If you think that Girls is graphic enough as it is (let's not forget that scene involving Marnie and Desi), know that showrunner and star Lena Dunham and producer Judd Apatow wanted to push the show even further. But the two found out that some things do actually cross the line — for HBO, at least.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the cast, along with Apatow and HBO president Sue Naegle, described a scene that had to be cut entirely because then-president of programming at HBO Mike Lombardo said it was just too much. Too much for a network that's portrayed incest, rape, and even human-on-robot sex?
"From the beginning, we were aware that what we were doing was sexually provocative, and that's what made it interesting and new and fun," Apatow said. "Lena wanted to reveal something that is normally hidden — so often you're not talking about a giant part of most people's lives because people don't want to portray it on film — and that opened up tons of stories that you're usually not able to tell. But then we had a scene with a conclusion shot..."
"It was actually come arcing through a shot," Dunham interjected.
"HBO said, 'If this is in the show, we could lose our license,'" explained Apatow. "We were like, 'Oh my god, we've actually found the line at HBO.'"
Naegle goes on to explain that "it was like a fire hose" and that she trusted Lombardo's judgment, because he had been right on previous occasions (she uses that hookup between Marnie and Elijah and his ensuing performance issues as an example). Dunham also added that the show did end up have a magnificent ejaculation scene. The honor just went to Adam and Natalia, instead.
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