Megan Stalter proved herself a star the moment the words “Hi, gay!” left her mouth. She continued to remind us of this as Kayla, the scene-stealing assistant-turned-executive on Hacks—but now, Stalter has the top-billing to prove it. In Netflix’s Too Much, she tackles her most robust role to date as Jessica, an American who flees to London after a bad breakup.
Stalter and her longtime stylist, Kat Typaldos, have never shied away from attention-grabbing dressing. In June, she attended the Critics Choice Association Celebration of LGBTQ+ Cinema & Television in a full-tilt beauty-queen getup—complete with blue eyeshadow, a grocery store bouquet of red roses, and a sash that read “Best Gay Actor.” “It feels really chaotic, but there’s always something that grounded it,” Typaldos tells Vogue of Stalter’s typical fashion direction.
Now, with Too Much, Stalter is using her leading-lady status to reach previously unforeseen levels of camp. On the red carpet, she’s almost always playing a character pulled from her imagination—whether a hot, LA intellectual or a ’90s supermodel. “We didn’t even have a formal conversation about our approach to all this,” Typaldos says. “We’re adding and taking away and building out these characters as we see fit.”
