HBO ‘Girls’ Creator Lena Dunham: You Can Come Home Again

By on June 12, 2012 12:15 am in Brooklyn Heights, Celebrity Residents

Lena Dunham, creator, producer, director, writer & star of HBO’s freshman hit “Girls,” who grew up in Brooklyn Heights—and as we reported was planning a return to the nabe—purchased her Heights 1-bedroom, 800 sf digs on Hicks Street in mid-March, according to a frisky Q&A in The New York Times Sunday magazine and a post on RealEstalker.

In the NYT interview, writer Andrew Gold asks, “Are you moving to cool, young Williamsburg or established, family-oriented Brooklyn Heights?” Dunham’s typically dry, tongue-in-cheek response: “Brooklyn Heights. We lived there all through my high-school career, so I have an intense attachment to it. Other people think of Brooklyn Heights as where you become elderly, but I think of it as where you try pot for the first time.”

Gold also queries: “I was shocked to learn you were living with your parents [during] the first season of ‘Girls.’ Moving back in with Mom and Dad after school is one reason that Gen Xers like myself privately disparage people of your generation.”

Dunham replies, “When I was graduating, I remember my parents’ surprise. They were like, ‘Do you realize that none of us would have accepted help from our parents?’ They were shocked by what my friends were settling for. But I really love living with my parents. Few people who aren’t in my family understand it. This is my next to last night at my parents’ house. I just got back from my new apartment in Brooklyn, where I’m doing some vague remodeling and painting of dank walls.”

Interested in exactly where Dunham has purchased her apartment? See The RealEstalker post here.

The 25 year old was raised in Soho, Brooklyn Heights and Tribeca, and attended St. Ann’s School in the Heights (with co-star Jemima Kirke). Her mother is photographer and artist Laurie Simmons and her father is renowned painter Carroll Dunham, who also live in Brooklyn Heights.

“Girls” has been renewed for a second season on HBO, while Dunham is also drafting a screenplay of “Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares,” commissioned by producer Scott Rudin. Her rising star has also been noted by Forbes magazine, which recently included her in the entertainment category of its “30 under 30″ list of young people whose careers are worth watching.

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  • Andrew Porter

    I wonder what her parents think of her sex scenes. Imagine watching *that* on HBO!

    Reminds me of Amy Sohn’s sex scenes in her column in the NY Press, which were the basis for a best-selling novel and sequels. Her mother still lives at 101 Clark Street, and had a business for a while where the framing shop is now on Cranberry Street.

  • Jorale-man

    I have to say, I watched “Girls” a couple times and found it to be a little creepy and depressing. I congratulate Ms. Dunham on her success and it’s nice to have a smart young talent connected to the neighborhood, but I do wish the show’s characters were a little more likable. Then again, I’m probably not its target demographic.

  • Freddie

    @Jorale-man, I agree. I find the show annoying and can’t explain exactly why. Ms Dunham is super talented to have pulled the entire thing off, but still, it is not likable. I stopped watching it. Perhaps I am too old?

  • Heightser

    I’m with you too. I really wanted to like it, but I just don’t. If this what the 20’s are like today, we are doomed. It’s like feminism is dead. These characters are so pathetic. I keep reading that Dunham is the voice of her generation. Well folks, we are in trouble.

  • Rick

    I have to chime in because I love the show. I find it hilarious, and also quite smart, with witty writing. The characters are supposed to be a bit infuriating – that is part of it’s quirky charm.

  • Slide

    Put me down also as a lover of the show. If you were looking for “Friends” you were going to be disappointed no doubt. I think the writing is brilliant on the show and it’s really gutsy to write a role for yourself that is such an loser who is not very likable. One thing for sure, it is not your formula comedy sitcom that Hollywood spews out with nauseating regularity.

  • resident

    While I don’t have a particular interest in the show, I imagine that some of the earlier responders in this thread have forgotten how older generations felt toward their generation when they were in their 20s.

  • NormanEMailer

    “Girls” is an acquired taste — like beer or perhaps pot for those St. Anne’s kids parked behind Peas & Pickles (or now moved to BB Park) — but the writing is tight and the actors are generally good. It is the anti-“Sex & the City” and seems much more real.

    Lena cleans up very nicely, as the post-show discussions on HBO On Demand demonstrate — and should be a nice addition to the ‘hood (as long as she gets high at 101 Hicks and not in public…).