HBO Greenlights Five-Episode 'Girls' Revival with Full Original Cast

HBO has greenlit a five-episode revival of Girls, with the full original core cast returning and production set to begin in 2027. Lena Dunham will return as creator, showrunner and star, the network announced Tuesday.

The series ended in April 2017 after six seasons. Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet and Jemima Kirke will reprise their roles, and Andrew Rannells returns as Elijah Krantz, Hannah's gay best friend and college ex-boyfriend. All four will also serve as co-executive producers.

Who's back — and who isn't?

Judd Apatow returns as executive producer via Apatow Productions, alongside Dunham, Ilene S. Landress and Michael P. Cohen of Dunham's Good Things Going outfit.

Conspicuously absent: Adam Driver, who played Hannah's on-and-off actor boyfriend Adam, and former co-showrunner Jenni Konner. Neither came out well in Dunham's bestselling memoir Famestruck, published earlier this year. In it, Dunham alleged friction with Driver that led to several confrontations. She and Konner split professionally in 2018, around the release of the follow-up miniseries Camping.

What did Dunham say?

"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 shared by HBO. "I've missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn't quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my fortieth 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."

She added: "It's rare that you get the chance to return to something that changed your life with the gift of hindsight and a whole new level of gratitude and understanding. I love these girls (and boy), our friends at HBO and all the people who have continued to discover the show and remind us afresh why we do this, which is the joy of being together… and the chance to wear yellow mesh…"

Amy Gravitt, executive vice president and head of HBO & HBO Max comedy programming, said: "We're thrilled to have Lena turn her gaze from the tumult of one's twenties to the milestone of turning forty. To say the world has changed since we last saw Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, Jessa, and Elijah is a massive understatement, 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."

Why now?

The timing isn't accidental. Gen Z has recently discovered the show, obsessing over it on social media — a second life that HBO has clearly noticed. The revival will follow the quartet's friend group through a new decade of breakups and breakdowns, with Williams as Marnie Michaels, Mamet as Shoshanna Shapiro and Kirke as Jessa.

The original run earned 19 Emmy nominations and two wins, including Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series. Dunham most recently directed the Netflix film Good Sex, starring Natalie Portman, which the streamer pushed off its 2026 release calendar because Portman's recent pregnancy prevented her from doing promotion, a source told IndieWire.

Whether the revival can replicate the original's cultural grip — minus two key players — is the question HBO has just spent five episodes betting on. Variety first reported the news.