Clare Stephens

And I think the trajectory of Lena Dunham's career is

was so unconsciously... It unconsciously shaped a lot of how I felt throughout my 20s in that I almost think it...

gave a lot of people internalised shame.

Because you watch Lena Dunham, I remember being early 20s, watching girls and thinking, I've never seen anything like this.

Yeah.

I've never seen a woman who is that fricking funny and doesn't give a shit about how she's not conventionally beautiful.

Which is hilarious to say out loud now as she says all that thing.

She's like, I don't look like that anymore.

Anyway.

Yeah.

But looking at that and...

and I just remember thinking I want to be her I want to be her I've just never worshipped anything like this and to see that individual so brutally destroyed was really distressing as like I think there are probably a lot of women who see that and want and wanted to yell this is still radical this is still radical having a woman like that on screen and having a woman who's

This is a show about friendship.

This is a show about imperfection.

And we are saying it's not good enough.

Which is how everybody feels in their 20s.

I do think, though, like what you say about the criticism of girls and even it happened with Too Much, I do think it's a uniquely female experience that you make art and everybody analyses how it does or doesn't reflect your real life and whether you have the right to tell that story.

So with Girls, I remember thinking,

Nobody, no man who's making a TV show, nobody was looking at, you know, Seinfeld and being like, well, you didn't consider X, Y, Z. And I know it's a different time and all of that.

But I do think it's uniquely female that we analyse it to that extent.