I am a fan of the show Girls. I've seen every single episode. I think Lena Dunham is an astonishingly talented writer and performer. My older daughter, also named Lena, is around the same age as the girls portrayed on the show and about to be in that no man's land of "We've graduated college, now what are we supposed to do? There are expectations of us, not to mention the ones we have of ourselves and we're trying to find our way." It's so well presented and heartbreakingly funny I feel hurled back to that time as I watch it.
I'm also aware that Girls is incredibly polarizing, which bewilders me because not only do I think it's good but I think it just gets better and better. That's why, when Gail Lerner, the writer and director of Girls: Season 38, sent me her script, explaining to me that it "wasn't just a parody but also a valentine" to the show, I was curious to read it. Without giving anything away, let me just say I think that Gail is a truly original and extremely funny writer and the script was as solid as they come. But here's the catch; she wanted me to play the role of Hannah.
In my life as a character actor, I would usually be Shosh or if you squinted your eyes really hard, I could pull off Jessa because I'm pretty good with dialects. I thought I could easily talk Gail out of my playing Hannah and she'd think my playing Shosh was a great idea, but Gail said she "needed me to play Hannah" or some other bullshit director con like that. Frankly, I was scared. The second scene is a sex scene... wait... I just gave something away... oh, what the fuck. I knew it was, (ahem)... "essential to the plot" and it was funny for crying out loud. But I've had two nine-pound babies and I'm fat. If I was going to reconcile this, I would just have to think of my body as a clown suit. Yes, that was going to work for me.
So, ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to see is me taking a big fat leap of faith. I am not Lena Dunham with all of her courage and bravado. I just play her in a web parody.