Everyone is talking about Too Much – Lena Dunham’s return to TV after her era-defining HBO show Girls. The new Netflix romcom follows New Yorker Jessica (Megan Stalter) as she moves to London to get over her ex-boyfriend and finds love with punk musician Felix (Will Sharpe).
As almost every article about the show will tell you, it’s loosely based on Dunham’s own experiences of moving to London to get over a breakup and meeting her husband, Luis Felber. We know it’s semi-autobiographical, but to what extent? Let’s get into it…
Is Too Much based on Lena Dunham and Luis Felber?
Let’s just say they did co-create the series together. The couple were set up by a mutual friend in February 2021, a month after Dunham moved to England from New York. They got married the following September in Soho, London. ‘When I met my husband, Luis, it threw absolutely everything into chaos. Good chaos,’ she said. Meanwhile, when Felber described the first time he met Dunham he said she ‘didn’t stop talking for, like, eight hours’ and the rest is history.
Is Jessica based on Lena Dunham?
Dunham wrote the part of Jessica with Megan Stalter in mind because Andrew Scott told her she’s her ‘twin soul’. ‘I started watching her videos and I was just like, “who the f**k is this person?” I was transfixed by her every move, and felt like she had this vulnerability that in addition to comedy, she had the ability to be this actress of tremendous depth.’
‘Jessica is a combination of me, Lena, and her own fictional stuff,’ Stalter explained. ‘[Lena] does such a good job writing about her real experiences and turning them into fiction.’
Is Zev based on Jack Antonoff?
Knowing all of this, it's natural for fans to assume Jessica's ex-boyfriend Zev (who moves on with none other than Emily Ratajkowski) is based on her past relationship with Jack Antonoff. Dunham and the prolific music producer dated for five years between 2012 and 2018 and lived together with their dog during that time. There is a lot of lore surrounding their break up. For one, Antonoff apparently told Dunham, 'Now you can finally eat in the bed without anyone getting mad at you' when they broke up, which is the kind of line that would stick with you forever.
That being said, Dunham has clarified that Zev is not directly based on Antonoff. 'That ex-boyfriend is very much an amalgamation of every ex that I've had, or that a friend's had,' she explained.
In 2020, Dunham even sang her ex's praises. 'I love him so much. He is a dear, dear friend of mine,' she revealed. 'Has it been easy every second? No, it's not easy to divide life with someone.'
Antonoff has also moved on and has been married to Margaret Qualley since 2023.
Is Too Much inspired by Lena Dunham's life?
She actress and writer Tudum, ‘When I first started coming to the UK for work … I thought to myself, “I want to write something about the experience of being a foreigner here, and the fantasies we have of [London] versus the realities.” Then when I met my husband, Luis, I felt like I was experiencing all of that, but in the context of a relationship.’
In another interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dunham discussed how Felber contributed to the creative process. ‘A girl moves to England. She meets a musician. They fall in love. That was the exoskeleton. But then he’s such an amazing and creative thinker and loves stories, and so it really expanded far beyond what we had even dreamed it could be into a totally different world.‘
'We feel really, really lucky that we got to do this together,' she added, 'and then of course the actors come in and the characters become different because the actors have taken over. So while the germ of it may be autobiographical, it’s gone in directions I never could’ve dreamed. I have wanted to make a romantic comedy about what happens when a loud, messy, complicated Jewess descends on a city of deeply repressed people – what will occur.’
Well that she did! And at least we know Dunham and Felber got their happy ending in real life too.
Too Much is available to stream on Netflix.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across entertainment, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things pop culture for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow with equal respect).