{"id":677160,"date":"2026-05-17T18:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/677160\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T18:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T18:13:10","slug":"adam-driver-saving-response-to-lena-dunham-allegations-for-my-book-cannes-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/677160\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Driver saving response to Lena Dunham allegations \u2018for my book\u2019 | Cannes film festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

For weeks, Adam Driver has avoided commenting on allegations made about his on-set behaviour by Lena Dunham<\/a> in her hit new memoir, Famesick.<\/p>\n

But at a press conference for Paper Tiger at the Cannes film festival on Sunday, the actor briefly broke his silence when asked by the Guardian about Dunham\u2019s account<\/a>. \u201cI have no comment on any of that \u2013 I\u2019m saving it all for my book,\u201d he responded, provoking laughter in the room.<\/p>\n

In Famesick<\/a>, which topped the New York Times bestseller list after its release in April, Dunham describes several difficult experiences while working with Driver on Girls, the HBO comedy-drama that ran from 2012 to 2017 and helped launch his career.<\/p>\n

Recalling a late-night rehearsal, Dunham wrote that Driver became \u201cverbally aggressive\u201d after she forgot her lines during a scene and \u201churled a chair at the wall next to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember doing a fight scene with Adam and how scary it was to meet someone so totally present with such absence,\u201d she wrote. \u201cLate one night, as we practised lines in my trailer, I found that mine were suddenly gone. I knew I\u2019d written them. I\u2019d known them only minutes before. But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a stammer \u2013 until finally, Adam screamed, \u2018FUCKING SAY SOMETHING\u2019 and hurled a chair at the wall next to me.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018WAKE THE FUCK UP,\u2019 he told me. \u2018I\u2019M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam Driver (far left) appeared in the HBO series Girls, created by Lena Dunham (centre, with her head in her hand). Photograph: Photo 12\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Dunham also described filming the characters\u2019 first sex scene, claiming that \u201ccareful blocking went out the window\u201d when Driver \u201churled me this way and that\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cStunned, I couldn\u2019t speak for a moment,\u201d she wrote, \u201cunsure of what had happened \u2013 had I lost directorial authority, allowed the scene to go off the rails, not given proper instructions?\u201d<\/p>\n

Driver, now one of Hollywood\u2019s most sought-after actors, has received Oscar nominations for his performances in BlacKkKlansman and Marriage Story. He has not previously responded publicly to the claims in Dunham\u2019s memoir.<\/p>\n

At the Cannes press conference, attention soon shifted back to Paper Tiger<\/a>, the director James Gray\u2019s 1980s-set crime drama starring Driver and Miles Teller as brothers drawn into a dangerous scheme involving the Russian mafia. The Palme d\u2019Or contender also stars Scarlett Johansson, who missed the premiere and press conference because of scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n

James Gray (centre, with Miles Teller, left, and Driver) said he set Paper Tiger in 1986 as this was \u2018the beginning of the moment in which the market became God\u2019. Photograph: Luca Carlino\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Gray used the event to deliver a broader critique of modern American capitalism, describing the unchecked dominance of the market as \u201cdevastating\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy own view of the world today is that when you cannot monetise integrity, when the idea of being a good person doesn\u2019t actually make you money, what happens?\u201d he said. \u201cYou get someone like the current American president, who is a symptom of what I\u2019m talking about, totally transactional. This ethos becomes everything. The only thing that matters is to make a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray said he set the film in 1986 because it represented \u201cthe beginning of the moment in which the market became God\u201d.<\/p>\n

Javier Bardem also invoked global political leaders at Cannes while discussing toxic masculinity during a press conference for The Beloved<\/a>. He condemned what he called the \u201cbig-balls men\u201d mentality embodied by figures including Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For weeks, Adam Driver has avoided commenting on allegations made about his on-set behaviour by Lena Dunham in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-677160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}