← Intelligence Squared
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
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- [02:22]
Mia Sorrenti
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Today's episode is part one of our recent live event with actor, writer, director and producer Lena Dunham, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and Too Much, and the best selling author of not that Kind of Girl. Dunham joined us at the Hackney Empire in London to discuss fame, creativity and the personal cost of success. In conversation with author, screenwriter and columnist Dolly Alderton. Dunham drew on her new memoir, Famesick, to reflect on a life shaped by ambition, illness and public scrutiny, asking what it means to pursue success and how to live with its consequences. A brief Content warning this episode contains some strong language and adult themes. Let's join the discussion now live at the Hackney Empire.
- [03:14]
Lena Dunham
Thank you guys so much. This is very lovely and moving and I hear the cheers of an audience. I haven't fucked anyone in it. And that's what that is. That's people who can be happy for you in a pure way. I'm so delighted to be here with you in my new home of England. Thank you for welcoming me with so much love. I do need to let you know that that montage was previously set. We were setting a tone. It was Time to Pretend by mgmt it brought us back to a moment. It brought us back to a time we can all remember. A time when Obama was president and I still had a uterus and like. And then there's different laws here. There's different laws for playing music, there's different laws for talking about your ex boyfriend. So I have to limit my expression and that's okay. I feel like you guys can imagine what that was and get yourselves back into the mode. But it is truly a thrilling honor to be here with you. I have not been out this way in quite some time. The last time I did sort of big gatherings like this I was 28 years old. So that's a kind of boldness we will never get back. And I wanted to kind of approximate for you the environment that I wrote this book in, which was my, my bedroom and some other bedrooms like at rehab. Who here's been to rehab? Okay, we did a 1pm no one. This is a more evolved crowd and I think some of you, based on the behavior at the bar, are still going to go. And I think you're going to enjoy it. It's like another Great American customer summer camp. Only everyone at summer camp has done intravenous heroin. I loved rehab. Truth be told, that was another bedroom that I enjoyed. Except they don't let you have a lock on your door or a telephone or a razor. But I am. I wanted to create a Sort of slumber party environment. A relaxed slumber party environment. I'm gonna be 40 in a month. I don't know how long I can do this for you guys. Thank you. I think the most exciting thing about getting older is that you can couch your previous bad behavior as experiences and then offer advice to younger people who won't listen to it. But you can feel like it's all amounted to something. So, yeah, we're gonna have friends tonight. We're going to have games. We're going to have interaction. And I just. I can't believe that I get to be in a room with all of you. It's just like, truly, I'm going to be sincere for a moment that I think there are probably a lot of writers in this room. There's probably a lot of artists. And it can be very scary to put something into the world that feels personal and feels like it contains a lot of your own humiliation, rage, pain, however you want to put it, and the warmth with which you have welcomed it and have welcomed me has been extremely heartening. And I'm quite overwhelmed by it. So I just wanted to say that I'm very overwhelmed by it, and I'm very appreciative, and I don't thank you and I don't appreciate. I like to go through life with a bratty little attitude. So I thought I would read to you a little. Who's read the book, Started the book. There's my good little students. And I thought, it's good to do crowds. I've heard. I went to stand up comedy school in high school, so I know it's good to do crowd specific material. So when I was in Boston, I said, hey, it's great to be here. Who here has slept with Ben Affleck? And now I'm here, and I thought I would read to you something that took place on in. At the beginning of my London life, which is, like, going to sound tragic at the beginning, but then it gets less tragic. There are some people in this room who remember this specific incident and lived through it with me. Let's see. Someone unmarked my book, but I'm not angry at anyone in particular. Oh, yeah. Just let's get to the part where I set myself on fire. Okay. And I just want to let you know before we get into this that there's going to be a big celebrity cameo in this, and I don't want you guys to freak out.
- [08:08]
Dolly Alderton
All right.
