Griffin Dunne Says Friend Carrie Fisher 'Lived For Every Lurid Detail' of His Sexual Encounters (Exclusive)

Griffin Dunne and Carrie Fisher were close friends and roommates at one time, and even when Dunne took Fisher’s virginity, it didn’t hurt their friendship — or Dunne’s relationship with Fisher’s boyfriend at the time. On the contrary, the act “was ridiculously entertaining, and at times even funny,” an approach that Dunne writes was “revolutionary” for him. (Read how ridiculous his and Fisher’s approach to sex can be).

As roommates do, the couple was always there for each other. He was there when Fisher landed her iconic role as Princess Leia Star Wars, and walked in on her comforting James Taylor during one of their wild parties at their apartment. And in return, she offered him comfort and security when he too needed it.

In his new memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoirout June 11 from Penguin Press, Dunne shares these stories and many more from a star-studded childhood in a house where Sean Connery once saved him from drowning, Warren Beatty serenaded a lavish party, and other bold names often came and went .

Griffin Dunne (left), Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.

Courtesy of McGrath Estate

When he sat down to write his new book, Dunne at first expected to take a funny route. “I thought I would write a lot of humor, [David] Anecdotes like Sedaris,” the actor, director and producer, 68, tells PEOPLE for the story in the print edition of June 10. But he quickly realized he had to balance the happy stories with the dark shadows. “I allowed myself to get into pain,” he says. “I discovered that there is room for both humor and tragedy.”

Below, in an exclusive excerpt from her new memoir, Dunne shares one such story about her relationship with Fisher.

Griffin Dunne’s new memoir, ‘The Friday Afternoon Club’.

Penguin Random House

First of all, let me cut to the chase and say that Carrie never became my girlfriend. She knew, long before I did, that being lovers would limit our options. Carrie was a virgin when we met, and she lived for every grim detail of my own sexual encounters: from my first kiss to the post-coital anxieties I shared only with her. Her curiosity was so forensic that I felt like a corpse undergoing an autopsy. I became her Agricultural Almanac to anticipate the right conditions when she will be ready to move forward into the wasteland of sexual confusion.

We saw both Deep throat, and during one such examination she tried to determine how I stand in relation to the other, so to speak, male members of that star cast. She theorized that the bigger the hose, the less brainpower, an equation that had been running since she saw her friend’s younger brother with a traumatic brain injury tie a Batman cape around his giant bone. “Gotham City will never be the same,” she said.

“Sometimes I think my brain is damaged,” I said. It came out so quietly that I hoped the remark would be overlooked.

“Then you must be hanged like a yak!”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m serious. There’s something wrong with my brain. I can’t remember s— it happened two days ago. I forget entire conversations, important instructions, car keys, people’s names. It takes me all day to read a page from a book. There’s something wrong with me. I think I fell on my head or something.”

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Oh k…, I cried. I thought about doing something funny, maybe doing a Charles Laughton impersonation as the Hunchback of Notre Dame ringing church bells and yelling, “Sanctuary,” when Carrie grabbed my arm.

Author today.

THOMAS BOHLEN / STARFACE / HEADPRESS

“You’re not stupid. You’re one of the smartest people I know, which may not set the bar very high, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. I can’t believe you would think that.”

“Can you keep a secret?” I asked.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she said, but I knew she would.

“The boarding school my parents sent me to kept me for a year. I’m a year older than everyone in the class.”

“Being a good student is highly overrated. Winston Churchill, to whom I’m sure you are compared all the time, was reserved at Harrow. I just saw it in a documentary. My own mother dropped out of the MGM Little Red Schoolhouse, geez, not that it’s very inspiring. Who else? Einstein was academically challenged and a notorious bum, and he fucked Marilyn, let’s not forget.

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“Here’s the problem, Griffin,” [Fisher continued] “You’re not mentally impaired in any way. You’re just very, very distracted. I saw you get lost driving me four blocks from here to my house. You didn’t forget where I live, you just turned up the radio to hear the new Neil Young when you should have been in the left lane, but you were too busy voicing your belief that Crazy Horse is better than Buffalo Springfield, which leads to a complete recall of every musician, artist, and comic that came out of Canada, which reminds you to remind me again to buy George’s new album Carlina because you think he’s almost as funny as me, which I did, and you’re wrong, he’s funnier.

“But you’re usually right about everything except the brain damage. If I wanted to get home the direct way, I could just hail a cab. Getting lost with you is the smartest fun I’ve ever had.”

Adapted from THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON CLUB by Griffin Dunne. It will be published on June 11, 2024 by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 Thomas Griffin Dunne.

Club on Friday afternoons by Griffin Dunne is out June 11th from Penguin Press and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

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