Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham
Dunham at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Supporting Characters
Born	(1986-05-13) May 13, 1986 (age 30) New York City, New York, United States
Alma mater	Oberlin College
Occupation	Actress, writer, director, producer
Years active	2006–present
Known for	Girls, Tiny Furniture
Parent(s)	Carroll Dunham Laurie Simmons
Relatives	Grace Dunham (sister)

Lena Dunham (/ˈliːnə ˈdʌnəm/; born May 13, 1986) is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. She is best known as the creator, writer and star of the HBO series Girls (2012–present), for which she has received numerous Emmy award nominations and two Golden Globe awards. Dunham's work on Girls also led her to become the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Comedy Series in 2013. That year Dunham was included in the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2014, Dunham released her first book, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned".

Along with close friend and Girls show runner Jennifer Konner, in 2015 Dunham created the publication Lenny Letter, a feminist online newsletter which is supported by Hearst Corporation advertising.

Dunham was born in New York City. Her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter, and her mother, Laurie Simmons, is an artist and photographer, and a member of The Pictures Generation, known for her use of dolls and dollhouse furniture in her photographs of setup interior scenes. Her father is Protestant and of mostly English ancestry, and her mother is Jewish; Dunham has described herself as feeling "very culturally Jewish, although that's the biggest cliché for a Jewish woman to say".