The true story that inspired Netflix's rom-com Too Much.

Lena Dunham never went away. Not really.

Slowly but surely, she has been working in the background on a range of TV projects, one of which she has just released into the world: Netflix's latest rom-com series, Too Much.

The new ten-part series was created by the Girls writer and star with her husband, Luis Felber, and made by Working Title Films, the production company behind the Bridget Jones movie franchise.

So yep, it's in damn excellent hands.

The story centres on Jessica, a chaotic New Yorker in her mid-thirties, played by Hacks' breakout star Megan Stalter, who moves to London after a devastating breakup, where she meets musician Felix, portrayed by The White Lotus' Will Sharpe.

Watch the trailer. Post continues after video.

The show has been described as semi-autobiographical and the title of the show, Too Much, is a term that Dunham admits has been weaponised against her throughout her life.

"It's about your appetite for food, your appetite for life, your wants, your needs, your desires, and it comes in lots of forms, whether you're told you're 'too much' or 'messy' or 'needy' or 'a lot'," she told The Independent.

"What's ironic is that calling someone 'too much' is a really easy way to diminish them."

Too Much draws inspiration from her own life, particularly her move from New York to London in 2021 and her relationship with her husband, British musician Luis Felber.

She co-wrote the show with Felber, and the series is described as being loosely inspired by their relationship.

"I always like to write from a place that begins with the personal, because I think personal stories are universal – and then see what it has in store for me," Dunham told The Independent.

However, the Girls creator has made it clear that the series' protagonist Jess is not meant to be a mirror image of herself.

Lena Dunham and Megan Stalter attend a screening of Too Much. Image: Getty.

"A girl moves to England. She meets a musician. They fall in love. That was the exoskeleton," Dunham told The Hollywood Reporter.

"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."

Dunham has expressed concern that viewers will try to match the characters to their potential real-life counterparts. "My least favourite thing would be if people were to try to Baby Reindeer it, because it would be impossible. It's so many influences, so many stories from friends," she joked to Vanity Fair.

"I would like 34-year-old women anywhere to be able to look at Jessica and — while of course they won't all connect to every aspect — see something of themselves in her."

That said, the parallels between Too Much and Lena's life do exist, given the show's inspiration.

The true story that inspired Netflix's Too Much.

When Lena left New York and moved to London in 2021, she soon met her future husband.

Reflecting on the early days of their relationship, she said she was "dazzled by just how much baggage two people could bring to the table," she told Vanity Fair.

This concept inspired the series that would become Too Much. "I thought, 'What would it look like to try to situate something in that rom-com space and then be honest about all of the stuff that's trailing behind them?'"

As Jess quickly falls for Felix in Too Much, despite the heavy baggage both characters are carrying from their pasts, Lena has spoken about her state of mind before meeting Luis in London.

"I repeatedly found myself crashing against the rocky shores of male attention, I lost trust in my own judgment," she wrote in The New Yorker in 2023.

Dunham and Felber met in January 2021 after being set up on a blind date by mutual friends.

Lena Dunham and Luis Felber together in 2022. Image: Getty.

Their connection was immediate and intense — they spent hours walking through London and talking on their first date. The relationship progressed quickly, with the couple moving in together within months and marrying just eight months after meeting.

Dunham has described Felber as "the greatest person I've ever met" and expressed how lucky she feels to have found him.

Along with Lena finding love with a British musician, another similarity between Jess' story and her own is that she left the US after a dramatic breakup.

Lena was in a high-profile relationship with Taylor Swift collaborator and musician Jack Antonoff from 2012 until the end of 2017.

This was a celebrity couple thrust into the spotlight as their romance coincided with Lena's meteoric rise with the success of Girls.

Dunham has spoken candidly about the breakup, describing it as deeply painful.

The split brought with it increased public scrutiny, with rumours circulating that Antonoff had cheated on Dunham with singer Lorde, who he had worked closely with on her groundbreaking album Melodrama.

Lena Dunham and musician Jack Antonoff at the Golden Globe Awards in 2014. Image: Getty.

Dunham addressed the rumours directly in an interview with The Cut.

"It was embarrassing," she said in 2018.

"I don't think anything happened between them. I can never know someone else's life. I have never spoken to Ella [Lorde] about it. We haven't talked since Jack and I broke up. It was awful, and I couldn't do anything about it except trust that what he was saying to me was true."

Antonoff publicly denied the rumours on social media, calling them "dumb heteronormative gossip," and Lorde also denied any romantic involvement, stating, "Jack and I are not dating, for the last time. I love him, he's awesome. But we're not dating!"

The period after her split from Antonoff has been described as transformative for the writer.

"I was almost chemically changed, rewired," she wrote for Vogue in 2018, penning that the "finality nearly killed me."

"The independence I had so prized was replaced with a mourning that could be sated only by consistent male company, even if (as it would happen later on with other boys) that company was rude in bars, talked loudly through art-house movies, and made sure to point out my less than ideal breast-to-butt ratio. Anything would do."

After they split, Jack reportedly dated artist and model Carlotta Kohl before marrying actress Margaret Qualley in 2023.

Margaret Qualley and Jack Antonoff at the Grammy Awards in 2025. Image: Getty.

Just before relocating to London, Lena had a short-lived but intense affair with a man named Craig in Los Angeles.

"I met Craig in a backyard in LA, in the halcyon days of the pandemic," she penned in an essay for British Vogue.

Dunham recalled Craig saying, "You make me nervous," and in response, Dunham wrote, "I wondered if beautiful men are like spiders – they're just as scared of you as you are of them."

Their relationship ended shortly before she left the US for the UK.

Aside from Lena moving to London while recovering from heartbreak, she is also known for adopting rescue dogs, like Jess does in Too Much with her dog, Astrid, played by Mia, an 11-year-old Chinese Crested Dog.

In Lena's case, she posts frequently about her dog Ingrid. "I knew that I belonged to you," she wrote in a heartfelt caption about her beloved pooch.

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A post shared by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham)

Dunham has also written about her move from New York to London.

Earlier this year, she wrote an essay in The New Yorker about 'breaking up' with New York and making London her home.

"I think that transposing myself into this new place, where you don't feel that you are being in any way hemmed in by other people's perceptions—it also allows your inner life to open back up in a new way," she penned.

"In London, years passed like days, which is how I ended up, five years on, realising that London is my home now, so much so that I call seltzer 'fizzy water' and have a favourite brand of tea."

Every episode of Too Much can be streamed on Netflix.

Feature image: Netflix/Instagram/@lenadunham.

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