Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham is an American writer, director, actress, and producer born on May 13, 1986. She is best known as the creator, writer, director, and star of the HBO television series Girls (2012–2017). For her work on the show, she received two Golden Globe Awards, several Emmy Award nominations, and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series.

Dunham was born in New York City to Carroll Dunham, a painter, and Laurie Simmons, an artist and photographer. Raised in Brooklyn alongside her younger sibling, Cyrus, she attended Friends Seminary before transferring to Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn. She spent a year at The New School and subsequently transferred to Oberlin College, graduating in 2008 with a degree in creative writing.

While attending Oberlin College, Dunham began producing independent short films, such as Pressure and The Fountain, which she posted online. In 2007, she starred in the web series Tight Shots, followed by the 2009 web series Delusional Downtown Divas and her debut feature comedy Creative Nonfiction. Her major breakthrough came with the 2010 semi-autobiographical feature film Tiny Furniture, which won Best Narrative Feature at the South by Southwest festival and earned her an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.

The success of Tiny Furniture led to a development deal with HBO alongside showrunner Jenni Konner and producer Judd Apatow. The resulting series, Girls, premiered in 2012 with Dunham starring as Hannah Horvath, a young writer navigating life in New York City. The series ran for six seasons and 62 episodes through 2017, receiving critical acclaim and establishing Dunham's career in television.

Alongside Girls, Dunham appeared in films including Supporting Characters (2012), This Is 40 (2012), and Happy Christmas (2014). She voiced a character in the animated film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (2016) and made guest television appearances on Scandal, The Simpsons, and American Horror Story: Cult. In 2015, she founded the production company A Casual Romance Productions, later serving as showrunner and writer for the 2018 HBO series Camping. She subsequently wrote and directed the 2022 feature films Sharp Stick and Catherine Called Birdy, and created the 2025 Netflix series Too Much.

In addition to screen projects, Dunham co-created the feminist online publication Lenny Letter with Konner in 2015, which ran until late 2018. She published an essay collection, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned", in 2014, followed by her memoir Famesick in 2026, both of which reached best-seller lists. Named to the Time 100 list of influential people in 2013, Dunham's artistic output and public commentary have drawn continuous media coverage throughout her career.