text: Lena Dunham is proud of her body. The Girls actress penned an empowering Instagram post thanking Glamour magazine for not Photoshopping her cellulite out of their February 2017 cover. 
   
   “Okay, here goes: throughout my teens I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was f--king funny looking," the actress wrote alongside an image from her shoot with her Girls costars. "Potbelly, rabbit teeth, knock knees - I could never seem to get it right and it haunted my every move. I posed as the sassy confident one, secretly horrified and hurt by careless comments and hostility." 
   
   
   
   Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Glamour 
   
   Dunham continued that she “didn’t hate what [she] looked like” but that she “hated the culture that was telling [her] to hate it.” The outspoken actress noted that throughout her career people have “celebrated [her] look but always through the lens of 'isn't she brave? Isn't it such a bold move to show THAT body on TV?'" 
   
   The actress, who has been vocal about her imperfections in the past and frequently strips off on her HBO show, went on to thank the magazine for letting her be real. 
   
   
   
   “Today this body is on the cover of a magazine that millions of women will read, without photoshop, my thigh on full imperfect display. Whether you agree with my politics, like my show or connect to what I do, it doesn't matter - my body isn't fair game. No one's is, no matter their size, color, gender identity, and there's a place for us all in popular culture to be recognized as beautiful," she concluded. “Haters are gonna have to get more intellectual and creative with their disses in 2017 because none of us are going to be scared into muumuus by faceless basement dwellers, or cruel blogs, or even our partners and friends. Thank you to the women in Hollywood (and on Instagram!) leading the way, inspiring and normalizing the female form in EVERY form, and thank you to @glamourmag for letting my cellulite do the damn thing on news stands everywhere today Love you all.” 
   
   
   
   On the cover, Dunham works it in a pair of purple metallic booty shorts and platform heels alongside her Girls costars Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet and Allison Williams. 
   
   In their tell-all interview, which hits newsstands on January 10, Dunham reveals that as Girls’ creator and showrunner she sometimes felt left out of the group on set. 
   
   "Sometimes I would get very lonely, because I wanted to be a part of the group, but there was also the element of, like, having to boss people around. And we would be doing all this as a team, [but] if we got criticism, I felt like it would all come down on me in this s--t-storm torrent,” said Dunham, who created the series. “Even though I was surrounded by love, there were times where I felt very 'by myself' in the process." 
   
   
   
   The final season of Girls premieres on HBO on Sunday, February 12, at 10 p.m. ET. 
   
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   ||||| One of the amazing things about women is how quickly we adapt to change. No matter how weird or new things are to us at first—ankle-revealing dresses? the right to vote? Lady Gaga?—we eventually just absorb them, like drops in a stream, until memory fades and they join up with the continually flowing river that is progress. Which is why it’s kind of hard to remember that five years ago, when Girls premiered on HBO, the world was a different place. Sure, single-gal shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown had laid the groundwork for then 25-year-old Lena Dunham’s creation. But Dunham made clear in the first episode that neither her character, Hannah, nor Jessa (Jemima Kirke), nor Marnie (Allison Williams), nor Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) would be a Sex and the City fantasy: When chirpy Shoshanna tells Jessa, “You’re definitely like a Carrie, but with, like, some Samantha aspects, and Charlotte hair,” Jessa shoots her a look that just says: No. This show would be different. 
   
   Girls is fiction, obviously. But it has been committed to portraying life, for the most part, as it is. The characters look like people, not actors who spend every waking second working out or tanning or shooting up human growth hormone. The apartments they inhabit are dim and cramped. Their panic about work, money, and love is relatable, the sex they have is awkward, and they go to the bathroom, a lot. At times watching the characters flail around and shoot snot rockets in the bathtub can get uncomfortable, but then they reel you back in with a spot-on joke: “Nobody tells you how bad it’s going to be in the real world,” moans Shoshanna in season four. “Yeah they do,” Marnie snaps. “It’s pretty much all they ever tell you.” 
   
   It is a comedy, after all. But from the start Girls intentionally pushed buttons: There’s nudity, which Dunham has explained is her way of trying to normalize real women’s bodies, homosexuality, and a character who is “super chill,” as the website Jezebel put it, about getting an abortion. Because of that, conservative critics began to rage against it almost immediately with what seemed like outsize fervor. “If, as [Dunham’s] character suggests in the show’s first episode, she is the voice of her generation, then one could seriously argue that we’re doomed,” the National Review warned in 2013. 
   
   In hindsight it seems that perhaps its detractors saw before anyone else what a force Girls would be and how it would permeate our culture. The Internet roiled with Girls think pieces and interviews with the intelligent cast, all of whom made a point of identifying as feminists and encouraged others to do so. Traveling to Texas with Dunham in 2014 for a profile, I was startled by the size of the crowds at events for her book, Not That Kind of Girl, which she held in conjunction with Planned Parenthood, a favored cause. Since then Dunham has further immersed herself in politics; she was one of Hillary Clinton’s most vocal campaign surrogates. Meanwhile, Kirke advocated for the Center for Reproductive Rights, candidly sharing her own abortion story; Mamet wrote about her insecurities and struggles with an eating disorder in Glamour; and as an ambassador to Horizons National, Williams focused on closing the education gap. Last year all four women released a PSA urging support for sexual-assault survivors. 
   
