Much like their show, the cast and crew of HBO’s Girls sat down at this year’s PaleyFest 2015 on Sunday, International Women’s Day, to have a frank chat with their fans.

Following an advance screening of Sunday’s all-new episode, the show’s executive producer, Judd Apatow, armed himself with an afternoon beer and played panel moderator, which included stars Allison Williams, Andrew Rannells and Alex Karpovsky, executive producers Bruce Eric Kaplan, Ilene S. Landress, Jenni Konner and of course, the show’s maestro, Lena Dunham.

In a refreshing change of pace from panels that only offer vague teases of what’s to come, the Girls panel instead reflected upon the past four seasons, with many stories that reveal a close-knit familial group of people that are, in Dunham’s words, “game to do whatever.”

The whole event felt like a family affair, and not just because Judd’s daughter Maude was in the audience fresh off her startling guest turn in this week’s episode, “Tad & Loreen & Avi & Shanaz.”

According to Dunham, the cast and crew’s collective camaraderie and year-round hard work shields them from scrutiny.

“Until this moment, we don’t believe anyone’s actually watching,” Dunham (mostly) joked. Unfortunately, they’re not completely insulated; the hate on social media gets to Dunham, even if she doesn’t want it to, which is why she now has someone else running her Twitter.

Dunham’s meteoric rise with Girls had no bearing on her nearly catastrophic first acting job on HBO’s Mildred Pierce. Her mom told Dunham to play herself, because that’s why they hired her. That turned out to be misguided advice when she was playing a 1930’s era nurse giving Kate Winslet’s character the sad news that her daughter was dying. She got cut from the scene, though you can still see her feet in the finished product.

Kaplan’s favorite moment working on the show came while filming a darkly-lit sex scene between Dunham and Adam [Driver] during the first season. Konner turned to him and whispered, “I think we’re shooting a porno.”

Girls’ numerous sex scenes have inspired controversy, but Dunham argues that the show’s sexual content is used to push their characters forward. Williams jumped to her defense, referencing the graphic scene involving Marnie and her new boyfriend that open season 4 and how it showed Marnie at her lowest.

In 12 seconds “it shows everything. It’s economical.”

Inevitably, Apatow asked if Andrew Rannells would consider full-frontal nudity, still a TV taboo even on a premium network like HBO. Rannells pointed out that he had never read anything in the scripts that seemed uncharacteristic in this world, and if it came up, that “it’d be there for a reason. I’d trust you. You want me to do that?”

This willing response demonstrates how everyone involved believes in Girls’ mission of authenticity. Kaplan believes this desire to be truthful is what makes Girls “vastly different” from his past work in comedy on shows like Cybil and Seinfeld.

Landress compared Girls’ detail-oriented approach to HBO’s The Sopranos, though admittedly said details were quite different. It’s obvious that this crusade of truth begins and ends with Dunham, who, according to practically everyone on the panel, hasn’t let the success and fame of Girls change her.

In commenting on the social statements made on the show, Dunham said that she cares deeply about politics, women’s rights and reproductive rights, but that they “don’t set out to be didactic,” or to use the show as a Trojan Horse to sway anyone’s political views. Dunham isn’t shying away from her platform; she believes that “being complex, annoying, multi-faceted is a right of women on TV.”

As the panel wound down, Dunham pondered the future and what she hopes to accomplish by the show’s end, although when Girls’ time will come has not yet been determined. She said she wants to at least shepherd the characters “to the next phase of their lives.”

Apatow has his own ideas, he said, and Konner and Dunham already “violently” disagree with them—PaleyFest providing a glimpse into a process that probably often repeats itself in the Girls’ writers’ room.

You can follow along with #PaleyFest by live streaming the event on Yahoo! Screen.

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