'Hacks' Breakout Megan Stalter Brings Her Aesthetics of Absurdity to TV

The actress discusses her scene-stealing role on the HBO Max series.

‘Hacks’ Breakout Megan Stalter Brings Her Aesthetics of Absurdity to TV

Megan Stalter, photographed at the Holloway House in Los AngelesCourtesy of Ryan Pfluger

What makes a Megan Stalter character? The pandemic-era internet comedian turned show-stealing supporting player has become synonymous with a certain kind of kooky personality — marked by a subpar grasp on social cues, an inability to decipher nuance and difficulty finishing full thoughts and sentences — to the point that people on Twitter now sometimes declare below news reports or strangers’ online videos, “This is a Meg Stalter character.”

There is the customer upset with Starbucks for its corporate refusal to say “Christmas” and a woman auditioning to be a stay-at-home wife without grasping how a vacuum works. As it so often goes with good comedy, trying to explain the bit is a disservice to it. Luckily for audiences, much of Stalter’s work is readily available online.

“It is so strange that you can put out so much content and that becomes your portfolio,” notes Stalter. The actress entered the collective consciousness of the internet during the early days of COVID-19 with her army of the unhinged, putting out regular front-facing character videos on social media and hopping on Instagram Live to do longform improv. She racked up millions of views and became one of the faces of quarantine comedy, with stars like Amy Schumer and Kathy Najimy popping up in the online chats of her shows. Seemingly overnight — as if by magic or the incredible foresight of an HBO Max casting executive — Stalter moved from phone screens to television in a supporting role on Hacks. Of course, Stalter’s career began long before lockdown.

After an ill-fated attempt at earning a nursing degree (she gets queasy around blood), Stalter moved to Chicago and began nannying to pay for improv classes at such theaters as Second City, the Annoyance and iO. “There is not as much of comparing yourself to others,” she explains of the supportive Chicago comedy scene.

“The industry is not watching us.” There were the pushes to get into the Just for Laughs festival or a Saturday Night Live showcase, but Chicago performers are largely left to their own devices. Eventually, Stalter began traveling out of town for gigs; it was while performing at a show in Los Angeles that she met Hacks co-creator Paul W. Downs. Her first audition for the show came before COVID; by the time the second one happened, the world had shut down, Stalter had moved back to Ohio and her younger brother acted as her callback cameraman.

On the series, Stalter plays Kayla, the assistant to Downs’ long-suffering talent agent of Jean Smart’s Las Vegas comedian. She also happens to be the daughter of the owner of the agency. Frustratingly unaware, disarmingly earnest and hilariously egomaniacal, Kayla reads like a classic Meg Stalter character. She is, as Stalter surmises, “someone who is so nervous and confident at the same time.”

Lyft drivers, childhood acquaintances and TikTokers can all be mined for her material. Los Angeles coffee shops have proved fertile creative ground, particularly when observing customers on apparent first dates: “Just the way people talk to each other when they are trying to flirt is really funny,” she says. But Stalter also likes to poke fun at comedians, actors and Hollywood. “I like to make fun of the things that I am,” she adds. “You can only make fun of something in an endearing way if you really love it.”

This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.