Celebrity Exes
Is ‘Too Much’ Based on Lena Dunham & Jack Antonoff’s Relationship?
The new Netflix series Too Much, created by Lena Dunham and her husband, Luis Felber, is a rom-com series about a woman named Jessica (Meg Stalter) who lives in New York and goes through a devastating breakup from an aspiring writer (Michael Zegen), then moves to London and falls in love with a struggling musician named Felix (Will Sharpe).
Considering Dunham herself once lived in New York and went through a very public breakup from Jack Antonoff in 2017 before eventually moving overseas and finding her British musician husband in 2021, many fans are curious about whether the series is a retelling of her own story. Scroll down for everything we know.
Is Too Much based on Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff?
The show has been described as “semi-autobiographical,” with Dunham telling Variety, “It’s certainly not quote-unquote based on a true story, but like everything I do, there is an element of my own life that I can’t help but inject.”
She also insisted in an interview with Vanity Fair that Zegen’s character 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,” Dunham explained. “It’s this quotidian acceptance of unkindness that eats away at a person over a long period of time and degrades their sense of self. If someone were to say, ‘Who inspired that character?’ I’d be like, ‘Do you have time for me to give you 42 examples?'”
Netflix
However, many fans have already drawn some parallels to the Dunham/Antonoff relationship based on the show’s trailer alone. Most notably, Jess reveals, “My ex-boyfriend is living with another woman,” as she watches a video of her ex with said woman, who’s played by Emily Ratajkowski. The woman Antonoff dated after Dunham is Carlotta Kohl (a model). It’s unclear if Antonoff and Kohl ever lived together, though (they eventually split and he went on to marry Margaret Qualley).
Meanwhile, Dunham hinted that her relationship with Felber was definitely on her mind when she came up with the show’s concept. In fact, it was a conversation with Felber that inspired the title, as he referred to her as “too much” when they started dating, which offended her until he assured her it was a term of endearment that means “just enough and a little bit more,” the actress told Variety.
Are Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff still friends?
While Jess does not appear to have an amicable relationship with her ex on Too Much, the same doesn’t seem to be the case for Dunham and Antonoff in real life. Not only do they share a close mutual friend in Taylor Swift, but Dunham told Cosmopolitan U.K. in 2020 that she still considers Antonoff a friend.
“I love him so much,” she insisted. “He is a dear, dear friend of mine. Has it been easy every second? No, it’s not easy to divide life with someone. There are definitely moments where I was catty, rude or sassy, but he has been beautifully accepting of those and I’ve been able to be accepting of his anger too. What’s really nice is we don’t try to pretend that we don’t have this history together, but we’re also willing to move forward.”
Too Much, Season 1, Thursday, July 10, Netflix
