Stephen Fry feels "protective" of Lena Dunham

Asked if he was aware of her previous work, Stephen told The Observer newspaper: "Yes, because of 'Girls', which I think is such an amazing series to have created and performed in. We understood each other so instantly.

"She called me 'daddy' a lot of the time, and although I've never been a father, I felt very protective of her. We also have shared ancestry, as we both had Jewish family that were lost at Auschwitz."

Stephen also revealed how his Jewish ancestry influenced his performance in the movie.

The actor feels he was able to empathise with his on-screen character, Edek, because of everything his grandfather experienced after arriving in Britain in the 1920s.

He shared: "My grandfather Martin, who moved to Britain in the late 1920s, was a character not unlike Edek.

"His parents, sisters, nieces, nephews, were Hungarian Jews, and as you probably know, in 1944, the sweeping out of Hungarian Jews was complete.

"You can't imagine how someone would face life after that loss. Some hid away, got angry, had their view of humanity forever tainted, naturally, but others embraced life, like my grandfather, who gobbled up music and women and food.

"So I understood how, for Edek, going back home was a terrible thing."