Main cast
Hannah Horvath
- played by Lena Dunham
Hannah Helene Horvath is an aspiring writer living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, originally from East Lansing, Michigan. Known for her spunk and bad decisions, she struggles to support herself and find a direction in her life.
At the start of the series, Hannah's parents announce their decision to stop supporting her financially. She leaves her unpaid internship for a job at a law firm, but quits when endemic workplace sexual harassment leads to awkward misunderstanding with her boss. [4] In season two, she is offered an e-book deal to write a series of personal essays based on the strength of her freelance contributions to online publications. The stress of the book deal causes a relapse of the obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms she suffered in her youth, but the experience brings her closer to Adam, her on-again, off-again, love interest. [5] [6]
After the death of her editor causes the book deal to fall through, she takes a job writing advertorials for GQ magazine in season three. She briefly attends the Iowa Writers' Workshop in season four before returning to New York and becoming a high school teacher. There, she enters a relationship with Fran, a fellow teacher.
In the final season, Hannah becomes pregnant after a brief fling with a surf instructor during a writing assignment. She later leaves New York City to take a teaching job upstate and raise her baby. [7]
Marnie Michaels
- played by Allison Williams
Marnie Marie Michaels is Hannah's best friend and, at the start of season 1, roommate. Along with Jessa, Charlie and Elijah, Marnie was a classmate of Hannah's at Oberlin College. Domineering and arguably as self-centred and narcissistic as Hannah, Marnie struggles in her relationships throughout the series.
At the beginning of the show, Marnie works as an art curator in a gallery. She has been dating her college boyfriend Charlie for four years, though she has grown bored of him. [8] They eventually break up, and Marnie is despondent when Charlie quickly begins dating someone else. Charlie is likewise upset when Marnie reveals she is dating artist Booth Jonathan. After their respective relationships end, Marnie and Charlie decide to get back together.
During the beginning of season 3, Marnie is at her emotional rock bottom. Charlie unexpectedly broke up with her, and after failing to find a job in the art world, is working at Ray's. She also begins sleeping with Ray despite their mutual animosity towards each other. After meeting musician Desi Harperin, Marnie decides to pursue her dream career in music. Despite Desi being in a relationship, he and Marnie begin a musical partnership and an affair. [9] At the end of season 4, Desi and Marnie get engaged.
Upon returning from their honeymoon in season 5, Marnie and Desi begin arguing constantly. After an emotional reunion with Charlie, Marnie decides to divorce Desi. [10] However, they try to continue their music partnership to ride the wave of fleeting commercial success they experience when one of their songs is featured on television. [11] At the end of season 5, Marnie realizes that she is in love with Ray, and the two begin a relationship.
In the final season, Marnie cheats on Ray with Desi, though this affair ends when Marnie finds out that Desi is a drug addict. [12] Sick of Marnie's self-centered attitude, Ray breaks up with her. Desi's addiction also begins to negatively affect their band, and Marnie's musical career collapses.
With nothing left for her in New York, Marnie moves upstate with Hannah to help raise her baby. [13]
Jessa Johansson
- played by Jemima Kirke
Jessa Johansson is one of Hannah's closest friends, a global citizen of British origin, and is known for being bohemian, unpredictable, and brash. At the start of the series, Jessa has recently returned to New York from a stint abroad, and becomes roommates with her cousin, Shoshanna, in Nolita, Manhattan. She has had a turbulent relationship with her father throughout her life. [14]
Jessa navigates many life struggles and poor choices, including a short-lived marriage to a venture capitalist named Thomas John and a stint in rehab due to heroin and cocaine addiction. In rehab, she becomes close to Jasper, an older man; the two briefly reunite in New York when he finds her at the baby boutique where she works. [15]
At the start of season 5, Jessa is studying to become a therapist and attending substance use support group meetings. When she pursues a relationship with Hannah's ex-boyfriend, Adam, she and Hannah have an explosive falling out. Jessa and Adam are then inspired to create an independent film about the experience. In the final season, she struggles with the realization that her life is in tatters, and is abandoned by Shosh. She also decides she is not ready to become a therapist. While Jessa remains in a relationship with Adam at the end of the series, she and Hannah make peace before Hannah leaves New York. [16] [17]
Shoshanna Shapiro
- played by Zosia Mamet
Shoshanna Shapiro is Jessa's naive and innocent American cousin and a Media, Culture, and Communications major at New York University. The character is fast talking and her lack of enunciation gives her a mumbling, nervous persona. She is a fan of the TV series Sex and the City and is embarrassed to still be a virgin at the start of the series. [18] Her first serious boyfriend is Ray. While Shoshanna breaks up with him at the end of season 2, the pair remain close throughout the rest of the series. [19]
