Girls: Amy Schumer auditioned to play Shoshanna, says Lena Dunham

Once upon a time, Amy Schumer auditioned for a role on Girls — and even though she didn’t get it, creator and star Lena Dunham could feel the comedian was going places.

“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!),” wrote Dunham in her Lenny Letter released Friday, which features an interview with Schumer. “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).”

Despite being impressed with Schumer, the role eventually went to Zosia Mamet. “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,” jokes Dunham. “But when she left the room, the vibe was very ‘Someone give that lady a show, STAT!'”

In the years since, Dunham has witnessed Schumer make “issues our foremothers fought in vain to bring to popular attention into an easy part of our national vocabulary, all the while causing us to spit milk from our noses with giddy laughter.” Praising Schumer even more, Dunham makes it clear their love knows no bounds: “I would fellate the whole cast of Duck Dynasty if it meant keeping Amy safe, and I know she’d do the same for me (though neither of us want to AT ALL).”

Dunham’s piece also features an extensive Q&A with Schumer, in which she touched on how Jennifer Lawrence comforted her in the aftermath of a fatal shooting at a Trainwreck screening in 2015, plus the scandal that erupted in August when one of her Inside Amy Schumer writers, Kurt Metzger, made offensive remarks about rape.

“First I was like, f— Kurt,” Schumer told Dunham via Skype. “It’s been years that he’s been doing this. He’s one of those guys, like a lot of the guys that I’m friends with, who are degenerates. Kurt was saying this awful stuff, and in previous years, I would be like, ‘You’ve got to shut up.’ He’d be like, ‘All right.’ Then it would kind of go away. This time, it was just so bad.”

Schumer has discussed the Metzger controversy at length in the past, calling the backlash she received “really frustrating” in an interview with EW Radio. Speaking to Dunham, Schumer said she understood being connected to the controversy, but had hoped fans would understand she didn’t support Metzger.

“I can see myself thinking that if I heard somebody on someone’s staff was doing that,” she said. “I’d be like, ‘I wonder how they are going to handle that.’ I get it. I get it, and I wasn’t even resentful of the connection. I was resentful of the lack of trust. Like, ‘Have I earned any good will with you guys? Do you believe that I feel that rape victims should be shamed on the internet? Have I built up any sort of good will?'”

For more from Schumer and Dunham, visit Lenny’s website.