Horse-drawn carriages, picturesque gardens and limitless cups of tea are simply among the stereotypical tropes which have formed America’s romanticised picture of England earlier than even stepping foot on the island.
Due to classical literature and a gradual stream of interval dramas, Lena Dunham was no exception.
“I loved Jane Austen, I loved Charlotte Bronte, I love British film, I was one of those little Anglophile kids.”
The author and director believed it might be that space of classically depicted England that might fill her time when she first moved to “jolly old London” as a young person along with her mom for a short time.
As a substitute, her consideration was taken by one other, and probably equally influential group of artists.
“There was a pop show about S Club 7 and all I did was just sit in the hotel and obsessively watch things relating to [the group],” she mentioned.
“So, I did not go dwelling with all this cultural British information. I went dwelling with a deep abiding love of S Membership 7 and got here again to highschool when everybody was obsessive about the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
“For me, I was literally like, ‘Guys, you got to hear this hot track right off the presses, it’s called Reach For The Stars’.”
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Pic: Netflix
It wasn’t till her 30s, when the actress moved once more to the town, that actuality took maintain and he or she shortly discovered the distinction between the imagined London and the true metropolis.
Some stereotypes maintain true, just like the common love for Paddington. Nonetheless, TV tropes like renting a flat on a single earnings within the metropolis doesn’t essentially imply you may be handled to lavish rooms and a picturesque backyard.
She says it was social cues she discovered most difficult to regulate to, in addition to the completely different dictionaries used when talking, technically, the identical language.
“You come to a new country and even though you speak the same language, you’re totally absent from those tools,” she says.
“And I found that really striking as an adult in my 30s, trying to make friends, trying to date. I found it confusing enough to be a person in my own city of origin, so this was extra confounding.”
Too A lot, her new Netflix sequence, is loosely impressed by her personal London chapter and follows a workaholic New Yorker in her 30s who is shipped throughout the Atlantic to work on a brand new undertaking.
The ten-episode present is produced by Working Title – the corporate behind Bridget Jones, Notting Hill, About A Boy and Love Really – and stars Hacks breakout actress Megan Stalter and The White Lotus actor Will Sharpe.
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Pic: Netflix
Dunham says she all the time needed to write down about her time within the UK, however it was a dialog with Irish actor Andrew Scott that acquired the ball rolling.
“Actually, he’s the reason that I came to know Meg as an actor because he loved her on Hacks and he loved her videos, and he said: ‘Have you watched this woman’s work? I feel like there’s a real connection between you two’, and I started watching because of him and built a show around her.”
In a full circle second, Scott seems within the sequence briefly as an arrogantly odd man who crosses paths with Megan Stalter’s character Jessica.
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Pic: Netflix
The Ridley actor is not the one well-known face becoming a member of the solid in a cameo function. Dunham put a name out to most of Hollywood, and fortunately tons had been on board.
To call just some, visitor stars embrace Jessica Alba, Stephen Fry, Adwoa Aboah, Package Harington, Rita Wilson, Rita Ora, Richard E Grant, Emily Ratajkowski, Andrew Scott, Prasanna Puwanarajah and Jennifer Saunders.
“It was one of those situations where you just reach for the stars, literally, and then you can’t believe when they appear,” says Dunham.
“It was just a non-stop parade of people that I was fascinated by, wanted to be around, completely enamoured of.”
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A complete host of high-profile cameos characteristic in Lena Dunham’s Too A lot
She provides: “I remember asking Naomi Watson, thinking, there’s absolutely no way that you’re going to want to come play this slightly demented woman. And she’s so playful and she’s so joyful and she just wanted to come and engage.
“Additionally, Jennifer Saunders has meant a lot to me for therefore lengthy, I had the AbFab field set as a child, and I simply assume Patsy and Edina are the last word type of messy girls.
“She really showed me what comedy could be and… the space that women could occupy in comedy, and so having her come and join the show was really incredible.
“That was an episode that another person was directing, Alicia McDonald, a tremendous director, so I simply acquired to take a seat and watch on the monitor like I used to be watching a film, and it was very surreal for me.”
Too A lot is out on Netflix now.
