How Lena Dunham lost Penny Marshall part: ‘I don’t smile on command’
nypost.comThe Jess Cagle Show.She continued, “I was treated actually really well. There was no cruelty. The only thing I’ll say is I understand why I didn’t get the role.”The Golden Globe winner went in to audition for the Drew Barrymore-fronted film and later learned why she didn’t get a callback.She also noted how the late “A League of Their Own” director “asked all the young actors to say our name, our height, where we were from and smile.”“And I said, ‘I’m Lena, I’m from New York, and I don’t smile on command.’ And Penny Marshall said, ‘It’s called acting, honey,'” Dunham said.However, the “Lenny Letter” writer doesn’t disagree with the “Laverne & Shirley” legend.“The thing is, she was right.
Would you hire an actor who is like, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t smile on command’? The thing is, I’m with Penny on this one,” she insisted.At the time, young Dunham was just a girl trying to make her way to Hollywood.
She recalled how not getting a second audition was a crushing blow.“I remember going home and knowing that I had ‘screwed the pooch’ so to speak,” she said. “My mother says that I laid in bed for like a week and moaned ‘my career is over.’ I only ever had one audition and that was it.”The Oberlin College graduate is also open to reviving her 2012 HBO hit “Girls.” The “Sex and the City”-inspired comedy series ended in 2017 after six seasons.“I look back, and just, like, the sheer gall of me, stepping onto set that first day; 24-year-old me standing in Silvercup Studios, the old ‘Sex and the City’ studios, going, ‘Let’s do this’,” Dunham told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year.
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