- [08:10]
Lena Dunham
Thank you. Really getting the most for doing the least. Okay. This chapter is called All Adventurous Women do. Two years to the day after I left New York, I set myself on fire. When the fire started, I'd been in a hotel room in London. Yeah, I had finished shooting Industry and moved on to prepping. Catherine called Birdie. And in this new city, I found myself welcome in places I had wondered if I'd ever feel welcome in again. Dinner parties full of artists and actors and straight male hairdressers, fashion shows and art galleries. I was sober nearly two years and it seemed to me the results of that choice were like a lantern lighting new paths. I was waking up in the morning in a dozen necklaces, in a room with fine pillowcases, a new freaky dog at my feet. And while my body still ached, I had found a regimen of medication. Not the fun kind of work distraction that made me feel for stretches of hours and even days, like the person I had once been. Sure I was. I had breakfast with cute boys I met at aa. I can't tell you their names, guys, it's anonymous. Smiling coquettishly into my green tea. My father visited and I took him to Wimbledon wearing a giant bow in my hair. I got a septum ring on a random Tuesday. You know, you guys, you can do that in Liberty. You can literally walk in and go stick a bullring right through my nose. Help me make the worst decision of the year. Here's my credit card. Charge it please. I started wearing glorious Steinem glasses and I filled my days with meetings over drinks where I ordered sparkling water with lime cordial. When I'd remained in New York, my ex and I had continued our circular fighting, sometimes for turf, sometimes sometimes over shared objects or friends, usually in some kind of misguided attempt to hold onto a friendship which had never really shown signs of blossoming into something healthy. I'm gonna go off piece here for a second. Who here thinks we're getting too into the idea of like having a good relationship with your ex? Thank you. It's like I feel like we don't live in Sweden. We don't have to raise children communally. I understand that we have looser definitions these days, but why are you going to try to make someone like you when the whole deal is that they didn't like you? Before I left for the uk, I had written him a serious, if slightly dramatic and self aggrandizing note. I will always love you, but we need to make some space. Water coloring nudes on the floor of my hotel room, my phone lighting up with people who were excited by my new presence. In this new place, it felt as if every choice had been leading up to this. I got calls about scripts. I got asked to write essays about Love Island. I was sent a request to go on tape for the role of Elvis's mother in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. I was literally 31 years old. They were like, okay, she's fat. We're gonna call a Jewish woman from New York and see what she can do with the part. I walked around my hotel room smoking Marlboros and trilling the lines to myself, improvising in her voice. Elvis, my boy, it's all inside you. You've always had it. The music is in you. And one night, feeling strong and self assured and changed in ways that seemed worth advertising, I unblocked my ex's number and called him. And he answered on the first ring, which means he still loved me. Or he's scared. The time apart seemed to have broken a spell. And on this call we talked with the same unstoppable rhythm we'd had when we first met, about pop music and television and people who annoyed us both. And we laughed, and we didn't dig into old shit, but established that, yes, we really missed each other. And with all the anger and tension dispersed, there was something here to save. And I only teared up once, at the end, at the right part. And it was in this daze of good fortune, this tidal wave of sober gifts, that I was lighting a candle at 5pm Scented to get rid of the smell of smoke brought in by Elvis's mother and set the scene for some healthy journaling, when suddenly and without warning, I felt my nightgown set ablaze. My reflexes were shockingly slow. I could not seem to make it real. I heard the flames, felt them lapping at my ear, and I smelled the hair at my temples singeing. I poured a glass of water on my chest, and the fire only doubled its powers. I stopped, dropped and rolled. And there it finally went. Because your mother's voice will always come to you at the time that you need it most, even if you. I haven't gone. No contact with my mother. But even if you have, she's also inside you, my boy. After the flames had given out, I lay there on the floor in agony, clutching my right breast and rocking back and forth, kicking like a pony. I called the front desk. I'd been living at the hotel for a little while, and I was always unfailingly polite, the same tone I use with doctors and business people and everyone else. I want to take me seriously. But on this call I was barely coherent. Muttering weakly, I set myself on fire. I am totally sober, and as they sent for an ambulance, I unlatched the door, pulled a bathrobe over my now naked form, and promptly collapsed over what felt like an hour. A valet, one of a set of twins who worked there, I'm still not quite sure which one saved me. I, as neither seems to want to take credit, sat with me and gently poured water into the crease of my armpit, still one of the most tender and sensual things I've ever felt. And yes, my husband's in the audience. Sup, my man? Finally, the ambulance drivers arrived. They were gorgeous and young and fit and they undressed me again and placed me in the shower, spraying me with freezing water and asking me rapid fire questions. Do you like to go clubbing? