HBO Is Bringing Back Girls for 5 Episodes with Lena Dunham and All 4 Original Leads

13 Oct 2026, 21:04 by Chrissy Stockton · Thought Catalog

Neilson Barnard / Getty Images

Updated 55 seconds ago, October 13, 2026

Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna are returning to HBO, with production on a 5-episode Girls revival set to begin in 2027, 10 years after the original series ended.

Lena Dunham will return as Hannah Horvath alongside Allison Williams as Marnie Michaels, Jemima Kirke as Jessa Johansson and Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna Shapiro. Andrew Rannells is also coming back as Elijah Krantz.

The original show followed friends navigating their 20s in New York City. HBO comedy chief Amy Gravitt says the revival will turn Dunham’s attention to the milestone of turning 40.

Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, and Zosia Mamet together at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City for the Season 3 premiere of Girls in January 2014. Photo by Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images.

“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. “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.”

At Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on Feb. 2, 2017, the New York premiere of “Girls” season six — the show’s last — gave Lena Dunham a moment to show off a house tattoo on her back. Photo by Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images.

In 2025, Dunham imagined Hannah teaching at Bard and raising her son, Marnie on her 3rd marriage, Jessa living on a boat in Croatia and Shoshanna running a zero-waste athleisure startup after divorcing New York City’s mayor. Those were her ideas about the characters’ futures, rather than announced storylines for the revival.

Judd Apatow is returning as an executive producer alongside Dunham, Ilene S. Landress and Michael P. Cohen. Williams, Kirke, Mamet and Rannells will be co-executive producers.

At Cipriani 42nd Street on February 2, 2017, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, Zosia Mamet, and Allison Williams marked the New York premiere of Girls’ sixth and final season at its after-party. Photo by Neilson Barnard / Getty Images.

Adam Driver, who played Hannah’s on-and-off boyfriend Adam, and original co-showrunner and executive producer Jenni Konner weren’t named in HBO’s revival announcement.

Girls originally aired from 2012 to 2017, earning 19 Emmy nominations and 2 wins.

Thanks for reading Thought Catalog. Join us on Facebook, or keep reading on our website.