Lena Dunham Says She’s Not Acting In ‘Too Much’ Netflix Series Due To Body Shaming On ‘Girls’
Lena Dunham will not subject herself to negative critiques about her body and has opted not to return to acting in her new Netflix series Too Much.
In a new interview, Dunham said she won’t be starring in her semi-autobiographic show on the streamer because of all the body shaming she faced on HBO’s Girls.
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“I was not willing to have another experience like what I’d experienced around Girls at this point in my life,” Dunham said in an interview with The New Yorker. “Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again. It was a hard choice, not to cast [Megan Stalter]—because I knew I wanted Meg—but to admit that to myself.”
She continued, “I used to think that winning meant you just keep doing it and you don’t care what anybody thinks. I forgot that winning is actually just protecting yourself and doing what you need to do to keep making work.”
Too Much, which will premiere on Netflix in 2025, stars Stalter as a 30-something American woman who moves to London following a breakup and falls in love with a British musician played by Will Sharpe.
Set for a 2025 release via Netflix, the show follows a thirty-something-year-old American woman (Megan Stalter) who relocates to London and falls in love with a British musician (Will Sharpe).
Dunham said that “from the very beginning” she knew she would not star in the series being inspired by Stalter’s work.
“She’s unbelievable; I think people are going to be so blown away,” Dunham said of Stalter. “We know how funny she is. But, then, when she enters a dramatic scene, you’re, like, Oh, we got a little Meryl Streep on our hands!”
Dunham also noted that the level of scrutiny she faced was not something she enjoyed adding, “I don’t particularly like compliments. In that way, I fit in perfectly in England. That level of scrutiny does not make me feel powerful. It does not make me feel, like, I’ll show you. What makes me feel powerful is making my work. It’s the only thing I want to do. It is my only love in life aside from the people who are closest to me and my pets and books.”
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