because all I want to do is sound sensitive and not say anything that will horrify anyone or make them feel more isolated, but I did write something that was super-specific to my experience, and I always want to avoid rendering an experience I can't speak to accurately."
In September 2016, Dunham criticized NFL player Odell Beckham Jr. for his interactions with her at the Met Gala. Dunham said: "I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, 'That's a marshmallow. That's a child. That's a dog.' It wasn't mean — he just seemed confused. The vibe was very much like, 'Do I want to f--- it? Is it wearing a ... yep, it's wearing a tuxedo. I'm going to go back to my cell phone." She added, "It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, 'This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes'." Dunham was criticized for her comments, which some considered to be an example of "white entitlement". She later apologized for her characterization of his interactions and thoughts.
In December 2016, Dunham declared on a podcast that she wished she had had an abortion, explaining that she wanted to better understand women who have. The comment was widely condemned as insensitive. Dunham later issued a lengthy apology on her Instagram.
In October 2018, Dunham was hired to write the screenplay for an untitled film based upon the memoir A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival, by Melissa Fleming, which follows the true story of Doaa Al Zamel, who fled Egypt for Europe and became one of few survivors of a shipwrecked refugee boat, surviving days in open water and supporting herself and two orphaned children with only an inflatable water ring. Steven Spielberg and J. J. Abrams are set to produce the film. Dunham's hiring received backlash from those who felt that, instead of Dunham, a Syrian woman should have been hired. Daniel Medina, a journalist, wrote: "Lena Dunham constantly talks about representation as crucial to enrich storytelling. Yet, in practice, she has shown a disregard for actually elevating those voices. Now, she's been signed on to write a Syrian refugee's story?". Author Alia Malek stated: "The idea that Lena Dunham is better situated to tell the story of a Syrian than somebody else implicit in that is a kind of hierarchy."
In January 2022, ahead of the film's Sundance premiere, autistic self-advocate and sex educator Amy Gravino posted a Twitter thread alleging that she was approached to be a consultant on Dunham's film Sharp Stick, but was subsequently "ghosted" before she had a chance to meet with Dunham in person. In a Variety article covering the subject, Gravino claimed that the film's star, Kristine Froseth, had approached her business manager while doing research for her character Sarah Jo, whom she concluded displayed characteristics that suggested she was autistic. Gravino also claimed that Dunham had personally done research on her work and was excited to meet with her. However, according to the film's producers, Dunham rejected Froseth's suggestion to approach Gravino, and clarified to Froseth that she had never intended to depict Sarah Jo as autistic.
In July 2020, Dunham reported on Instagram her experience with COVID-19 because she observed people were not taking social distancing seriously. Though she was not hospitalized, she did have "severe symptoms for three weeks".
In fall of 2012, Dunham appeared in a video advertisement promoting President Barack Obama's re-election, delivering a monologue, which, according to a blog quoted in The Atlantic, tried to "get the youth vote by comparing voting for the first time to having sex for the first time". Fox News reported criticism from conservatives such as Media Research Center's Lauren Thompson, public relations professional Ronn Torossian, and media trainer Louise Pennell, who labeled the advertisement as tasteless, inappropriate, and a ploy to lure the younger female vote. It included a comment from Steve Hall of Ad Rants saying that "not everyone was so offended." A friend of Dunham said the actress was not paid for her performance on the spot, and Dunham defended the ad by tweeting "The video may be light but the message is serious: vote for women's rights." In The Nation, Ari Melber wrote "the ad's style is vintage Lena: edgy and informed, controversial but achingly self-aware, sexually proud and affirmatively feminist."
Education
Dunham attended Oberlin College, graduating in 2008 with a degree in creative writing. Her educational background has significantly influenced her career in writing and filmmaking.
With her continued involvement in the entertainment industry, Lena Dunham remains a significant figure in contemporary media, known for her creative genius and controversial yet captivating storytelling.
Dunham attended Friends Seminary before transferring in seventh grade to Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, where she met Tiny Furniture actress and future Girls co-star Jemima Kirke. As a teen, Dunham also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. She attended The New School for a year before transferring to Oberlin College, where she graduated in 2008 with a degree in creative writing.
She has a younger sibling, Cyrus, a 2014 graduate of Brown University, who appeared in Dunham's first film, Creative Nonfiction, and starred in her second film, Tiny Furniture. The siblings were raised in Brooklyn and spent summers in Salisbury, Connecticut.
Also in 2009, Dunham premiered Creative Nonfiction — a comedy where she plays Ella, a college student struggling to complete a screenplay — at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. She was initially rejected by the festival the year before; she re-edited and successfully resubmitted the film.
Dunham claimed in her book Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned" that she had been sexually assaulted by a person she called "Barry". Other details in the book indicated that "Barry" was a former Oberlin College classmate. In the book, Dunham describes "Barry" as a man who wore cowboy boots, sported a mustache, hosted a radio show, worked at a campus library, and graduated from Oberlin in 2005; this description was characterized by the attorney of Dunham's former classmate as detailed enough to point towards his client. Dunham later apologized for the confusion and Random House reprinted the book with a disclaimer, releasing a statement saying: "Random House, on our own behalf and on behalf of our author, regrets the confusion." Other passages in the book recounting interactions of a sexual nature, starting when she was seven years old – with her then one-year-old sibling Grace (now Cyrus) – also attracted significant controversy, and prompted numerous editorials about children's sexuality and personal boundaries.