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you regret any of your tattoos? No. No, probably. Are you hitting on me? I finally hissed, unsure why they hadn't yet taken me to a hospital. I haven't mentioned the pain, which was the worst I'd ever felt, a new class of pain, but looking at my armpit you would barely have seen it, like a little kid with a nothing playground scrape asking, is it bleeding? But I could feel each nerve screaming, fighting, begging not to die, like a chorus of desperate female murderesses seizing and raging during their last moments in the electric chair. I said I would not go to the hospital without my dog, Ingrid, because feminism is something you have to enact every day. She was curled in on herself at the end of the bed, her hairless, tailless ass and grumpy rump of a face nearly indistinguishable from each other. Somehow they agreed. She rode with me to the hospital, assuming the same position she'd taken on the bed, in my lap, on the gurney, on the ride. They gave me gas and air, the same thing they'd offer a pregnant woman, and I sucked at it desperately, like I was huffing. And when they finally got me to the hospital and the pain meds hit my veins and I fell asleep with my chin resting on my chest, my nipple blistering, I could not remember my own phone number, apparently only my ex's. So we're going to skip forward in time. I'm going to leave you to read to find out how he responded, which is he put me through on the old boop boop boop operator right to his mom. Because you know what's so funny is like even if a guy is like 38. They're like, I don't know how to deal with this, Mom. Okay, so I'm going to jump forward a beat. A few months before I was burned, so we're gonna hop back in time. Imagine I'm imagine the grand old time I described before. But I still have my right nipple. My favorite thing was after I told someone I had my right nipple had been burned off. And someone that I don't know that well, but I'll always think over this, she wrote back, you should get a party nipple. I've been thinking about that for six years. Okay. A few months before I was burned, I'd been living a particularly good night of my particularly good new life out in London. I was with Jane, a glamorous friend of my mother's who tends to attract a certain breed of high powered artistic man because they speak and she listens. A film producer, one of the first women to make male Hollywood bend to her will. Her phone is always lighting up with the names of guys we only need to see the first names of to recognize. Since I met her when I was 5 or 6 and she was dating my father's token single friend, she's always had the best fitted blazers. That night in London, at a velvety hotspot in Mayfair, she was expecting a gang that included. Included but not limited to Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Martin Scorsese, Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel. You don't want to meet those guys in the street. As they streamed in close to 10 o', clock, the surprise was Bruce Springsteen looking ageless in a bandana and one sparkling diamond earring. Jane picked up her tequila soda and guided me toward a seat at the end of a long oak table. It was like a trader's table. Imagine that. I clutched my sweaty Diet Coke, hoping for the seat between Jane and no one to be the social equivalent of a heel of bread. But I ended up wedged between Jane and Mr. De Niro, eye to eye with Sir Bruce, chewing on a slice of lime until it turned to wet paper in my mouth. I had met Bruce. I had met Bruce before at a wedding. And because my ex boyfriend was a big fan, I decided to take one for the team and say, I think you two should meet. I feel like there would be a connection. And then the connection flowered, but I wasn't there to experience the connection. So that's what you need to know. And after a beat, with eyes so clear that I knew he saw my secret garden, Bruce looked at me and he said, since we last saw each other, Jack and I have become very close. He's very special to me, you guys. Sometimes you see two doors in life and one is marked normal behavior and one is marked psycho stuff. And after a brief pause in which you really consider what's best, you choose, what do we think? We choose psycho stuff. Thank you. And that is what I did. That is what I have done so often. And from my mouth came a font of verbal diarrhea that sounded a little something like this. I'm glad he's special to you because he promised to love me forever. And that's not really how it turned out. And I may not have been perfect, but I would have tried and tried. I never would have let go. I would have gone down with that ship. And now he shames me just for existing. And I'm going to write a memoir one day. And I don't know how not to call it. I hate you, Jack. You broke me, Jack. And Bruce Springsteen could have done a lot of things in this moment. He could have ignored me. He could have politely excused himself to the little boys room. He could have demanded to switch seats or had me thrown out, or yelled, get your shit together, girl. This is not the ladies room. Get a tampon and get a life. But instead he looked at me with the gentlest eyes, eyes that crinkled with all the charm that America's creative father should exude. And he said, well, Lena, this is the hard stuff. These are the questions artists must ask ourselves. And none of us had that answer about how best to express our hurt through art. But when I was writing my memoir and I went, yup, read it, read it. I haven't read it. But I told myself this again and again. He said, first off, if it's boring, stop writing it. He laughed self effacingly. And second, you don't owe it to people to be honest about every little thing. That doesn't mean you lie. It just means you can have secrets. You only owe it to them to show them how your mind works. I swallowed hard, trying not to vomit a little puddle of Diet Coke and truth onto the fancy table. It's very hard to write about people we've loved, he said. And then he looked at me as if his eye contact was a hallway and I was walking deeper and deeper. And he said, and sometimes we forget that in the moment those relationships should have taken as much work as our real jobs. And then I said, how often do you see your kids? Let's be honest. No, I'm joking. I didn't say that. And with that, he turned to Robert De Niro, who was comfortingly enraged about Trump and went back to the business of being Bruce Springsteen. And in pictures later that summer, I would see my ex's girlfriend riding in a cream convertible that Bruce had got them for a present. And it said, thank you, Boss. It's all part of the work of loving the people very special to you. While you can, I guess, showing them in whatever way you know best, that they matter. And they'll always matter. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, it's. The time has come to get a little cozy. I feel this is. I'm. You guys, I still get. I still get naked. Just. I do it in private. Okay. I am. The best part of this tour has been getting to bring some of my coziest friends to this cozy, cozy bed. And we're just going to do that thing that Tilda Swinton did in MoMA where she just lay down to take a nap and everybody came to watch. No, I am bringing one of my favorite writers.
