Lena Dunham is making decisions that are best for her mental health and creativity.
In a New Yorker interview published Tuesday, the "Girls" alum, 38, revealed how she's protecting herself by remaining behind the camera in her upcoming semi-autobiographical Netflix rom-com series, "Too Much." Dunham is co-creating the 10-episode project with her husband, Luis Felber, and it stars comedian Meg Stalter (HBO's "Hacks") and Will Sharpe (HBO's "White Lotus").
"I knew from the very beginning I would not be the star of it. First, because I had seen Meg Stalter’s work, and I was very inspired by her. She’s unbelievable; I think people are going to be so blown away. We know how funny she is," Dunham told The New Yorker.
"I also think that I was not willing to have another experience like what I’d experienced around 'Girls' at this point in my life. Physically, I was just not up for having my body dissected again," she added. "It was a hard choice — not to cast Meg, because I knew I wanted Meg, but to admit that to myself.
"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."
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Though known for on-camera roles such as Hannah Horvath on "Girls" and Cat in 2012's "This is 40," Dunham has leaned into directing, writing and producing (2022's "Catherine Called Birdy," Max show "Generation") in recent years.
"I got into this because I wanted to be an artist. I actually was never a person who — as much as people may not believe this, because of the way that my work is structured and what it’s about — was unbelievably interested in attention," Dunham said. "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."
This summer, Dunham returned to the screen in the movie "Treasure," which marked her first acting role in seven years.
In the New Yorker interview, Dunham also revealed that she is no longer attached to an upcoming movie about Polly Pocket after working on a script for three years.
The move was in part due to writer and director Greta Gerwig's "incredible" feat with the last summer's phenomenon, "Barbie."
"I’m not going to make the Polly Pocket movie. I wrote a script, and I was working on it for three years," Dunham said. "I think Greta [Gerwig] managed this incredible feat [with 'Barbie'], which was to make this thing that was literally candy to so many different kinds of people and was perfectly and divinely Greta."
She continued, "And I just — I felt like, unless I can do it that way, I’m not going to do it. I don’t think I have that in me. I feel like the next movie I make needs to feel like a movie that I absolutely have to make. No one but me could make it. And I did think other people could make 'Polly Pocket.'"
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In a statement to USA TODAY Wednesday, a Mattel spokesperson said, "Polly Pocket is in active development, and we look forward to sharing updates on the project soon. Lena is a remarkable writer and creator and we wish her all the best!"
The live-action movie, announced by Mattel Films and MGM Studios in June 2021, was described as a story that "follows a young girl and a pocket-sized woman who form a friendship." Lily Collins was cast as the micro-doll Polly and is also producing the project.
Dunham also lauded filmmaker Nancy Meyers for her taste, which "manages to intersect perfectly with what the world wants," and the late writer/director Nora Ephron, a mentor who encouraged Dunham to, "Go be weird. Don’t kowtow to anyone."
Though the multi-hyphenate is also working on another Netflix show about "the idea that organizations like the C.I.A. and M.I.6 are tapping college students in, earlier and earlier," she sees her next commercial project as "another romantic comedy."
"My New Year’s resolution this year was, like, 'I’m going to try to think more commercially thirty-seven percent of the time, just because it’s an interesting challenge,'" she said.