‘We're told to be polite and small and dainty. But that's not me!': Megan Stalter on starring in Lena Dunham's new romcom, Too Much

The Guardian

3 days ago

When Lena Dunham messaged, Megan Stalter lost it. 'Like d'uhh,' Stalter is explaining – delighting, really. 'Who wouldn't? I was at home: this really bad apartment in Laurel Canyon [in the Hollywood Hills]. The area is haunted, and it was actually a really scary building, and nothing ever got fixed because apparently in the lease I signed they didn't have to repair anything! I don't actually live there now …' Stalter, 34, has a tendency to wander off on tangents. So Dunham?
'OK yes, so we were just about to start filming Hacks again.' The wildly popular, 48-times-Emmy-nominated HBO comedy in which Stalter plays nepo-baby Kayla, a chaotic and kind-hearted talent agent, her total-commitment-to-the-bit characterisation making her a breakout star. 'And there Lena was in my DMs.' Stalter opened the message, which said: 'I have a project I want to talk to you about.' 'That's when I lost my mind,' she adds. 'Panic set in.'
'I'm not,' Stalter clarifies, 'a celebrity person. I don't fangirl over people – but with Lena I do. She's a creative genius; I'm such a Girls nut, and always felt so connected to her.' In its six seasons, Dunham's HBO hit transformed television through its unflinching portrayal of millennial women. Eight years since the final episode broadcast, the Dunham buzz hasn't abated.
Breathe, Stalter had to remind herself. 'OK, calm down, diva – 'project' is vague. It might be a commercial, an event, a task, maybe.' Not that Stalter was fussy. 'Anything she wanted me to do, I would obviously say yes.' Turns out, Dunham didn't need errands running. 'And thank God, honestly.'
Dunham was in the early stages of developing Too Much, her semi-autobiographical Netflix 10-parter, which is released on 10 July. Following Jessica (Stalter), an American thirtysomething workaholic who relocates from New York to England in the deepest throes of heartbreak, the show plays out as an offbeat romcom, with Will Sharpe (The White Lotus, Flowers) playing the indie-musician love interest.
Stalter's attempts at regional British accents, and a cocaine-fuelled dance break from Richard E Grant, are some of the show's unexpected highlights. Loosely, it's based on Dunham's own experiences: after splitting from music producer Jack Antonoff, she met her now husband, British musician Luis Felber, in London. They wrote Too Much together.
'Jessica is going through a really horrible breakup,' Stalter says, 'and this person she was with previously made her feel she's 'too much', and not in a good way. She falls for someone new pretty quickly who does accept who she is and, when she's surrounded by people who appreciate her, realises she's yes, a little bit much, in a great way.'
In the show, Dunham plays Jessica's older sister. 'When Lena and I got on Zoom we just clicked. She said right away that if Girls was about sex and discovering who you are, Too Much is a story of love and discovering acceptance. For Lena, like Jessica, finding someone who accepted her the way she is encourages her to embrace herself.'
Pre-Hacks, Dunham had been introduced to Stalter by Andrew Scott, who drops by for a cameo in this series. 'From the moment I conceived the character,' Dunham says, 'even before I began collaborating with Luis, it was always Meg. I had a feeling that she could be both intensely funny and do something darker and more vulnerable.'
Pre-Hacks, Stalter built a cult social media following, regularly posting clips of kooky skits and characters (small-town butter shop during Pride month; Woman flirts at a bowling alley) that caught Dunham's eye. 'Meg is never looking down on the characters she plays,' she says, 'no matter how delusional or silly they may seem. She truly falls in love with, and goes to bat for, whoever she's playing – and it's contagious.'
It's late March when I first meet Stalter, in the lobby of a central London hotel. Shooting on Too Much has wrapped, but it's early stages in the months-long slog of a press and promo schedule a Dunham x Netflix collab demands. She's late, 15 minutes maybe, although she's staying right upstairs. 'I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!' she gushes, all smiles, dropping her teddy bear phone case on the table. 'We were working on the ponytail for the day and got carried away! Almond latte?'
Both Stalter and Dunham found bringing Jessica to life an intimate undertaking. Long before shooting started, they spoke extensively about the material and Dunham's own experiences. Script by script, they'd dissect. 'Lena had a small writers' room where they'd bounce ideas together,' says Stalter, 'then after that, it would come to me, and I would have lots of questions: her previous bad relationship; her family; how she was feeling.'
Dunham remembers these well. 'Meg is a very intuitive performer,' she tells me, 'not method, but she has her method. She asks specific questions that may seem random or left-of-centre and then it always finds its way into the work.'
Stalter made lists of how she and Jessica were similar, then differed. 'So, like, in common: we are both very anxious people. Not in common: she's lost her dad, I haven't. Jessica is straight and I'm a mostly lesbian bisexual. But I have dated men. And Jessica might not date women, but sexuality is a spectrum … Me and Lena both agreed that if she'd explored a little, maaaaaybe she would have dated women.'
On set, over four months in London, this proximity continued. 'If it felt like an emotional scene,' says Stalter, 'I'd want a moment just with her, so I felt more connected.' There's a post-coital scene where Jessica's sexual self-confidence falters. 'Lena and I talked a lot about how, after a breakup, no matter how hot or beautiful you feel and are, you can be so beaten down that insecurity hits.'
The pair spoke extensively, too, about the show's title, with its heap of gendered connotations. Is 'you're too much' a phrase she's had lobbed in her direction? Stalter furrows her brow. 'Excuse me, sir, no; people see me as calm, cool and collected.' Three seconds of deadpan, before the laughter erupts. 'I am definitely seen as too much. Any loud woman will be told she's too much at some point. We are made to feel small or too big, sometimes both at the same time, unless we're neatly in a perfect box. A lot of women experience it: me and Lena were both told we were too much, but then decided we like that about ourselves. I think it's so sexy to be loud and funny, weird and strange, silly and goofy. It was at school that I realised those traits are often welcomed in boys, but not girls.'
