When shooting a sex scene, try not to look like you’re being murdered.
That’s just one of the many lessons that Lena Dunham, creator and star of HBO’s new comedy “Girls,” learned while filming the most overhyped series in recent memory.
“Girls” stars Dunham as Hannah, an aspiring writer whose parents cut her off financially two years after she graduates from college. An unpaid intern in a publishing house, she must navigate her way though our expensive, heartless city with little but the emotional support of her friends.
The media has been tripping all over itself to shower praise on the show for the realistic way it captures the financial and emotional struggles of 20-something women in New York. The Hollywood Reporter called the show, “one of the most original” of the past few years.
That’s a lot for Dunham, 25, to live up to. Luckily, she’s had good advice from executive producer Judd Apatow, who has helped shape the show — advising her on how to craft some of its unappetizing sex scenes.
“He’s so good at making it unawkward to give two naked actors a thought,” says Dunham, who speaks to the Post at HBO’s Midtown offices clad in a navy blue and black Marc Jacobs dress which, she says, her stylist calls “the distressed widow.”
“I would sit with Judd in my bathrobe at the monitors and be like, ‘I’m sorry I’m so sweaty. I look like I’ve been having fake sex.’”
Dunham first came to public attention with “Tiny Furniture,” a 2010 film that she wrote, directed and starred in about a 20-something girl trying to find her place in the world. She takes much of her influence from the mumblecore film genre, which places its characters in long, stumbling, often brutally honest conversations.
Apatow joined “Girls,” which is set in Greenpoint, based on his admiration for the film, and has helped Dunham walk the line between mumblecore’s studied aimlessness and the tight structure required by comedy.
“It’s a constant struggle,” says Dunham, who wrote or co-wrote all of the season’s 10 episodes. “We want one version of the scene which is as lengthy as it needs to be to feel honest, but we also want you to feel that comedic pace. Judd will say, ‘Shoot the scene, then figure out the 30-second version and shoot that too.’ So we’ll have two options.”
One provocative scene finds her character, Hannah, having demeaning, role-play sex with her “boyfriend,” Adam, played by Adam Driver. Their session turns disturbing when he starts talking to her as if she’s in elementary school.
“Once you’ve had a little bad sex, it’s easy to imagine a lot more bad sex,” says Dunham, who only found the right tone for the scene after extensive improvisation with Driver and Apatow.
“When I watched it, it wasn’t light enough. It was the kind of closeup you’d see at the end of ‘Looking For Mr. Goodbar,’” says Apatow, referring to the 1977 film in which Diane Keaton is murdered by a guy she picked up in a bar. “We had to discuss, what is the line of inappropriate sex talk? When would you have to throw someone out of your house?”
Sexuality is the primary focus of “Girls.” Besides the unappetizing sex scenes, there are STD tests and discussions about abortions. The prospect of mating is so fraught for the “Girls” gang, which includes uptight Marnie (Allison Williams) and British bohemian Jessa (Jemima Kirke), that it’s no wonder that virginal Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) consoles herself with reality TV.
Strikingly, all four actresses are the spawn of famous parents. Dunham’s folks are noted photographer Laurie Simmons and painter Carroll Dunham, while Williams’ dad is NBC news anchor Brian Williams; Mamet’s parents are playwright David Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse; and Kirke’s father is Simon Kirke, drummer for the band Bad Company.
“I wish I could say I personally selected the children of tastemakers to create a demented army for you,” says Dunham. “But Jemima is one of my best friends from high school. I met Allison at an audition, and I saw a video of Zosia not knowing anything about her parentage. I just saw a tape of her and thought, this girl’s mindblowingly cute and weird.”
While having four daughters of privilege portray struggling young New Yorkers could seem off-putting, Dunham insists that she and her co-stars are not strangers to the confusions of being young.
“I was dating some guy in San Francisco, and I wanted to visit him. And my parents were like, ‘Are you insane? We’re still figuring out your college tuition. How in God’s name are we going to pay for you to go to San Francisco?’” says Dunham, who grew up in SoHo and currently lives in her parents’ Tribeca loft until her recently purchased apartment in Brooklyn Heights is ready for moving in.
“I put [the flight] on a credit card, and then had to baby-sit like a fiend to pay it off. I made so many stupid mistakes — financial, professional and personal.”
Presented as a tale of four women finding their way in New York, “Girls” is being regarded by some as a recessionary “Sex and the City.” Dunham, for her part, is comfortable with the comparison.
“I think it’s an honor,” she says. “Our show couldn’t exist without it because it carved out a space for women in television — and because our characters were raised on ‘Sex and the City.’”
Time will tell if “Girls” matches its predecessor’s longevity, but whatever its future, Apatow feels that “Girls” is just the beginning of a long career for Dunham.
“She’s an incredibly strong comedic voice,” says Apatow, “who will have impact for a really long time.”