TV's new golden rule? Put Megan Stalter in everything, please

Sydney Morning Herald

13 hours ago

The spitting. Megan Stalter has had it with all the talk about the spitting. In the trailer for Too Much, the new Netflix series from Girls creator Lena Dunham, British actor Will Sharpe is briefly – yet evocatively – glimpsed dripping saliva into Stalter's mouth in the midst of sexual revelry. Somehow, among the choking generation, a supposedly shockless cohort that's grown up with a free-for-all smorgasbord of online pornography, the spitting has become a talking point.
'People have just been going so crazy over that scene in the trailer!' Stalter laughs. 'It's like, guys, spitting isn't that far away from kissing and you see that every day on screen.'
Having watched all of Too Much ahead of our interview, I didn't even notice the spitting in the show. Did Netflix cut the scene after the intense public reaction, or did I just miss it?
'No, you saw it!' Stalter says. (She's right, it's there in the show's fourth episode.) 'You saw it and it wasn't that jarring, was it? And you liked it. And it was completely normal to be in there and it was completely tasteful and everybody needs to get on board. It's real life! People spit in each other's mouths. It's not a big deal!'
Maybe, but the YouTube commenters were outraged. 'The spitting in mouth scene violated me,' was the general tone of the clip's most up-voted comments.
'It's crazy. You have to expect a little spit. It was done in one take. What's wrong with everyone?' Stalter asks with escalating faux-hysteria. 'You know what? It's fine. People like to get riled up, and it's okay. It'll make them want to see how much more spitting is in the show.'
The whole saga has proved a more salient point: it shows that even eight years after ending her Millennial-defining Girls – 'the show that turned TV upside down', as The Guardian once described it – Lena Dunham, perhaps TV's most maligned comic genius, can still strike up screen controversy with a simple exchange of bodily fluids in a trailer.
Dressed in a navy silk shirt and a navy striped tie, her slick hair parted clinically down the middle, Stalter, 34, is Zooming in from London, a return trip for promotional duties after spending five months filming Too Much there last year. Produced by Working Title, the British studio famed for iconic romcoms including Notting Hill, Love Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary, the show skewers British civility through Dunham's own raucous style.
Based loosely on Dunham's own post- Girls experiences – her breakup with former partner Jack Antonoff, her relocation from New York to London, and her transatlantic romance with an indie musician who eventually became her husband (Luis Felber, who is credited as the show's co-creator with Dunham) – the series marks Dunham's first scripted series in almost a decade. And at its centre is Stalter, in what's her first lead role on TV after garnering a cult audience online.
At this point, if you know Stalter from anything, it's for her breakout role on the Emmy-winning comedy Hacks, where she steals scenes as Jimmy's excitable, boundary-averse nepo baby assistant-turned-business partner Kayla Schaeffer. As Kayla, Stalter's a walking billboard for Stanislavski's showbusiness maxim that there are no small parts, only small actors.
' Hacks definitely changed my life. It was my first TV job. I'd been performing for a long time, but nobody was filming it or putting it on TV,' Stalter laughs. ' Hacks gave me my chance. It definitely started my paid career.'
Before Hacks, Stalter was already known among the heavily online for absurdist character-driven sketches she posted to TikTok and Twitter. Her characters were often rambunctious and overconfident, narcissistic and performative, and the skits driven by Stalter's silly energy and ironic delivery.
'When I started doing comedy, I always had something in me that was like, 'This will all work out, I just know it',' says Stalter of her early success making videos online. She recalls a video she posted in 2019, captioned 'My audition for the girl in the movie who the guy almost hooks up with before he goes after the love of his life', her spoof of romcom cliches in a blonde wig, that blew up and convinced her there was something to her online shenanigans. 'I remember that clip gaining some traction, and me being like, 'Oh yeah, this is what I should do right now.''
Views amassed, attention increased. In March 2020, as the pandemic gripped the world and our entertainment shifted online, the New York Times described Stalter as 'the most vital voice to emerge during this anxious, isolating moment'.
But online success – even if that included queer cult status (a 2021 TikTok in which she mocked corporate pandering during Pride month continues to go viral every year) – has a ceiling, and Stalter felt the difficulty of legitimising internet fame to mainstream opportunity.
'I think some people can see you do a bizarre, crazy character online, and if maybe they don't get it, they'll be like, that must be how she is in real life. 'That TikTok woman, she's crazy, I can't tell if she's joking or not.' Someone could even like your videos but still not know how it'll translate onto TV,' says Stalter.
'But the creators of Hacks – Paul [W. Downs], Lucia [Aniello] and Jen [Statsky] – they gave me my chance. They saw potential in me that what I do could work on TV, which was encouraging for other people to hire me! To see, okay, she is crazy online but she can behave too. She can be naughty when she's supposed to, but can make it work on set.'
