Lena Dunham Checked Out of the Hype Machine

“Last night at the bodega, I saw a 20-something girl who looked like she’d had the worst day imaginable,” Lena Dunham tells me on a recent afternoon in her New York apartment, teeing up the beginnings of a classically Lena Dunham tale. “Her bag was full of crap. She’d been moving from place to place all day. She went to buy a vape, and her credit card wasn’t working. I could see she was about to cry. I was like, ‘Just put that with my stuff,’” Dunham says. “I think she felt like her grandmother just bought her a vape. As I was leaving, she said, ‘I love your pants.’ I went, ‘I’m almost 40, so that’s great to hear!’”