Adam Driver is at the center of a fervid news cycle that is reminding him and everyone else that he has a reputation for being a certain type of supposedly serious actor: Temperamental, hot-headed, “spectacularly rude.”

That’s because his former “Girls” co-star Lena Dunham has published, “Famesick,” a “juicy” new memoir about her life and career, and much of the attention-grabbing moments concern her turbulent personal and professional relationship with Driver, who played her on-off boyfriend Adam Sackler in the HBO series, The Cut reported.

In her memoir, Dunham calls the Academy Award-nominated actor “feral” and said he screamed and threw a chair at her when he got frustrated. “(EXPLETIVE) SAY SOMETHING!” Dunham quoted Driver as yelling as he hurled a chair at the wall next her her. He was frustrated because she forgot a line during a rehearsal, she said.

But, of course, Dunham is not the first person to publicly call out the “Star Wars” actor for being petulant or rude when things don’t go his way. There’s also the notorious incident from 2019, when Driver walked out on Terry Gross, another accomplished woman, during an interview for her highly influential NPR talk show “Fresh Air.”

NPR sources opened up to The Daily Beast and Variety about Driver’s walk-out, which meant that the interview never aired. They said Driver left mid-interview after “Fresh Air” played a clip of the actor singing in a memorable scenes from “Marriage Story,” the Noah Baumbach film that Driver was supposed to be promoting during that year’s awards season.

Driver had expressed displeasure about listening to the clip. He was recording his side of the radio interview at NPR’s New York offices while Gross was at “Fresh Air’s” main studio in Philadelphia. Gross’ team, aware that Driver didn’t like to listen to recordings of himself, encouraged him to remove his headphones while any clips were played back.

After the clip was played, Driver left the studio during a break in the interview, confirmed “Fresh Air” executive producer Danny Miller. “We don’t really understand why he left,” Miller told the Daily Beast. “We were looking forward to the interview — Terry thinks he’s a terrific actor, he was a great guest when he was on (“Fresh Air”) in 2015 — so we were disappointed that we didn’t have a new interview to share with our listeners about ‘Marriage Story.'”

Driver created such a stir from his walk-out because Gross is well-liked in the arts and entertainment world; actors, writers and musicians see her show as a great vehicle for promoting their latest projects. Gross is known for doing her homework and getting artists to talk about themselves in ways that help them come across as engaging, intelligent and perceptive.

Driver was booked to do Gross’ show to promote “Marriage Story” and his new "Star Wars" movie, “The Rise of Skywalker.” A “Fresh Air” interview could have been useful for boosting his chances of winning a best actor Oscar for “Marriage Story.” Instead, Driver walked out, and Driver ended up losing that year to Joaquin Phoenix for “Joker.”

The “Fresh Air” situation also helped build the narrative that Driver could be difficult. Fast forward to the publication of Dunham’s book and her interview last weekend in The Guardian. The writer told Dunham that she found Driver’s behavior towards her on the set of “Girls,” which she created, and in rehearsal to be “completely unacceptable” and “spectacularly rude.”

In response, Dunham said, “At the time, I didn’t have the skill to … it never entered my mind to say, ‘I am your boss, you can’t speak to me this way.’ And, at that point in my 20s, I still thought that’s what great male geniuses do: eviscerate you. Which is weird, because I was raised by a male genius who would never do that.”

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