Everything To Know Before Lena Dunham’s New Netflix Series Launches This Week

2 days ago

It’s almost time for Too Much

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Best known for creating, writing and starring in HBO comedy Girls, Lena Dunham is finally back on our television screens this week with triumphant new rom-comedy Too Much. This time, however, Dunham isn’t our brash protagonist (after rising to fame playing Michigan-born New Yorker Hannah Horveth): the baton has been passed to Megan Stalter. We begin in New York with Jessica (Stalter), a workaholic reeling after the end of a relationship she thought would last forever. Down and out and in need of a change, she takes a job across the Atlantic – a romantic prospect indeed. But what she finds in London is less Notting Hill and more, well, real.

The rest of the series is a unique love letter to London, as told by an American expat who has lived (and loved) here herself: Dunham moved to London in 2021, where she met musician and now-husband (and Too Much co-creator Luis Felber). Featuring a slew of British cameos to boot, here’s everything you need to know before you tune in to Too Much.

Too Much: Plot, Cast, Release Date & More

Megan Stalter as Jessica in Too Much. (© Ana Blumenkron/Netflix)

What Will Happen?

Too Much centres on Jessica (Stalter), who is hoping a big move to London will kick her life back into gear after her seven-year relationship (with Zev, Michael Zegan) comes to a life-shattering end. What she finds in London is much grittier than the romanticised portrait she’d previously painted – and a punk pub meet-cute is all the more unexpected. Meet Felix (Will Sharpe), a sleep-until-noon musician who challenges everything Jessica thinks she knows about love.

‘Jessica and I both wear our hearts on our sleeve: we’re emotional, we’re dramatic, we’re weird, and remain that way as adults,’ lead star Stalter says in summary. Picking her up from NYC and dropping her in London, it’s safe to say Jessica is a fish out of water. Expect cultural confusion galore: a ‘housing estate’ is not a country manor; everybody loves a cartoon bear called Paddington; and Jaffa Cakes are subject to very serious debate. But among all of this confusion, Jessica’s connection with Felix is undeniable – if a bit ‘awkward and embarrassing’ Stalter shares.

Watch the trailer below for a taste of the action.

If Girls broke the mold and spotlighted the real mess underpinning life and love as a 20-something city girl, Too Much takes that story forward 10 years. ‘[Rom-com] was probably the genre that made me want to make movies,’ Dunham explains. ‘The movies [by] Nora Ephron, Mike Nichols, Nancy Meyers, Elaine May and Penny Marshall were aspirational, but there was also just a grain of honesty about what it is to be a woman and to navigate the world. I thought, “Is there a way for us to really layer in the baggage that people experience as they try to fall in love in their 30s?” Because, unlike in your 20s, you have this trail of complexity behind you. When you react to the person that you’re falling in love with, you’re not just reacting to them; you’re reacting to everybody and everything that’s come before them.’

While Too Much isn’t based on a true story, it draws on creator and writer Lena Dunham’s real experiences as an American expat in the British capital (she tells the BBC Too Much is ‘about 5 percent autobiographical’) – and how falling in love in London changed her perception of the city. ‘When I first started coming to the UK for work, I thought to myself, “I want to write something about the experience of being a foreigner here, and the fantasies we have of [London] versus the realities”,’ Dunham tells Netflix. ‘Then when I met my husband, Luis, I felt like I was experiencing all of that, but in the context of a relationship.’

Will Sharpe as Felix & Megan Stalter as Jessica in Too Much. (© Netflix)

Who Stars?

It’s a star-studded cast from both sides of the Atlantic, many of whom Dunham has worked with before. ‘This was one of those magical experiences where everyone I wanted and wrote roles for said yes,’ she says. Drumroll please…

Megan Stalter as Jessica
Will Sharpe as Felix
Michael Zegen as Zev, Megan’s now-ex-boyfriend
Emily Ratajkowski as Wendy Jones, Zev’s new fiancee
Rita Wilson as Lois, Jessica’s mother
Rhea Perlman as Dottie, Jessica’s grandmother
Lena Dunham as Nora, Jessica’s older sister
Oliver Nirenberg as Dash, Nora’s 13-year-old son
Andrew Rannells as Jameson, Jessica’s NYC boss
Richard E Grant as Jonno, Jessica’s new boss in London
Naomi Watts as Ann, Jonno’s elegant wife
Janicza Bravo as Kim, Jessica’s co-worker and fellow expat
Daisy Bevan as Jodie, Jonno’s assistant and Kim’s love interest
Leo Reich as Boss, Jessica’s Gen Z colleague
Adèle Exarchopoulos as Polly, Felix’s ex
Dean-Charles Chapman as Gaz, Jessica’s neighbour
Stephen Fry as Simon, Felix’s father
Kaori Momoi as Aiko, Felix’s mother
Prasanna Puwanarajah as Auggie, Felix’s roommate
Adwoa Aboah as Linnea

Too Much’s British Cameos

Aside from the stellar core cast, Too Much features a slew of blink-and-you-miss it cameos from British television gems we can only assume Dunham has fallen deeper in love with since moving here.

On the more frequent end of the scale, Richard E Grant, Naomi Watts and Stephen Graham have parts to play in Too Much, the former as Jessica’s new London boss, Watts as his dissatisfied wife and the latter as Felix’s father. On the more fleeting side, faces to spot include beloved Irishman Andrew Scott, Game of Thrones and Industry star Kit Harington, model-turned-actress Adwoa Aboah, pop star Rita Ora and Ab-Fab star Jennifer Saunders.

They embellish a cast from both sides of the Atlantic, glued together by leading man Will Sharpe, who says of the cameos, ‘Every week, there’d be somebody new that is a hero of yours’ on set. Fellow Brits in the core cast include Game of Thrones alum Dean-Charles Chapman and Nip/Tuck star Daisy Bevan.