- [22:49]
Dolly Alderton
Who?
- [22:49]
Lena Dunham
You guys. You need no introduction to this woman. She is the nation's agony aunt. She has written best selling books like Everything I Know About Love and ghosts. She makes a woman of a certain age. She makes a woman of a certain age go wild. You know what happened there? I was about to say, she makes girls cream their pants and I walked it back and then I tripped up because it was on the tip of my tongue. She makes women of a certain age, that age being 34, with a certain kind of bob, go fucking nuts. Let's welcome to the stage Dolly Alderton. Look at this bunch of sweeties. They could make you really relax and do some things that you regret.
- [23:39]
Dolly Alderton
This is a white wine crowd. I know them.
- [23:41]
Lena Dunham
Yeah.
- [23:42]
Dolly Alderton
I am so glad you told the Bruce Springs theme story because there is a lot of moving, profound wisdom in your book. But my favorite passage was the Bruce Springsteen story, I think, because you have no idea of how vicious and petty I can be after a breakup. So I relate to it so much. And the thought of trauma dumping on someone and getting Bruce Springsteen's gravelly voice to, like, whimsy, folksy Americana advice.
- [24:12]
Lena Dunham
I know. And it's like there was this mix where I was like, I'm so touched you're telling me this and I want to fucking kill you. Like, I was like, I'm honored. I know I'll be honored. I know I'll tell my future grandchildren about this. But right now I need you to stop Patronizing me.
- [24:27]
Dolly Alderton
I know. I know. I could hear the voice. I could hear. I could see him swirling his drink. I could hear the gravelly voice, the twinkle in his eye, and the twinkle
- [24:37]
Lena Dunham
in his one diamond earring. Oh, I mean, devastating. And his shirt's like. He's going three buttons unbuttoned. Is the vibe.
- [24:46]
Dolly Alderton
That works for me.
- [24:47]
Lena Dunham
Yeah. I have to say, it worked for me, too.
- [24:49]
Dolly Alderton
It works for me.
- [24:51]
Lena Dunham
I wish the end of the story was like, and then we went upstairs.
- [24:54]
Dolly Alderton
Oh, wouldn't that be nice in another life?
- [24:58]
Lena Dunham
I know. In another life, I'd be his girl.
- [25:01]
Dolly Alderton
My first question for you is, thank you for inviting me. Me to your slumber party.
- [25:06]
Lena Dunham
You're exactly who I want to be having a slumber party with.
- [25:08]
Dolly Alderton
Well, I want to know in great detail exactly what teenage Lena Dunham was like at a sleepover.
- [25:16]
Lena Dunham
Oh, my God, Dolly.
- [25:17]
Dolly Alderton
Or unbearable or both Unbearable.
- [25:20]
Lena Dunham
Okay, I'm going to make a short list of things that made me Persona non grata at sleepovers. I firstly, until I was about 14, I would say, like, I've really got it this time. And then at, like, 11:57, be like, I need to call my dad and drag his ass out of bed. And he would come, and I'd be like, I just didn't feel at home, you know, like, that energy. And I'm gonna need your answer. Then, as we got on in years, like, do you know the moment when your friends start doing things? Like, you know, girls start, like, hooking up at sleepovers? And I was acting like fucking Republican. Like, I was just like. I was like, we can't be doing this here. Then are there gonna be any laws out in the world? Like, are we. What. What are we gonna do at school? Just start Frenching each other in the hallways? Like, I couldn't handle it. I had a few friends who were planning to do ecstasy. I think we call it MDMA now. I printed out literature.
- [26:17]
Dolly Alderton
I love the pamphlets.
- [26:19]
Lena Dunham
And guess what? I'm the only one who ended up in rehab. They're fine. So I would say I don't think I had a successful sleepover, really, until I became of age to do it with. To do sleepovers with gay men.
- [26:33]
Dolly Alderton
I love tiny Republican. Lena. I remember you talking on a podcast about when you went to a summer camp and there was some, like, camp leaders who were kicking back at the end of the day, having a beer around the fire, and you approached them and told them that their drinking made you uncomfortable because there may be people in the group who have parents that suffer with addiction issues.
- [26:55]
Lena Dunham
Oh, I went up to the coolest counselor. Kara. I'm sorry. She was the theater counselor. And I was like, my father's actually an alcoholic, and this is like a real. Basically, I said, you're triggering me. And they were like, get a fucking life. Like, they were. So were you. You were a fun sleepover girl.
- [27:12]
Dolly Alderton
I was just. My main personality as a teenager was a liar, and I did it so well. And sleepovers were, like, my main gig, I would say. And I had people enraptured, and the lives were coming so thick and fast. I remember recently that I told a group of girls when I was 12 at Jessica Wyndham's sleepover that I had had sex with. Who made up? Anonymous.
