15 Questions With Lena Dunham, Writer/Director/Producer
"My parents weren’t overly generous with allowance, but they let me go to the movies and buy books with impunity, which were foundational gifts."
Name: Lena Dunham
Location: North London/Northwest Connecticut
Occupation: Writer/Director/Producer
Links: Lena’s Substack Good Thing Going
Pre-order Lena’s memoir Famesick, available on April 14.
1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?
Saturday at 3pm!!! When I was younger my greatest passion was the first Thursday preview show, but mama’s gettin’ old.
2. What’s your favorite movie theater?
There are so many wonderful, brand spanking new theaters — chicly designed, elevated snacks — that are doing it right. In London, Everyman Cinema near our house has reclining chairs and fancy sodas and you feel like you’re at a spa that happens to be playing PTA.
But I’ll always love the theaters that have a connection to the period in which I was falling in love with movies. Like Cobble Hill Cinemas, the independent faux-art deco (Feco??) theater where I went on my first ever date with a group of like twenty 7th graders, to see What Dreams May Come, and my “boyfriend” sat two rows back.
Or the Angelika, around the corner from my childhood home, where I would make my parents slow down so I could study every poster on the way to the supermarket.
The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY is the most fun Christmas you can have. For some reason, my clearest Moviehouse memory is thinking there was a massive, terrible thunderstorm brewing and then realizing that Saving Private Ryan was playing in the other theater while we watched There’s Something About Mary.
I miss Sunshine Cinema, Regal Court Street and so many other spots around the city where my cinematic self determination occurred. Thank God we still have Cinema Village, Anthology Film Archives and Film Forum.
3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?
Large Diet Coke and small plain popcorn. It’s never not perfect.
I really want to forget my childhood nachos phase — the way that cheese stayed soft even as it got cold was very wrong.
4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?
I’d love to have a ginger beer with a slice of lime in a cold beer glass, and a giant, salty soft pretzel. Or maybe that’s just what I want right now?
5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?
A screening of The Little Mermaid that a bunch of my preschool friends attended on a planned weekend outing. All of us little girls were in our Sunday best. I was rapt, in awe, right until the end when my mother had to carry me out screaming because I found the fact that Ariel has to leave her father at the end so upsetting. My mother kept saying “It’s a happy story! It’s a happy story!” as all of the other kids left in delight, but I can still remember how tragic and painful I found it (and my friends wonder why I still spend half my time living with my parents…)
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
One Battle After Another — which is too long ago! Like many cinephiles who are also homebodies, my love of movies and my love of being on the couch with our dogs are always at war. This is a good time to resolve to shift the balance.
7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. I wish I’d been alive to watch a film print of it in West Hollywood in 1969.
8. Have you ever seen a movie more than once in theaters?
So many times — especially as a teenager. I think I went back to see Center Stage, 10 Things I Hate About You and The Royal Tenenbaums three times each. My parents weren’t overly generous with allowance, but they let me go to the movies and buy books with impunity, which were foundational gifts.
9. Do you stay through the credits or leave once the film ends?
If I love it, I’ll usually sit through the credits to collect my thoughts and feel the final song play out (and I always cheer if I see the name of someone I’ve worked with, even if they’re not there to hear me.)
10. What’s one thing you would change to make movie theaters better?
I feel like some genius engineer/architect could find a way to stagger seats so you are never blocked by a very tall man’s head or directly behind two girls whispering, and in the process stop countless incidents of hostility between strangers.
11. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.
Just recently, I was lucky enough to host a screening of The Voice of Hind Rajab at the Roxy. The credits are silent, and as they rolled, all you heard was collective sobbing. While beautifully made, it’s a deeply painful film to watch, but also deeply necessary to see — and that moment of collective grief was powerful and rare.
12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?
Disclosure Day — a huge alien epic is always thrilling to me (I’d watch Signs any time, any day) and Josh O’Connor in a Spielberg blockbuster feels like a compelling pairing.
13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?
Celine Song and Tilda Swinton.
14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?
Clueless! Always Clueless. I want to drive in Dionne’s Jeep wearing a plaid co-ord! I want to use Cher’s computerized closet system! I even want to hang out at that party in the Valley!
15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?
Of course there are all the business reasons, and the many ways going to the theater directly impacts the ability of artists to continue to make this work. But I’m gonna go more touchy-feely: Movie theaters are about more than just film — they’re about experiencing emotion in a group, about listening to other people laugh and gasp. They’re about learning to accept, tolerate and even enjoy a room full of people who may see the world differently than you do, but who are revealing their humanity and leaving themselves open to profound and vulnerable experiences in the safety of the collective. To me, a movie theater is a lot like church or temple or a mosque in that way: It can remind people that they’re not alone, that they’re held by something much bigger than we are.
a movie theater IS a religious building. Could not agree more thank you Lena
Loved this all so much but this line really got me 😭 “It can remind people that they’re not alone, that they’re held by something much bigger than we are.”