Adam Driver may be known for leading critically acclaimed films like “BlacKkKlansman” and blockbusters like “Star Wars,” but his career first gained steam on TV in Lena Dunham’s HBO series “Girls.” The show has been in the news again recently as Dunham’s memoir, “Famesick,” revealed behind-the-scenes drama including claims about Driver’s on-set behavior.
In the book, Dunham alleged that Driver was at times “verbally aggressive” and once “hurled a chair at the wall next to me.” At the Cannes press conference for his latest film “Paper Tiger” on Sunday, it didn’t take long for Driver to be asked about the claims.
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“I have no comment on any of that. I’m saving it all for my book,” Driver said plainly, sparking laughter in the room.
In “Famesick,” Dunham wrote: “I remember doing a fight scene with Adam and how scary it was to meet someone so totally present with such absence. Late one night, as we practiced lines in my trailer, I found that mine were suddenly gone. I knew I’d written them. I’d known them only minutes before. But when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a stammer — until finally, Adam screamed, ‘FUCKING SAY SOMETHING’ and hurled a chair at the wall next to me. ‘WAKE THE FUCK UP,’ he told me. ‘I’M SICK OF WATCHING YOU JUST STARE.’”
Despite their complex relationship, Dunham said she and Driver “still felt like partners” during the first season of “Girls” and she “spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if Adam liked me.”
“He could be short-tempered and verbally aggressive, condescending and physically imposing,” she wrote, but “could also be protective, loving even.”
“Paper Tiger,” directed by James Gray and co-starring Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller, premiered on Saturday night to a seven-minute standing ovation. Set in 1986, the story follows two brothers, Irwin and Gary Pearl, whose get-rich scheme to help clean up the Gowanus Canal ends in disaster after Irwin (Teller), a nebbish family man, angers Russian mobsters by unwittingly witnessing their criminal activity. It falls to Gary (Driver), a former cop, to bail him out, but his efforts to make a deal only drag them deeper into a world of violence.
Johansson was unable to attend the Cannes premiere — and failed to pick up Gray’s FaceTime during the ovation — but sent a statement that Gray read during the press conference. “I want to be fair to Scarlett, I didn’t tell her I was going to try to FaceTime her. I just thought we might get lucky,” Gray said before reading Johansson’s remarks. “She’s working in New York and all that.”
“Working with James and this extraordinary cast was one of the great pleasures of my career. I feel so fortunate to have been part of a story so deeply rooted in what matters most: human connection, identity and the way our values evolve across generations,” Johansson wrote. “I’m sorry I can’t be there with you today. James, I know you are reading this right now and this part will make you genuinely queasy, my apologies. But I want you to know how much it means to me to have been part of something that you created with such care and intention, that came from the depths of your artistic soul. The consideration and sensitivity towards the human condition in this film is so evident on screen, every frame of it, and I am so extraordinarily proud to have been part of it.”
She continued, “To everyone watching and writing about this film, thank you for sitting with our story. Cinema has this rare and remarkable power to connect us to one another through a shared experience. It happens in the dark, where we can’t see each other’s faces, and yet somehow we can feel each other’s presence, each other’s empathy. That collective empathy is something we could certainly use more of right now.”
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