   One can bet that Girls isn’t going to go out lightly in its last season. And the show’s legacy will be felt long after it goes off the air: Shows like Broad City, Love, and Better Things all have Girls in their DNA. Dunham and Girls executive producer Jenni Konner, who interviews the cast below, have made it their mission to deepen the bench of women storytellers by founding a newsletter, Lenny Letter, and a production company, A Casual Romance Productions. And so the river of progress will continue its inexorable flow forward and not back. With that, Jenni, take it away. —Jessica Pressler 
   
   JENNI KONNER: Here’s the idea: When you leave a job, they do something called an exit interview, where they ask you questions about your experience at that company. I want to ask you questions from a corporation’s actual exit interview for this interview. And the company we’re going to talk about is Girls. So. Hi, guys. Welcome. 
   
   LENA DUNHAM: Hi, Jennifer. 
   
   JENNI: I’m going to start with Jemima. What was the most satisfying thing about your job, and the least satisfying? 
   
   JEMIMA KIRKE: OK, thank you. The least and the most satisfying thing about my job was my relationship with Lena. [ Laughter. ] In a good way. It definitely caused us to get closer [after 15 years of friendship,] and it caused us to fight. And then at the end of it, you know, [our relationship] was nicer. 
   
   JENNI: Everyone, take your cue from Jemima and be brutally honest. [ Laughter. ] All right—Allison? 
   
   ALLISON WILLIAMS: I started playing one person, then she evolved so much. I got to exercise all kinds of muscles. The least satisfying? I always wanted to be in the show more. [ Laughter. ] That was my M.O. every year. I wanted to be a piece of furniture in Hannah’s apartment, if that’s what it took. 
   
   JENNI: Jemima just said, “That’s so typical.” And I was about to say, “That’s so on-brand.” 
   
   ALLISON: Listen, I’m consistent. 
   
   JENNI: You are nothing if not consistent. It’s such a relief. Zosia? 
   
   ZOSIA MAMET: The most satisfying part was getting to play a person who was so intrinsically opposite of me in, like, every atom of my being. The dissatisfying thing was that I came to know this human that I created. And love her. And now I miss her. 
   
   JENNI: Lena? 
   
   LENA: I think the most satisfying part was learning to treasure collaboration. When I went into the job, I had fear about letting other people into my process. So whether it was becoming partners with you, Jenni, and realizing that I had a lifelong creative partner, which isn’t something that I ever expected to have in my life based on being raised by parents who went into a studio alone and acted like art was a solitary activity. Or building my relationships with Allison and Zosia, and learning to listen when they had a note and not become defensive. Or the hardest, learning to listen to Jemima, because I always felt like she was, like, six steps from murdering me and I had to protect myself. But all of that helped me learn the satisfying thing of opening up and understanding that other people’s concepts of their characters, their ideas, are just as valuable as mine. 
   
   JENNI: And least satisfying? 
   
   LENA: Sometimes I would get very lonely, because I wanted to be a part of the group, but there was also the element of, like, having to boss people around. And we would be doing all this as a team, [but] if we got criticism, I felt like it would all come down on me in this shit-storm torrent. Even though I was surrounded by love, there were times where I felt very “by myself” in the process. 
   
   JENNI: I’m just gonna say—the hardest part of my job was just trying to get you guys not to get haircuts and tattoos! [ Laughter. ] Now back to the questionnaire: What would you change about the job, if you could, now? 
   
   JEMIMA: Ugh, I think season two. 
   
   JENNI: Your whole season? 
   
   LENA: That was the season where you said I had to get out of your dressing room or you were gonna punch me, Jem. 
   
   JEMIMA: Season two was kind of traumatic for me. I think for everyone. And I know that I was a bit of a tyrant myself. 
   
   LENA: I think it’s time for us to disclose to the world that, like, three days before season two, Jemima tried to quit. [ Laughter. ] 
   
   JEMIMA: Yeah. My sense of who I was and what I wanted was really thin. I really wasn’t sure what the f-ck I was doing. 
   
   LENA: I remember being in a cab. And Jemima called me. She was like, “I have to tell you something. It’s not a big deal. I don’t want you to freak out. I want to quit the show.” [ Laughter. ] 
   
   JENNI: We’re so glad you stayed, Jem. Zosia, what would you change? 
   
   ZOSIA: Oh, f-ck. That’s so hard. So much of my day-to-day work on the show was my attempt to try and find Shoshanna. I think I had a lot of anxiety that I wouldn’t hit her tone right. 
   
   JENNI: But you invented her tone. 
   
   ZOSIA: It was such a surprise to me that that [character] came out of me. I was so all-encompassed in getting it right that I think I lost some of the “relishing the moment” of being in the scenes.
target: – Lena Dunham appears on the cover of Glamour magazine's February issue with her Girls co-stars, wearing booty shorts, and she has something to say to the magazine for not Photoshopping her thighs to smooth perfection: thanks. "Here goes: throughout my teens I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was f---ing funny looking. Potbelly, rabbit teeth, knock knees- I could never seem to get it right and it haunted my every move," she writes on Instagram. "Let's get something straight: I didn't hate what I looked like- I hated the culture that was telling me to hate it. When my career started, some people celebrated my look but always through the lens of 'isn't she brave? Isn't it such a bold move to show THAT body on TV?' ... Well, today this body is on the cover of a magazine that millions of women will read, without photoshop, my thigh on full imperfect display." "Thank you to the women in Hollywood (and on Instagram!) leading the way, inspiring and normalizing the female form in EVERY form, and thank you to @glamourmag for letting my cellulite do the damn thing on news stands everywhere today," she continues. In another Instagram post, Dunham shared the cover image itself and noted that the Glamour issue in which she appears was produced entirely by women. In the accompanying interview, Dunham reveals that Girls star Jemima Kirke nearly quit during season two: "I remember being in a cab. And Jemima called me. She was like, 'I have to tell you something. It’s not a big deal. I don’t want you to freak out. I want to quit the show.'" Girls' final season premieres on HBO Feb. 12, Us reports.