- [27:41]
Lena Dunham
Always.
- [27:41]
Dolly Alderton
Someone I met in Spain on a family holiday.
- [27:45]
Lena Dunham
By the way, though, you're making me question so much, because, like, the girl in my class who was like, I was in Rome. And we kissed and the wall crumbled down around us. And then he entered me, and I was like, maggie, tell me more.
- [27:56]
Dolly Alderton
That girl did not get fingered till she was 16. And I absolutely. And in fact, Lena and I were talking backstage about when you need proof. So both Lena and I have experiences of being abroad as a teenager, seeing an attractive boy approaching him, taking a photo on a disposable camera, not explaining why. I remember going up to sky, being like, can I take a picture of you?
- [28:21]
Lena Dunham
And they're always like, oh, okay.
- [28:24]
Dolly Alderton
So you can go back and be like, look at my boyfriend that I met in Spain.
- [28:28]
Lena Dunham
And at least yours was in Spain. Mine was on the Jersey shore.
- [28:33]
Dolly Alderton
They need to be far away. They can't be traceable.
- [28:36]
Lena Dunham
I've told this before, but I had an Internet boyfriend.
- [28:40]
Dolly Alderton
I'm obsessed with this Internet boyfriend, you know?
- [28:42]
Lena Dunham
And my friend introduced me to him, and for, like, three months. And then he kept being like, I'm gonna call you tonight. But actually, I have a Russian accent and I'm self conscious. And I'd be like, please, please don't be scared. I won't judge you. And then he would, like, make a plan to meet me in the city and then go, I missed my train. And then three months later, the friend who introduced us was like, he died. And I mourned. Like, we had been married for 52 years.
- [29:08]
Dolly Alderton
Totally.
- [29:08]
Lena Dunham
And I was conservatively 37. When I put the pieces together, I was like, wait. They were never logged on at the same time. Igor Plashansky. If you're out there,
- [29:29]
Dolly Alderton
the worst is when you come back and they Know when they start clocking onto you that you have been lying about your pretend boyfriend, which happened to me with this picture of a man who I called Ryan.
- [29:40]
Lena Dunham
And I remember, perfect pretend boyfriend name.
- [29:42]
Dolly Alderton
Such a hot name. And I remember one of the girls being like, prove it. This isn't proof. And Lena and I were bonding about how proof used to be. Get the Nokia out and just ring them. Like, I spent a lot of time as a teenage girl ringing numbers of people to prove they existed.
- [30:00]
Lena Dunham
But what I love is that if you come out as an adult and say I was a teenage liar, it makes me trust you so much more Interesting. Like, I think a reformed liar, that's someone whose truth I can really get behind.
- [30:12]
Dolly Alderton
Yeah. Well, it took me a while to make my peace with it because they became so real to me, the lies. I really did believe that I was model scouted outside of Topshop, by the way.
- [30:25]
Lena Dunham
I believe you were model scouted outside of Topshop. You're seven and a half feet tall.
- [30:28]
Dolly Alderton
Thank you, Lena.
- [30:29]
Lena Dunham
We were taking a picture upstairs and she sort of bent down and I was like, no. The biggest flex is to have your friends come up to your breast. It's so cool. And you know what's interesting is I don't know if you feel this way. Sometimes I can. Even if I feel like I'm in my adulthood, in my power, if I even think about how one of those girls might remember me.
- [30:51]
Dolly Alderton
I know I shrivel. I know.
- [30:53]
Lena Dunham
And I think. I mean, I don't know. But I'm so afraid of teenage girls. I'm afraid of them now. If I see a group of them in the street, I will walk two blocks out of the way to avoid them. To avoid their judgment.
- [31:04]
Dolly Alderton
But are they. They're doing the girls rewatch, these teenage girls. I mean, are some of them here?
- [31:13]
Lena Dunham
I would love to know how many millennials do we have in the house tonight? And what about our Gen Z component?
- [31:23]
Dolly Alderton
Oh, wow.
- [31:24]
Lena Dunham
And then Gen X talk to us. I. I was saying to Monica earlier, I feel like Gen X are truly our bitches. Not our bitches. Like, we control them. Like, our bitches. Like, I bow down to them.
- [31:37]
Dolly Alderton
I've really thought about this long and hard. I've really examined the evidence.
- [31:41]
Lena Dunham
Yep.
- [31:42]
Dolly Alderton
And Gen X really have had the fucking easiest life. They have. They. They had the nicest time. They got raving in the 90s. They all bought fucking massive houses for 50p in London.
- [31:56]
Lena Dunham
Yeah.
