The current edition of Lena Dunham‘s vanity project-slash-newsletter Lenny Letter arrived overnight, and features an interview with Amy Schumer, about her newly-released memoir The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo.
The introduction to the feature confronts us with one of those wild ‘what if?’ casting scenarios, like what if Gwyneth Paltrow hadn’t turned down the waterlogged role of Rose in Titanic, or Matt Damon had agreed to become a big, blue dude in Avatar?
Okay, so this isn’t on quite the same level as those two, but nonetheless, in her opening remarks, Dunham revealed that Schumer auditioned for – and failed to get – the part of a major character on Girls.
The role that Schumer tried out for was Hannah’s neurotic and occasionally pants-less sidekick Shoshanna. Said Dunham:
“I first met Amy Schumer almost six years ago when she came in to audition for the role of Shoshanna on Girls (trivia deep dive! Wild!). Everyone in the room was stunned by the detail and skill of her improv, the wild talent radiating off her (and I was personally intrigued by her breasts). It was clear Amy wasn’t meant to play an innocent Juicy Couture lover obsessed with emoji ‘ even if her Meatpacking District club lingo was the funniest shit I had ever heard. But when she left the room, the vibe was very “Someone give that lady a show, STAT!””
The role of Shosh went to the whimsical-as-hell Zosia Mamet, but Schumer would to on to play a cameo role in Girls, as the highly-protective best friend of a character played by UnReal‘s Shiri Appleby.
On that score, Dunham said:
“A year later we couldn’t get her off our minds and asked Amy to come back and play a pivotal role as the protective best friend of Adam’s new GF, a lady with a penchant for gold lamé and verbal threats. Our entire crew was in stitches, even if she was just dancing across a background shot. There was also something so tender about her portrayal. Between scenes, on the steps of a trailer in Fort Greene, Amy told me in hushed tones about the pilot of Inside Amy Schumer. She said she was nervous, but it was impossible for me to believe her — after all, she was the definition of power and command. I wanted to get inside her purse and have her carry me around and just watch her do it all through a peephole.”
The sixth and final season of Girls will air on HBO in 2017. Last month, Schumer made comments suggesting that her own show, Inside Amy Schumer, had wrapped up, leading many to wonder if it was cancelled, or if she’d walked out.
She later clarified that her series is not cancelled, but is on hiatus for the foreseeable future, with Comedy Central giving her time to tour and work on other projects before starting work on season five.
Source: Lenny Letter.
Photo: Jemal Countess / Getty.
