Actress Lena Dunham has a lot to say about her “Girls” co-star Adam Driver. Although he is best known for playing the villainous Kylo Ren and the redeemed Ben Solo in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, he first got his start as Hannah Horvath’s on-off love interest, Adam Sackler, for all six seasons of the HBO comedy. In her tell-all memoir, “Famesick,” Dunham went into detail on her high-profile relationships, her health struggles, and the years she spent on “Girls.”
Lena Dunham Claims Adam Driver Was ‘Spectacularly Rude’ To Her
In an interview with The Guardian promoting her memoir “Famesick,” Dunham admitted, “I also care a lot about having a set where people are happy, and feel free and heard and unafraid. Largely because I don’t want people to feel some of the ways that I felt.”
Excerpts from the book weren’t published in full in the interview, but the interview does note that he was allegedly “spectacularly rude” to her and claimed that he once hurled a chair at the wall next to her, punched a hole in his trailer wall, and screamed in her face.
Lena Dunham Addresses The Allegations She Made In Her Book
“At the time, I didn’t have the skill to … it never entered my mind to say, ‘I am your boss, you can’t speak to me this way,’” Dunham said in the interview when addressing Driver’s alleged behavior. “And, at that point in my 20s, I still thought that’s what great male geniuses do: eviscerate you. Which is weird, because I was raised by a male genius who would never do that.”
“I have lots of amazing men in my life,” she continued. “Judd [Apatow] is a great hero of mine; Tim Bevan at Working Title is a huge part of my life and so is cinematographer Sam Levy. I just worked with Mark Ruffalo, the most thoughtful, sensitive, politically engaged, beautiful person. There’s plenty of them walking around. But there were years when I thought: Can’t I just make things that only have women in them?”
The Hollywood Reporter reached out to Driver for comment, but he has yet to respond at the time of this article’s publication.
Adam Driver Is Known For His Intensity
In March 2026, actor Dave Franco revealed that while he was doing voice-acting for his new Pixar film “Hoppers,” the recording booth had what became known as an “Adam Driver bar” installed due to his intensity while filming his “Star Wars” lines. In a clip from BBC’s “The One Show,” Franco said:
“So, when I first went into the recording booth, I remember stepping in, and there was this metal bar in front of me. I was like, ‘Guys, what’s the bar all about?’ And they were like, ‘If you wanna lean on it, you can.’ And I was like, ‘I don’t think I’m going to lean on the bar.’ Cut to the end of the session, I am gripping that bar with all my might. I’m dripping sweat.”
Wyatt Russell ‘Heard Of This’
After Franco said that people in the industry seriously refer to it as the “Adam Driver bar,” fellow guest Wyatt Russell confirmed the name, saying, “I’ve heard of this! I was gonna say something, and I didn’t say anything.”
Franco credited Driver’s “Star Wars” role for the feature. “Yeah, so I guess when he was playing Kylo Ren, there was some voice stuff that he did in the studio, and I guess he just needed something to hold on to.” He added, “And he invented this thing that changed animation forever.”
“Adam Driver’s a genius,” Russell added, saying that the bar “really works.”
Adam Driver Will Not Return To ‘Star Wars’ Any Time Soon
While promoting his film “Father Mother Sister Brother” in October 2025, Driver told the Associated Press that he and director Steven Soderbergh had spent about two years developing a “Star Wars” film, which they had called “The Hunt For Ben Solo.”
The film would have centered around Driver’s character, who appeared to have died at the end of 2019’s “The Rise of Skywalker.” Although Lucasfilm approved of the idea and tapped Scott Z. Burns to write the script, it was scrapped by Disney boss Bob Iger.
“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it,” Driver told the publication. “We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.”
In various interviews promoting his new film, “The Christophers,” Soderbergh has confirmed that the movie is dead and he has no plans to revisit it.