Shoshanna struggles to balance her academic and personal life throughout season 3 and discovers she is ineligible for graduation after failing a class. [20] While she eventually graduates, she finds the postgraduate career search more difficult than she expected. At the end of season 4, Shoshana meets Scott at a job interview and they begin dating. Shortly after they begin dating, however, Shoshana accepts a job offer that has her relocating to Tokyo. Instead of breaking up, Shoshana and Scott decide to pursue a long-distance relationship. [19]
At the beginning of season 5, Shoshanna thrives personally and professionally in Tokyo, making friends and developing a mutual attraction with a coworker named Yoshi. After being unexpectedly laid off from her job, Shoshanna decides to stay in Japan rather than return to New York, effectively breaking up with Scott. However, she eventually finds herself homesick and decides to come back to the United States. Upon her return, Shoshana takes a job helping Ray promote his coffee shop. She eventually realizes that her friendship with the other three has only ever held her back, and ultimately distances herself from them. By the end of the sixth season, she is engaged and has a new circle of friends. [21]
Adam Sackler
- played by Adam Driver
Adam Sackler is an aloof, passionate young man who works as a part-time carpenter and actor. At the start of the series, he is in a casual relationship with Hannah. Their relationship becomes more serious after the season 2 finale, in which he runs across town to Hannah’s side when the stress of her book deal severely impacts her mental health. [5] The pair grow distant due to the pressure Adam experiences when he is cast in a Broadway production of Major Barbara . [22] While they agree to a long-distance relationship as Hannah attends the Iowa Writers Workshop, this falls through and Adam has already begun a new relationship with Mimi-Rose upon Hannah's return to New York. [23]
Adam is an alcoholic who has been sober for years. [24] He develops a bond with Jessa when they begin attending the same support group. The two develop a volatile relationship, causing a rift between Hannah and Jessa. When Hannah becomes pregnant, Adam considers reuniting with her to help raise the baby, but the pair ultimately decide not to rekindle their relationship. [25]
Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz has endorsed the idea that Adam is intended to be a fictional scion of the real-life Sackler family, and that Adam's substance abuse and art world adjacency are intended as commentary on the real-life family's controversial relationship with the opioid crisis and arts philanthropy. [26] Dunham has not commented on whether the character's naming was intentional.
Ray Ploshansky
- played by Alex Karpovsky (seasons 2–6; recurring season 1) [27]
Raymond "Ray" Ploshansky is introduced as Charlie's friend, but later becomes a friend of the others and the group's straight man. Unlike Hannah and her other friends, Ray is in his thirties. [28] He works at Grumpy's, a local coffee shop. By the second season, he enters a relationship with Shoshanna. Even though the two break up, the experience encourages Ray to take himself more seriously; at the start of season 3, he is made manager of a spin-off of Grumpy's called Ray's. He also briefly dates Marnie in season 3. [29]
Galvanized by poor traffic conditions in his neighborhood, Ray mounts a successful campaign for city council in season 4. [30] He deals with competition from a hipster coffee shop across the street from Ray's throughout seasons 5 and 6. [31] When Hermie, the proprietor of Grumpy's, dies in season 6, Ray continues Hermie's oral history project to document gentrification in Brooklyn. [17]
Elijah Krantz
- played by Andrew Rannells (seasons 4–6; recurring seasons 1–3) [32]
Elijah Krantz is Hannah's ex-boyfriend from college who reveals that he is gay. Despite some initial hostility between the pair, they eventually become friends and later on-and-off roommates. The two grow much closer as roommates. Despite being gay, he has a one-night stand with Marnie that is a brief source of tension in Marnie and Hannah's friendship.
In seasons 3 and 4, Elijah dates Pal. Elijah enters a relationship with sophisticated television host Dill Harcourt in season 5 but is eventually heartbroken to realize that Dill is unwilling to settle down with one person. [33]
Elijah aspires to become a Broadway performer and often tries to ingratiate himself into theatrical social circles. At the end of the series, riding off the emotions of his final conversation with Dill, he has a successful audition for a Broadway musical adaptation of White Men Can't Jump . [17]
Desi Harperin
- played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach (seasons 4–6; recurring season 3)
Desi Harperin is introduced as Adam's co-star in Major Barbara and soon becomes Marnie's bandmate. Despite having a girlfriend, Clementine, he and Marnie engage in a sexual relationship. The secret nature of their relationship is a source of personal and professional frustration for Marnie as record label executives believe the pair would be more marketable as a romantic item. [34] When Clementine eventually breaks up with Desi, he and Marnie have a public relationship. They become engaged, and later marry.
In season 6, Marnie eventually ends the relationship with him when she tires of his childishness and self-indulgence, though they continue their musical partnership. It is revealed that Desi is addicted to prescription pain killers after Marnie cheats on Ray with him.
Fran Parker
- played by Jake Lacy (season 5; recurring season 4)
Fran Parker is a fellow high school teacher at St. Justine's whom Hannah dates in season 5. While more emotionally stable than Adam, Fran is very critical of both Hannah's teaching style and her personal decisions. [19] [35] Fran moves in with Hannah and Elijah, but he and Hannah break up by the end of the season.