- [31:56]
Dolly Alderton
They didn't have the. They didn't grow up with the Internet.
- [31:59]
Lena Dunham
They're all like, I started a record label a while back. I'm doing pretty good.
- [32:02]
Dolly Alderton
Yeah.
- [32:03]
Lena Dunham
And I also feel like you meet a Gen X woman and she's just. I don't. She can just organize a camping trip lickety split.
- [32:09]
Dolly Alderton
Yeah.
- [32:11]
Lena Dunham
It's like a. It's a lesbian level of competence that I feel deep envy for.
- [32:17]
Dolly Alderton
I feel spiritually Gen X. I do too.
- [32:20]
Lena Dunham
And I think whenever I meet like a Gen X woman who's like, dude, put it here, dude. I just feel really safe. And I have a question for you because thinking about this generational thing. You are an agony aunt. And I'm so. It's. Whenever I read your columns, it's like, it's the most enveloping, cozy warmth and safety. And I would love to know, you know, I've been giving amateur advice lately.
- [32:46]
Dolly Alderton
Yes. And I've been loving it.
- [32:48]
Lena Dunham
Thank you so much.
- [32:49]
Dolly Alderton
It's so addictive. Isn't.
- [32:51]
Lena Dunham
Feels so good to ignore your own problems.
- [32:56]
Dolly Alderton
I know.
- [32:57]
Lena Dunham
And try and fix somebody else's. Like, you're like, don't worry, Natasha, I've got it. And then you. It's just I actually do think I could become addicted to it at the expense of everything else in my life.
- [33:12]
Dolly Alderton
Yeah. Because it's also a way. I've become really phobic of giving pride present day details about my personal life in any writing. But it's a way of being a really, really intimate, personal writer with no one ever really working it out. Like, if you look at the first six months of me being an agony aunt, it was when I was in my lowest grade quality human being state because I'd been dumped and I was so petty and bitter about it. And every single question, were girls being like, oh, my boyfriend is moving long distance for his job. Like, should I stay with him? And I was just like, you better ask some respect. I was so angry in every single column. So you can kind of track my entire personal life by how I'm responding to people. They could be saying anything really. And I'm just writing about what I'm feeling.
- [34:03]
Lena Dunham
I love it so much. And something that I really connected to is in the book is I felt like, is everyone having this much trouble getting over their breakup or is it just me? And does it mean, like, your parents coddled you too much? Does it mean you have a cluster B personality disorder? Like, what? Why can some people just dance forth from a breakup unscathed? And some people act like they have survived the fucking Titanic or not survived the Titanic.
- [34:30]
Dolly Alderton
I don't accept Breakups as being a part of human life, I find it unacceptable.
- [34:37]
Lena Dunham
I agree.
- [34:38]
Dolly Alderton
I can't believe, like, everyone here would have gone through it. And I can't believe we do all of that. We meet the mom, we meet the grandma, we find out about all their boring stories from childhood. We learn how to cook their favorite thing, we do all of that, and then it all goes up in flames. And then you go on hinge and start again with someone new. I cannot believe that we all accept that this is fine.
- [35:02]
Lena Dunham
No, please don't divorce me. Don't divorce me. I can't believe it either. But I also think that it is a locus to put your rage about everything else that is being a woman.
- [35:15]
Dolly Alderton
Totally.
- [35:16]
Lena Dunham
So I think a breakup is a very clear villain in a narrative that has too many villains all around. None of you guys, you're all. Every man in here is perfect because he came. But. But I do. I think that there's something about taking all of the pain of, like, having to move through this world in whatever form we've come. And one of my favorite things that you've done is write a book. Book. Your book. Writing about a breakup from a male perspective was actually very healing for me because it was the first time I realized that men were people, too.
- [35:53]
Dolly Alderton
Me too. Me too. They were so alien to me that to write a male perspective, I had to interview men for, like, 25 hours of conversation. And it turned out like, they have all the same feelings, they have all the same pettiness, they have all the same hangups and insecurities, they have all the same obsessions, but. But they don't have anywhere to process it. So, like, me and my friends are still analyzing breakups from 2006.
- [36:20]
Lena Dunham
Yeah.
- [36:21]
Dolly Alderton
And they don't have that space, so that's why we think they're fine. They're not fine.
