Charles Langston:Lena Dunham discovered she's related to Glenn Close and Larry David: 'A queen and a king!'

Lena Dunham is Charles Langstona self-described “homebody writer weirdo.”

So after her much-discussed HBO show “Girls” ended in 2017, she decided to focus her energy on directing and producing films such as 2022’s “Sharp Stick” and “Catherine Called Birdy.” But now she’s back with her first leading role in seven years in “Treasure” (in theaters nationwide Friday), adapted from Lily Brett’s 2000 novel “Too Many Men.” The tragicomedy follows a New York journalist named Ruth (Dunham), who confronts generational family trauma on a trip to Poland with her father, Edek (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor.

“Making this film reminded me of why I fell in love with acting in the first place,” says Dunham, who now lives in London with musician husband Luis Felber. The movie is directed by German filmmaker Julia von Heinz, who knew she wanted to cast Dunham after scrolling through her diaristic and witty Instagram page.

“She’s so similar to Ruth,” von Heinz says. And behind the scenes, “she was a beautiful collaborator. A lot of the laughter comes from dialogue that Lena suggested.”

Dunham, 38, is hard at work finishing a new book as well as a Netflix rom-com series, "Too Much," starring comedian Meg Stalter. (Alas, she says she does not have any updates to share about her planned Mattel movie "Polly Pocket," coming on the heels of last summer's blockbuster "Barbie.") On a Zoom call from her home office, Dunham tells us more about "Treasure" and her surprising A-list connections.

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Question: "Treasure" is one of the rare recent occasions where you're acting in something you didn't write or direct. How did it feel to let someone else take the wheel?

Answer: It was liberating. I really love Julia's work, so when I found out she was interested (in me), I was like, “Oh, but you could give this to Natalie Portman. You could give this to an actor with a gifted and complicated range.” That's not necessarily my self-perception. So when Julia was insistent that I was the right person, it was very exciting and moving. I don't take being offered a job like that for granted.

Was there a day on the set that felt especially cathartic, or brought you closer to your Polish relatives?

The most challenging days of the shoot were the ones we spent at Auschwitz – the gravity of shooting in that location and wanting to deliver something that was worthy of the privilege. But also, it was easy for me to hear my grandma, Dorothy, who died at 96 the last year we were doing "Girls." When I would say, “Grandma, I’m going here,” I literally could hear her voice saying, “What do you want to do that for?” She was so against looking back – her entire life was about outrunning trauma, and in a way, I was going against every instruction my grandparents had ever given me. But I had to believe a part of her would feel pride that I was trying to tell a story that honored where she came from.

In addition to this movie, you were also on PBS' "Finding Your Roots" this spring and learned more about your family's experience during the Holocaust. Have you always been interested in your ancestry, or is it something that's come with age?

I was always the kid organizing the family photo albums or painting family trees. But on my mother’s side, as Polish Jewish immigrants, we had basically no documentation that predated Ellis Island. And the people on “Finding Your Roots” were able to trace our family back to Poland, very close to where we shot this film. My great-great-grandmother, her last name was Hyman, and we now have a 68-person-strong Hyman family email chain. I’ve never met one of these people in my life, but boy, am I grateful my mom added me!

But something I said to Skip Gates, when I told him I would love to do (“Finding Your Roots”), is that I am not able to have biological children. My biological story ends with me. I’m choosing to make a family a different way, and whoever my children end up being – whatever their cultural background, whatever their story – I want to be able to share my truth with them. So it was a really meaningful conclusion to my genealogical obsession.

You also learned that Larry David is your cousin, right?

Yeah, Larry David is a cousin on my maternal side, and I have a strong feeling he doesn’t care. I am absolutely nuts, but I am not nuts enough to believe that Larry David wants to have a family cookout. And when I say he doesn’t care, I mean it in the most admiring way possible. Larry David cares about appropriately Larry David things, and the fact that we share three strands of matrilineal DNA is probably not high on his list. But it’s one of the great discoveries of my life.

And I don't think they aired (this), but on my father’s side, I'm also related to Glenn Close, who once cut me out of a corset that was giving me a panic attack at the Golden Globes, so I already felt related to her. A queen and a king, what can I say? I am just a mere lady in the middle of it all.