Lena Dunham is bringing Girls back to HBO for a limited five-episode run, nearly a decade after the comedy ended its six-season run. HBO announced the revival on October 13, confirming that Dunham will return as Hannah Horvath alongside Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Andrew Rannells.
Production is scheduled to begin in 2027, 10 years after the show’s April 2017 finale. HBO has not announced a premiere date or released plot details for the new episodes.
Dunham said the creative team had long agreed that they would return only if they found a specific story worth telling. She said the characters began coming back to her around her 40th birthday, giving her a reason to revisit them at a different stage of life.
The returning cast includes Williams as Marnie Michaels, Kirke as Jessa Johansson, Mamet as Shoshanna Shapiro and Rannells as Elijah Krantz. Judd Apatow will also return as an executive producer through Apatow Productions.
Adam Driver, who played Hannah’s on-and-off boyfriend Adam Sackler throughout the original series, was not listed among the returning cast members in HBO’s announcement. Christopher Abbott and Alex Karpovsky were also absent from the initial cast list.
That makes the description of the revival as a return of the entire “original cast” too broad. Several major original performers are coming back, but HBO has so far confirmed only Dunham, Williams, Kirke, Mamet and Rannells.
Girls premiered on HBO in 2012 and followed Hannah and her circle of friends as they moved through work, relationships and adulthood in New York City. The series became one of HBO’s most discussed comedies of the decade and drew both praise and criticism for its portrayal of millennial life.
Across its six seasons, Girls received 19 Emmy nominations and won two Emmys, according to the Television Academy. The show also helped raise the profiles of several members of its cast, including Driver, who later earned two Academy Award nominations and starred in the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
HBO comedy executive Amy Gravitt said the new episodes will shift the focus from the turmoil of the characters’ twenties to the milestone of turning 40. That gives the revival a clear passage of time instead of attempting to pick up immediately after the original finale.
Dunham’s own life has changed considerably since Girls ended. She married musician Luis Felber in 2021, and in September 2026 she announced that they had welcomed their first child, a daughter, through a surrogate.
She also released the memoir Famesick in April 2026. The book includes reflections on her years making Girls, her health problems, fame and several difficult personal and professional relationships.
Among the passages that drew attention were Dunham’s descriptions of working with Driver. She alleged that during one rehearsal, while she was struggling to remember lines, Driver yelled at her and threw a chair at a nearby wall. Dunham wrote that she was experiencing dissociation connected to endometriosis that had not yet been diagnosed.
Driver later addressed questions about the memoir during the Cannes Film Festival in May. Asked about Dunham’s claims, he said he had no comment and joked that he was saving everything for his own book. He did not offer a detailed response to the specific allegations.
Driver’s absence from HBO’s October announcement does not establish whether he could appear later. HBO has not said that the first cast list is necessarily complete, and no detailed character or story information has been released.
The new episodes will be created, written and directed by Dunham. She will executive produce with Apatow, Ilene S. Landress and Michael P. Cohen. Williams, Kirke, Mamet and Rannells will serve as co-executive producers.
One prominent name from the original production team is not listed among those returning. Jenni Konner, who was an executive producer and co-showrunner on the original series, is absent from the announced creative team.
Interest in Girls has continued after its finale, including among viewers who discovered the series years after it first aired. The revival gives HBO a chance to revisit characters who were defined by their twenties and place them in a new phase of adulthood.
The announcement video reunited Dunham, Williams, Kirke, Mamet and Rannells and played on their established character dynamics. Dunham used the video to ask the group whether they would spend another summer together making the show.
For now, HBO has confirmed the number of episodes, the initial returning cast and a 2027 production start. The network has not announced when the revival will air, what the new story will involve or whether additional former cast members will join the project.