Too Much creator Lena Dunham: 'Everything is better with queer people'

For her new series, Too Much, Lena Dunham drew from her lifelong love of movies featuring American women falling for English men for the show’s central plot (like Notting Hill and Love Actually). The Girls creator and star, who now lives in London and is married to English musician Luis Felber, mined from her experience to create the opposites-attract love story between Megan Stalter’s Jessica, an American woman who is “too much” for a lot of folks, and Will Sharpe’s Felix, a cool semi-slacker front man of a pub band. Though the show’s main couple is ostensibly straight, queer characters abound in Too Much, again mirroring Dunham's life. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Everything is better with queer people in it. I don't want to watch anything without queer people in it. I don't want to be in a room without queer people in it,” Dunham tells Out. “That's not a reality that would work for me. And the people closest to me are queer.”

Megan Stalter as Jessica and Will Sharpe as Felix in Too Much on Netflix Coutesy Netflix

Hacks star Stalter, who is queer, plays the character lightly inspired by Dunham, and when Jessica’s queer colleague Gaz (Dean-Charles Chapman) presses her about her identity, she explains she’s straight. There’s a hint of apology in her voice for her heteronormativity, followed by an admission (maybe hope) that her identity could one day change. Meanwhile, two of Jessica’s other colleagues at the advertising agency, Kim (Janicza Bravo) and Josie (Daisy Bevan), are on the brink of dating. Back home in the States, her former boss, Jameson, played by Girls star Andrew Rannells, has left his marriage to her sister Nora (Dunham) to date a couple named Cody.

Too Much is a comedy but with devastating moments ripped from life, including Jessica’s gaslighting, emotionally abusive ex Zev (Michael Zegen), and an unflinching abortion story rarely shown in media these days, where once it was an important plot of films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).

“I think we don't always hear also how emotional and hard that is to go through, too. I think it could be healing for someone to see that scene and just in general stories like that, and queer stories,” Stalter says of Dunham’s willingness to depict real life.

“I always talk about how in Hacks, it's just so amazing to see queer people on TV, and it's not their whole storyline, but that's just realistic,” Stalter adds. “I just think it's incredibly important and validating, and I wish that I saw stories like that and queer stories growing up. I know I saw some, but not near as much as we have now. And it's very validating and healing.”

Janicza Bravo as Kim and Charles-Dean Chapman as Gaz in Too Much Courtesy Netflix

To get the abortion story right, Dunham says she collaborated with Planned Parenthood on details, but she won’t claim the moniker of brave for telling it.

“To me, that does constitute brave and bold storytelling because to me, that's just the world and the reality and my world and my reality,” she says. “With the abortion storyline, especially with where we find ourselves in the U.S. with Roe v. Wade being overturned, it's so important to show people seeking safe reproductive care where they're not shamed.”

Megan Stalter as Jessica in Too Much on Netflix Courtesy Netflix

The writer-director-actor doesn’t see queer storytelling as "brave," but necessary. “The people closest to me are queer,” she says. While attending a rally for Trans Day of Visibility this year, Dunham spoke about her trans sibling, Cyrus Grace Dunham, saying, “The level of color and joyfulness that having a trans person in my family has brought to us is something that I would wish for every family,” she recounts, tearing up. “I don't think you could have a trans person in your family and not experience that massive shift in your perspective.”

As a creator of a culture-shifting juggernaut like Girls to her name, Dunham says it's imperative “to have stories where we see [trans and queer people] living happy, fulfilled lives in which the entire story is also not about punishing them for their queerness or dragging them through some sort of suffering, but just like [showing] the bold joy.”

Too Much is streaming now on Netflix.