Lena Dunham doesn't need others to tell her she's pretty — she already knows it! Defying those who've criticized her many nude scenes on HBO's Girls, Dunham tells the October issue of Marie Claire U.K. that she has a very positive body image. Appearing on her first fashion magazine cover, Dunham gets a glamorous makeover for the cover — tousled hair, dark smokey eyes and a sexy black lace ensemble — and defends her atypical Hollywood appearance.
"My parents [painter Carroll Dunham and photographer Laurie Simmons] both have really healthy attitudes about their own bodies but also about the range of things that can be beautiful," the 27-year-old Girls creator explains. "But they also just always made me feel pretty and cool and smart, even in the moments when I have known — and still know — that my body wasn't fitting into a traditional Hollywood idea of the female body."
Dunham learned to love her body from a very early age. "This could very easily be taken out of context, and I think it's funny now, but I remember looking in the mirror as a kid and it would be like for an hour at a time, and I'd be like: 'I'm just so beautiful. Everybody is so lucky that they get to look at me,'" she recalls. "And of course that changes as you get older, but I may have held on to that little-kid feeling that was me alone in my bathroom."
Though some fans may argue that Dunham is naked in more scenes on Girls than she is fully clothed, the actress and writer tells Marie Claire U.K. that she actually does appreciate fashion world.
"I'm not saying I am a great candidate for the cover of a fashion magazine," she admits (via Huffington Post). "But I do love clothes. People are always surprised to hear that — they think I walk around in a washcloth or something."
For more of Dunham's interview with Marie Claire U.K. — and her relationship with Fun. guitarist boyfriend Jack Antonoff — pick up the October issue, on stands now.