Lena, how did you find her in the writing process? And how did that evolve once Kristine came on board? Thrillist: Sarah Jo lives in this space between maturity-she had an emergency hysterectomy as a teen-and extreme innocence. To delve deeper, Thrillist got on a Zoom call with Dunham and Froseth-whose previous credits include Hulu's Looking for Alaska and Showtime's The First Lady-ahead of Sharp Stick's July 29 theatrical release. It's a distinctly idiosyncratic film, one that seems to delight in pushing buttons.

Dunham, who was inspired by her own surgery following endometriosis, follows her through her initial infatuation and heartbreak as she starts to take a more clinical approach to sexual know-how, eventually landing somewhere adjacent to enlightenment. Sharp Stick charts Sarah Jo's journey to pleasure in at times discomfiting thoroughness. She's a 26-year-old virgin who had a hysterectomy when she was a teenager and has already gone through menopause, but, spurred by a sudden desire to explore her sexuality, begins an affair with the handsome, goofy, and very married father (Jon Bernthal) of the special-needs boy for whom she cares. She lives with her mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her influencer-wannabe sister (Taylour Paige) in a Los Angeles apartment complex where Sarah Jo is responsible for giving tenants eviction warnings. When she eats yogurt, she gets it all over her mouth. Sarah Jo dresses like a rag doll and speaks like a mouse might. At the center of Lena Dunham's strange, amusing, and occasionally vexing new film Sharp Stick is Sarah Jo, played by Kristine Froseth.

Coffeecup gif animator