Screw It: Now Lena Dunham Is Joining Quentin Tarantino's Manson Movie

Picture this: Quentin Tarantino seated behind a hulking desk somewhere in the Hollywood Hills, an entire shelf of identical Chungking Express VHS tapes lining a wall behind him. A glass paperweight containing the last surviving prop pebble from the set of David Carradine's Kung Fu rests nearby. He stokes the paperweight absentmindedly with one hand, while his other traces down a long list of actors: Leonardo DiCaprio. Brad Pitt. Margot Robbie. Al Pacino. It is the cast list for his upcoming film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and it is impressive—the long scroll of parchment flows off the edge of his desk and out his office door, spilling names like Dakota Fanning and Burt Reynolds and Kurt Russell out into the hall.

Yes, it is a great cast list. Yes, Quentin is pleased. But still, something is missing. The film longs for a final piece. Quentin leans back, taking in the entire view of Los Angeles through his office picture window, and, quietly, thinks. Then, his thin lips split into a grin. He has his answer—the woman who will finally bring his movie together, the glue that will finally make his film complete. Silently, he mouths her name, the words almost too sacred to whisper aloud: Lena Dunham.

He slams a hand down atop an ancient intercom—an intercom that once belonged to director Kinji Fukasaku, purchased at auction in 2005 for suspiciously cheap, Tarantino thinks, but who knows really?—and finally, the director's gesticulating lips find their ability to speak. "Get me Brooklyn."

Yes, it is true: Lena Dunham, the esteemed founder of Lenny Letter, has officially joined the cast of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Variety reports. It's not yet clear who Tarantino wants Dunham to play in his kinda-sorta-but-not-exactly Manson movie, but Entertainment Weekly is reporting that she'll play Catherine "Gypsy" Share, a member of the Manson Family, though that news has yet to be confirmed. Regardless, this will be Dunham's first role in a major film since she played Paul Rudd's co-worker in that Apatow movie, and her first acting gig after appearing on an episode of American Horror Story: Cult last year.

Sure, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood's overwhelming cast might mean the film will just devolve into a two-and-a-half-hour parade of distracting celebrity cameos, but at least we'll be able to see Lena and the other gagillion actors do their best hippie impressions a few weeks earlier than we thought: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is now set to hit theaters July 26, 2019, a change from its previously reported August release date.

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