At the Stalter family home in Cleveland, Ohio, this just wasn't the case. 'I'm a loud woman from a loud family: 20 cousins, mostly women, a few males thrown in, I guess.' Dad's a tattoo artist, and mum a nurse. 'I have two sisters, a brother and lots of aunts. These are funny, opinionated, not-very-quiet women with big personalities – and that was totally normal. So it was, umm, interesting to then be in the real world where women are made to feel they can't be those things.' She scrunches her face, lugging her voice up an octave: 'We're told to be polite and small and dainty.' Pitch back down. 'But that's not me, girl.'
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She found this first at school. 'I was a cheerleader, but like, a nerdy one. Not popular. Teachers made me feel small and not smart. I found myself shrinking into myself, getting quiet and nervous, except in drama and performance. I'd never get good parts; people thought I was bad, but I could be myself at least.'
Through her late teens, Stalter tried all sorts at community college. Teaching wasn't a good fit. Neither was nursing. 'Listen, nurses are incredible,' she says, 'but I'm not supposed to be a nurse. I pass out at blood. Emotionally I was into it, but practically, it was not working.' Nothing was sticking. 'OK so I also love Jesus,' she continues, no change in pace. 'I'm a real God-girlie. If I wasn't going to do something I loved, I wanted to do something that helped God. I tried some mission work, and stuff with my church.' She attended a Pentecostal church from a young age, and aged 20 spent six months with a Christian youth organisation in South America. She gave Bible school a go, too. 'I tried for several years, but I really missed performing. I thought: 'If this is in me, maybe it's my service. Maybe God wants me to do what I really want to do, and share it with the world.''
Stalter joined a local improv class. 'I thought I was so good,' she says, 'but everyone there for some reason kept telling me I wasn't? Later on, a friend told me I was a bit like Michael Scott in The Office: walking on and messing things up. But I always felt deluded in my talent and how special I was, which really kept me going until I actually got good.'
Aged 24, she moved to Chicago to pursue standup. 'And I performed for years there. It went OK, but not much was happening for me.' Everything changed when she started posting – an art for which Stalter has a knack – launching a spoof self-titled online talkshow. 'I was on Instagram live every night with a new theme. I'd set up weird things: 'Crazy trip to Paris night'; be a travel agent and pretend to book things. That is when it all took off.' In 2019, she moved to New York, and the gigs kept coming: Hacks, indie film Cora Bora, sell-out standup shows and now Too Much.
In June, we speak again over Zoom, Stalter now back at home in Los Angeles in a thankfully ghost-free residence, with her girlfriend. 'Oh, and our two kitties, and a terrier who is really attached to me. Too attached, really. The separation anxiety is a problem.'
It's intense, Los Angeles right now: anti-ICE protests and the general bad Trump vibes percolating. 'It's really upsetting,' Stalter says, 'devastating and scary.' She's been to some marches. 'People have to keep coming together to protest and support one another. We're fighting for each other.' Throwing herself into Too Much has been a much-welcomed escape.
It's no affront to Stalter's range to see a through-line from her characters: from those early viral creations all the way to Jessica. Whether self-invented for standup and socials, or brought to life from scripts on screen, they tend to be big, bold, slightly berserk. 'What,' she's grinning, 'am I not as crazy as you expected? I like to play people who are nervous-confident: women who have a level of self-love but are falling apart and pretend they're not. I do a lot of standup with a persona I've built, too, where the character – me – pretends to be really talented but the show crumbles.'
Stalter sees some of herself in these characters. 'I'm wild in that way,' she says, 'although I'm not horrible, I'm actually very nice. But I feel so confident on stage acting this crazy bitch. Something inside of me is over the top. When I'm at my most relaxed and comfortable, like on stage, it also comes out of me.' Playing characters who often move through the world unconcerned by judgment has made Stalter reflect.
'There's something really freeing about playing someone like that,' she believes. 'In real life, I'm such a people pleaser. I struggle with wanting everyone to be happy all the time, for them to be happy with me, scared of upsetting someone or having someone be mad at me. It's my greatest fear: like I'm going to die if someone is mad at me. It's something I'm working on in therapy.'
Might that be a tricky trait in her industry? Dunham told New York magazine in 2024 she refrained from casting herself as the lead in part because she 'was just not up for having my body dissected again'. Too Much is Stalter's first leading TV role, and it's a big-hitter: there will be reviews, comparisons to Girls, so much more exposure.
Stalter feigns a look of panic at the prospect. 'Wouldn't it be so funny if I passed out?' She smacks her hand on the table, leaving her latte wobbling. Another smile. She shrugs off the pressure. 'I'm a woman comedian who puts stuff on the internet, babe,' comes her reply, 'and I'm not skinny. So I've already had the meanest stuff said about me. Any woman posting – yes, skinny women, too – will get it. So I'm not worried when someone says something unkind, or doesn't like me in a show, honestly. I literally have a viral clip that's me reading out the worst, craziest abuse: 'Fat white comedian does crazy bomb set.''
She pauses for a moment. 'It's only in my personal life that I'm a massive people pleaser. If strangers say they hate Too Much, or me, whatever: I think I'm hot, I love how I look, and I love my comedy. I am who I am, and can't be anything but my loud self.'
Too Much is on Netflix from 20 July.