- [36:27]
Lena Dunham
That's so interesting. Well, it's funny because anytime a woman says to me, oh, my ex boyfriend thinks I'm crazy and he's moved on, and I went and rapped on his window like a little beggar, and he turned me away. And I'm like, I completely understand you, and I am here for any of your behavior. And then a guy says, like, I don't know, I just moved the last of my stuff out, and I'm like, you're a monster. You're a monster and you should be in jail. I don't believe in the carceral state except for you. And it's funny, at one point during the writing of there were many drafts of this book that were angrier and sadder. And at one, I knew I had to get it together because my brother found a page of the book and he held it out, really worried and said, what is this? And I was like, I'm gonna get sent away again. And so that's when I had to pull it back. But there was a moment in there I remember. I haven't actually operated my own social media in a while because, you know, statistically, one of you goes online and says horrible things to people. And whoever you are, I hope you think long and hard about yourself tonight. I'm completely fine. That being said, I didn't want to see it anymore. And I was sending, like, little bits and bobs to my social media manager. And finally she wrote back so sweetly, she said, I think that maybe we need to take a little break because it's seeming like you're making some, like, big blankets. Angry blanket statements about men.
- [38:02]
Dolly Alderton
Yeah. I think people are really fascinated with your move away from social media. And I'm sure that because we have a lot of millennials here, I'm sure that there'll be a lot of people in the audience who are kind of renegotiating their relationship with social media. Tell us about what life before and after feels like because you've gone so extreme with it from one to the other.
- [38:23]
Lena Dunham
Well, it's funny because one of the big sort of things I was trying to, at the same time as tracking my own experience, track some of the cultural stuff that happened around Girls coming out. And, you know, I joined Twitter two months before we shot the Girls pilot because a guy that I know who worked at the local indie cinema used to post his lunches every day. And I was interested. I was interested. And then. And there was a moment where it was really fun. It was like, cheers. Like, everybody knows your name. And then one day, things just. One day, you just get that tweet from a little. From, like, you know, Ryan, and it says, you know, playing the victim again, aren't we? And you go, okay, here we go. And then I remember Instagram starting. We thought, this is so exciting, like, a place to share photos. But it's not Facebook, so whatever. Your mom's friend isn't gonna, like, write a comment that she thinks is a private message and scare everybody. And I remember posting from, like, the DMV in LA where I was trying to get my driver's license, like, a. Like, a really blurry picture of me with, like, my hair hanging out the window and Thinking, like, this is gonna be fun. And it was. Everyone was trying to figure out what to do with it. They were trying to figure out what it was. And at the same time, millennials were realizing, you know, baby boomers and Gen X people had a grand old time and that their lives were gonna feel like a real car crash, comparatively. And I think there was a lot of. I actually have a lot of empathy because I think it's a place to. That is a safe place for people to express rage. It just. I happened to just be there at that moment. And so I realized at a certain point that the cycle of whatever. And I don't think this is specific to celebrity. I think now everybody knows what this is, which is, like, the cycle, even if you're not seeking validation about yourself. But if you're like, cat video, I feel nothing. Cat video, I feel nothing. Bang trimming video, I feel something. You know, video of a woman making 3D printing a high heel. Okay, I like that. And you're trying to, like, top up on your dopamine. And it's one of those subjects where I know I sound old when I talk about it, and I know that, like, whatever young person who's scrolling reels is not going to, like, have their life changed as a result of this revelation, but I really do think that it makes us very sick. It makes us very sick. Yeah. I'm sorry. I wish I had a joke at the end of that, but I just.
- [40:58]
Dolly Alderton
No, no. I think everyone I know, it's weird. It's everyone I know who's like, end of 30s, nearing 40. I think we've kind of been online for our whole working lives, and I think we've. Everyone I know is getting to a point of being like, this is probably eight hours a day, between four and eight hours a day that I've been doing this for the last 15 years. Do I want to be doing this for the next 15 years? I think it's fine to be sincere about it. I think it's a really serious business.
- [41:26]
Lena Dunham
I mean, I was in a bodega the other day. That was you guys. I got so overwhelmed with pleasure that I almost just thought, am I going to throw up? No, I'm not. No, I'm not. But I. I was in a bodega in New York, and this girl was standing at the counter and she was crying because she didn't have enough money for her vape, which I completely relate to. I quit about six months ago. That was a fucking.
- [41:54]
Dolly Alderton
What was your chosen flavor?
- [41:56]
Lena Dunham
Oh, it's so dark. I liked, like, leach, like a lychee flume. We don't even. At 5%. You guys don't even have that crack level vape here. Just sucking it down all day until I could just taste the battery acid. But this girl was crying, and I'm like, I have a. I'm a sick, physically sick person. And I just thought I could sit there sucking on a battery all day. Consequence free. The human mind is unbelievable. But I was watching her, and she was crying and trying to charge her credit card over and over. Well, at the same time, she looked through her bag for money. Well, at the same time, she scrolled through Instagram reels. And I said, like, hey, it's okay. You can add it to my stuff. And she was like, what? Like, she was so ready to have a fight. And I said, no, I get it. Former vaper here, hand it over. You should think about quitting. But what you should really quit is Instagram. And she was like. And then I walked out into the night.
