Nine Years After the Finale: Where Lena Dunham and Her Girls Costars Really Stand

It has been almost a decade since Girls wrapped, and Lena Dunham is out doing press with a new memoir and a little perspective. Some friendships from the show are still thriving, some faded, and one in particular sounds like it went sideways the minute cameras stopped rolling. Here is where everyone stands now, with the receipts.

The quick rewind

Dunham created Girls in her early 20s with then-collaborator Jenni Konner, building a series about four women finding their footing in New York City. Dunham played Hannah Horvath alongside Allison Williams (Marnie Michaels), Jemima Kirke (Jessa Johansson), and Zosia Mamet (Shoshanna Shapiro). The show ran six seasons, from 2012 to 2017.

Since then, Dunham and Konner have split professionally amid reports of a falling out. Dunham has also been talking candidly about what that early success did to her headspace while promoting her 2026 memoir, Famesick, and making the rounds on shows like Today and interviews with The Guardian.

"If Girls had all appeared when I was a fully formed person, at 33, I wouldve understood how to handle that work, that place, those gifts, those people in a different way," she told The Guardian in April 2026. "But it was, basically, that I got everything I couldve dreamed of at a time when I had no ability to handle it. It required a rebuilding, and Im very happy with where I landed, and very lucky. Thats just life, I guess."

On Today that same month, she called out the good stuff too, saying her book captures a lot of the magical moments and that the main cast shares a bond that is not going anywhere.

Where Lena stands with the Girls crew (now)

• Allison Williams (Marnie Michaels): These two are still locked in. Williams told Variety in April 2026 that she talks to Dunham "all the time" and doubled down with: "We love each other. Its a lifelong bond. Its the best."
• Jemima Kirke (Jessa Johansson): Childhood friends before the show, which can make working together great or complicated (or both). In Famesick, Dunham describes Kirke as having that elusive je ne sais quoi, a kind of fragile confidence and restless energy, and adds that Kirke "didnt like having [me] as a boss." The friction did not last. Dunham said on the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast in July 2025 that they text a lot and that Kirke will always be part of her life and story. She also credits Kirke with giving her the nerve to start directing in the first place.
• Zosia Mamet (Shoshanna Shapiro): She pulled back after the 2017 finale. In October 2019, Mamet told Us Weekly that everyone got busy, married, had kids, took jobs, and contact naturally faded. She is not pushing for a revival but would be happy if one happened: she keeps the show in a "special box" in her heart and is not waiting around with a candle if it never returns.
• Adam Driver ( Adam Sackler): On screen, he was Hannahs volatile other half. Off screen, Dunham says it was bumpy. In Famesick, she alleges they fought often, and once the series ended, she writes that she never heard from him again. The way she describes the dynamic is pretty raw:

  "It was absurd to be heartbroken, to have thought I meant anything, that I occupied any role beyond distraction. I was his scene partner, sure — and so when we were in a scene, his attention was piercing, his presence all-consuming. But in life? It would never be me who kept him in line. I didnt have the chops. Even at work, I couldnt do it, in the one place I was meant to make the rules."

  Brutal, and very much the kind of behind-the-scenes detail you only get years later in a memoir.

• Alex Karpovsky (Ray Ploshansky): A longtime friend of Dunhams before the show. Back in 2016, he told Forward he loved her and praised how she had grown as a storyteller and director. Since Girls ended, neither of them has really updated the status of their friendship publicly.
• Andrew Rannells (Elijah Krantz): He joined in season 2 as Hannahs college ex and stayed a fan favorite. Clearly still in each others creative orbit: Rannells worked with Dunham again on her semi-autobiographical 2025 series, Too Much.

The bottom line

Time did what time does: some ties stayed tight (Williams, Kirke), some drifted (Mamet), some colleagues reconnected on new projects (Rannells), and one relationship sounds like it ended the second the credits rolled (Driver). Dunham, for her part, seems to be exactly where she wants to be — honest about the mess, appreciative of the magic, and, yes, still texting Jessa.