People have said crazy, mean, stuff about me... I think I'm lucky that I'm 34 and I already know myself so well.
On Too Much, Stalter brings her immense charm to Dunham's cypher, playing Jessica, an American line producer who accepts a stint in London after a horrible breakup with her long-term boyfriend (played by The Marvelous Mrs Maisel 's Michael Zegen). Dunham wrote the role with Stalter in mind, after her friend Andrew Scott (Fleabag 's Hot Priest himself) showed Dunham Stalter's online videos.
'That's what she says!' says Stalter. 'And I did a movie called Cora Bora that she loved. I still can't believe it. I'm truly the luckiest girl in the world.'
Stalter had long been a fan of Dunham's. 'To me, Girls is the best show ever. I literally always felt connected and obsessed with her. She had DM'ed me on Instagram and said that she had a project in mind for me, and I freaked out for days. But I was like, okay, yes. Whatever it is, yes, of course. I didn't know it was gonna be such a major show and a life-changing role.'
As with Girls, Too Much doesn't shy from the more uncomfortable, intimate and revealing corners of romantic relationships. Stalter, best known for outlandish comedy, is tasked with emotional nuance. In scenes, she casually holds her own not just alongside Dunham, who plays her older sister, but actors including Adele Exarchopoulos, Richard E. Grant and our own Naomi Watts.
Stalter never went to acting school, but found support in Too Much 's intimacy coordinator Miriam Lucia, who doubled as her acting coach. 'I love Miriam so much. Every time she came to set, I would be like, 'Miriam's here!' and I don't think people knew that she was also my acting coach, so I think they just thought I was really excited to see the intimacy coordinator,' Stalter laughs.
'But she is so incredible, and it helped me so much. It makes sense that an intimacy coordinator would be an acting coach, you know? Because they think about things in such a specific way. You can approach those dramatic scenes by prioritising safety and thinking about the character and making sure everyone feels comfortable. If you're comfortable, you're able to do those harder, more dramatic things.'
Dunham was a guide, too. 'Lena always said, 'If crying is in the script, you don't actually have to cry', and that took the pressure off me, where it's like, 'okay, if I don't feel like crying in the scene, maybe the character doesn't cry and it's fine!' As long as you're feeling comfortable and feeling in the character, everything's ok.'
Much of Too Much' s appeal is in the charming chemistry between Stalter and Sharpe, who plays the emotionally off-kilter, delicately sober musician Felix. An internet boyfriend following his work in The White Lotus and Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain, Sharpe brings a certain British aloofness that's both alluring and callous, like if Girls ′ Adam Sackler (Adam Driver) was from the home counties.
'I loved getting to know his family, he got to know my girlfriend, everyone just loved each other and felt comfortable,' says Stalter of working so intimately with Sharpe. 'I think I get nervous sometimes that someone who's, like, a serious actor is gonna think I'm too naughty, crazy, playful. But he loved to be mischievous with me. It was perfect.'
Considering the ire Girls consistently drew – back in the 2010s, a river of opinion pieces followed almost every episode – and Dunham's polarising reputation, did Dunham give Stalter any advice on handling any potential fallout from the series, from its frank sexuality to, yes, the spitting?
'We were just so focused on making what we wanted to make that we didn't really focus on what other people would say, and I think that was the best way to do it. Also, I'm a comedian so I've had stuff online for over 10 years. People have said crazy, mean, stuff about me. I've been picked apart. I mean, I literally have a viral set on Reddit that's like, 'Fat, white comedian does worst stand up in the world',' Stalter laughs.
'Like, I've already had it all, so it doesn't really matter to me if anybody has anything horrible to say about me. I think with negative things, you just can't, can you? I think I'm lucky that I'm 34 and that I already know myself so well. And, I mean, Lena is so confident and knows herself so well, I don't think anyone could say anything that would make her feel different about herself. Plus, of course, everyone's gonna love the show and say only compliments.'
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If Stalter's comedy aspirations began when she moved to Chicago in her early 20s to take improv classes at the famed Second City – where she met much of the same class of comedians she now runs with in Los Angeles including Saturday Night Live 's Sarah Sherman, Benito Skinner, Mary Beth Barone and Kate Berlant – on a recent appearance on Marc Maron's WTF podcast, she discussed some unlikely beginnings to her journey becoming the internet's favourite comedian. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Stalter grew up in a deeply religious Pentecostal household.
'Even in high school, I was the kid trying to convince everyone to go to church multiple times a week,' Stalter laughs. 'My family has always loved God and gone to church, and now I feel very spiritually connected to God. I'm basically a gay Christian, but I don't have a church I go to. But I would go to church if and when I find the right one.'
Are her parents still around? Will they watch this show? 'My parents are, and they will. But I think that maybe they shouldn't watch all of it,' laughs Stalter.