Lena Dunham
Wild Card with Rachel Martin
NPR
4.7 • 990 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lena Dunham tells Rachel that for much of her 20s and 30s, she took a vacation from who she was as a child. These days, though, she says she’s much more in touch with that part of her life. Her new book, “Famesick,” chronicles those tumultuous years during the rise of her hit show, “Girls.” In this episode, Dunham shares what she learned from struggling with stardom and chronic illness.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, if you love our show and you live in the greater Los Angeles area, I have got fantastic news. |
| 0:06.1 | We're coming to your city for a live taping of Wildcard in collaboration with LAist. |
| 0:11.2 | It's going to be at the Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena on May 7th, two weeks from when this very episode publishes. |
| 0:17.7 | And I am beyond thrilled to announce that the guest is going to be the incredible, |
| 0:22.8 | the radiant Tracy Ellis Ross. Of course, you know her from Blackish, American Fiction, and Girlfriends. |
| 0:28.9 | You can find tickets to the event in a link in our show notes or head to lais.com slash events. |
| 0:35.5 | I so hope you can make it. It's going to be an amazing time. |
| 0:41.4 | Just a heads up, this episode does have some strong language. What do you like when no one's around? |
| 0:47.4 | I would say my most true place is I'm in my bedroom, which is a melange of colors and lots of stacks of books, and I've got cats and dogs and bunnies running around, and I... So you're not ever really alone. I love to have lots of little energy. I explained to my friend Alyssa, because my rabbits were sitting on the end of my bed. And she's always saying, like, how do you have so many pets? And I said, it makes me feel like snow white. Like, it makes me feel like I have, you know, bluebirds helping put on my dress. |
| 1:15.4 | I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. |
| 1:21.8 | Each week, my guest answers questions about their life. |
| 1:24.6 | Questions pulled from a deck of cards. |
| 1:26.6 | They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me. |
| 1:30.5 | My guest this week is Lena Dunham. |
| 1:32.3 | Something that I love about getting older is I feel like I get closer to the person that I was as a child. |
| 1:37.7 | I took a little vacation away from her, and now I've circled back. |
| 1:44.1 | Lena Dunham got famous for creating and starring in the HBO show Girls, |
| 1:48.5 | an unvarnished look at a certain kind of 20-something woman, |
| 1:52.4 | trying to figure out how to be in the world. |
| 1:55.5 | Lena Dunham has been working on that in her actual life ever since. |
| 1:59.5 | How to be in the world in a way that feels honest and |
| 2:02.3 | creative without turning her openness and vulnerability into a liability. She writes about all of it |
... |
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