- [42:57]
Dolly Alderton
And as part of your quitting, vaping, was that about turning 40? Which is happening next month.
- [43:02]
Lena Dunham
It's happening next month. And thank you. And you're a bit younger than me. You're a bit of a youth. You've still got the bright expanse of your late 30s ahead of you.
- [43:12]
Dolly Alderton
I'm 37, but I always do this thing called decade tourism. So by the time I was 27, I started saying, as someone who's nearly 30. So I'm already saying nearly 40.
- [43:23]
Lena Dunham
I've been saying nearly 40 since I turned 34.
- [43:25]
Dolly Alderton
Yeah, exactly.
- [43:28]
Lena Dunham
I do think you start. I also think part of it was like, I started to like when you start to go like, I like my life, and my life makes sense. I want it to last as long as I can. And beforehand I was having this kind of nihilistic. It was like that Covid. Like nothing that we do really matters, like energy around the vaping. And suddenly. And I. I'm going to be honest, one of the guys from below deck had a bad vaping related issue. And I. The minute I heard about it, somehow nothing could move me. Not my mother, not my father, not my husband. I hear about an issue with Fraser from below deck. Take my vape, drop it in a glass of water, sweat it out for a week. But I had a. Before we move on to the next portion of our evening, I had a question for you, which is, as someone who's written fiction, who's written memoir, who's navigated what both of those things feel like. Do you think that there is. Do you think that there's any ethics to memoir?
- [44:33]
Dolly Alderton
I think the salt path has slightly upped, turned. I think I was pretty loosey goosey about it all. I mean, I was trying to think back when I wrote a memoir. I think we had like one lawyer go through it and just be like, this all kind of seems fine. But I think now, I don't know. If I were writing a memoir now, I think I would really, really have to interrogate every bit of mythology that I have created.
- [45:03]
Lena Dunham
And if we're using the Bruce Springsteen metric, which is you don't owe them all your secrets, you. You just have to show them how your mind works. Do you think that there's sort of ethics to like who you include what you include what you're allowed to say? My friend Alyssa says this thing where she says, when someone is unkind to you, that belongs to you and it's another kind of gift they give you.
- [45:23]
Dolly Alderton
That's so interesting because one of the questions I was going to ask you is about. I'm sure there are people in the audience who want to write nonfiction and want to do life writing. And one of the questions I get a lot is like, what do you do about the people you're writing about? How do you get worried about them getting in touch? And the thing that I've found is if you write something that someone did that was unfair, they'll never get in touch because they know what they did was unfair. They only get in touch if you lie about it.
- [45:50]
Lena Dunham
It's true. Which I would never do because I'm not a liar like you. I know, but I.
- [45:56]
Dolly Alderton
Everything I know about love is going to get fully salt pathed after my confessions.
- [46:00]
Lena Dunham
But I think that, yes, the other thing I think is important is if you investigate your own participation in something. Because we're all unless like with the rare exception of like someone coming up to you on the street and smacking you with a two by four, we're all in dynamics in our life. And you give to yourself. You go at yourself as hard as you go at other people.
- [46:25]
Dolly Alderton
Interesting.
- [46:25]
Lena Dunham
That's always felt important to me and that is what's valuable to me. When I read somebody else's work is their own, is their own investigation of their own culpability and dynamics completely.
- [46:37]
Dolly Alderton
And something as well that I found really gorgeous about your memoirs, Even when you're talking about definite indisputable wrongdoings and mistakes that people have made in your life, there is still a sense that you are inquiring into what they were feeling and why they did it. And I just feel like there's a huge amount of love for every person that you write about in your memoir. Even the people who aren't in your life anymore?
- [47:01]
Lena Dunham
No, some of them, they refuse to believe just how much I love them. No, I'm joking. I think, I hope that you're right. I think that the thing that is interesting to me is that as I've gotten older, my relationship to the idea of indisputable wrongdoing has gotten much more complex. I can see now that I had a tragic fascination with, with a certain kind of, particularly in men, but in all people with somebody who like, had a certain kind of emotional violence which, like, you've gotta dance to get that out of them. And that's, that's something I'll live with till the day that I die. You guys,
- [47:44]
Mia Sorrenti
thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by Margarita Volpato and it was edited by Jasmin Davies for ad free episodes and full length recordings. You can become a member over@Intelligencesquared.com membership and if you'd like to join us at future Life Live events, you can see our full events program and buy tickets over@intelligencesquared.com attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.
- [48:12]
Lena Dunham
You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer@columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome. Columbia Engineered for whatever
- [48:42]
Dolly Alderton
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [48:44]
Lena Dunham
I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today.
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Dolly Alderton
I'm told it's super easy to do.
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Commercial Narrator
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Lena Dunham
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Lena Dunham
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