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Millennials are getting older and “Girls” is coming back to see how that’s going.
HBO announced Tuesday that Lena Dunham’s comedy will return for a limited five-episode run, with its four leading women and Andrew Rannells reprising their roles.
The original series followed aspiring writer Hannah Horvath and her friends through the jobs, relationships, and financial uncertainty of their 20s in New York. It ran for six seasons from 2012 to 2017, becoming a lightning rod for debates about millennial life, feminism, and who gets to speak for a generation.
Now, Dunham is returning to the characters with another decade of perspective.
Here’s everything we know about the “Girls” revival.
Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, and Andrew Rannells are returning
According to HBO's announcement, Dunham will reprise her role as Hannah Horvath, alongside Williams as Marnie Michaels, Kirke as Jessa Johansson, and Mamet as Shoshanna Shapiro.
Rannells is also returning as Elijah, Hannah’s ex-boyfriend and friend. All four of Dunham’s returning castmates will serve as co-executive producers.
The revival will trade the chaos of their 20s for the milestone of turning 40
HBO hasn’t revealed a plot synopsis, but its comedy chief, Amy Gravitt, offered a hint about the new episodes’ focus.
“We’re thrilled to have Lena turn her gaze from the tumult of one’s twenties to the milestone of turning forty,” Gravitt said in a statement.
“To say the world has changed since we last saw Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, Jessa, and Elijah is a massive understatement," Gravitt added, "but we know fans — old and new — will be happy to see how they’ve grown and relieved to see that they’re still the ‘Girls’ we knew way back when.”
Details about their careers, relationships, and where they’re living remain under wraps.
Dunham said the idea came to her around her 40th birthday
The creator said nostalgia alone wasn’t enough to bring the series back.
“We always said we would only return to 'Girls' if there was a specific story we were burning to tell,” Dunham said in a statement. “I’ve missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn’t quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my 40th birthday, they started talking to me in the shower.”
“And, as you may remember, once this fivesome starts talking it’s pretty hard to get them to stop,” Dunham said.
Adam Driver’s return hasn’t been confirmed
Driver, who played Hannah’s on-and-off boyfriend Adam Sackler, wasn’t included in HBO’s cast announcement.
That leaves his involvement an open question. His absence from the announcement doesn’t establish whether Adam will appear in the new episodes.
Driver has several film projects on his slate. He is set to star opposite Anne Hathaway in Ron Howard’s military drama “Alone at Dawn,” scheduled for theatrical release on Christmas Day 2027. He’s also been cast as the villain Mr. Sinister in Marvel’s “X-Men” reboot, due in May 2028.
Judd Apatow is returning, but former co-showrunner Jenni Konner isn’t confirmed
Dunham will write, direct, and executive produce the revival. Apatow, an executive producer on the original series, is also returning, alongside executive producers Ilene S. Landress and Michael P. Cohen.
Konner, who ran the original series with Dunham, was not listed in HBO's announcement. The pair previously announced the end of their producing partnership in 2018.
Dunham offered a more personal account of the separation in her memoir “Famesick,” published this year, describing the breakdown of a relationship that mixed close friendship with creative collaboration.
Production begins in 2027, but there’s no premiere date yet
According to the HBO announcement, filming is scheduled to begin next year, a decade after the original series finale.
“Latching,” which aired on April 16, 2017, left Hannah adjusting to motherhood in upstate New York, with Marnie helping her raise her son, Grover. Jessa and Shoshanna didn’t appear in the final episode.
HBO has ordered five episodes. HBO has not announced a premiere date or release schedule.
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Katherine Li is a reporter on Business Insider's West Coast business news team. She covers career, the future of work, and how AI is changing hiring practices and workplace trends.Previously, she was a newsroom fellow who wrote international breaking news and produced newsletters for Semafor. Before that, she wrote about climate policies for The Lever, covered the AAPI community for the SF Chronicle as a freelancer, and wrote about the 2019 Hong Kong protests as an intern for The New York Times.She is an alumna of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and a graduate of the international journalism program at Hong Kong Baptist University with minors in French and English literature. Email Katherine at [email protected] and follow her on Bluesky @katherineli.bsky.social.
