At 14, Meg Stalter “Came Alive” In Drama Club

Meg Stalter’s middle school days weren’t great. “Every day was hell,” the actor, now 34, tells Bustle. She did her best to fit in, and even landed a spot on the cheerleading squad, but it was an uphill battle. “I came from a Catholic elementary school where everyone was friends, so once I went into the public school system it just was really hard and weird,” she says. “I didn’t understand there’s popular kids and then nerdy kids, where I fell.”

It wasn’t all torture, though. Around this time, she got a first taste of the spotlight. “For the talent show, I sang an Avril Lavigne song by myself. I don’t know what made me do that — no one was rooting for me. I’m not a great singer, but I realized I just love performing so much.”

The next year, the then-14-year-old finally found her people in the drama club. “That’s where I really came alive,” she says, adding that she and her gay boyfriend were something of a power couple. “We were always laughing the whole time and I could be myself there.”

Fast-forward to today, and Stalter’s still making people laugh — as a fan-favorite on the Emmy-winning Hacks, a stand-up comic, and an Instagram character (where she boasts over 300,000 followers). Most recently, she delighted audiences with a cameo in Sabrina Carpenter’s A Nonsense Christmas Netflix special.

She’s also just finished starring in a major (and hilarious) skin care campaign with e.l.f. Cosmetics — a beauty brand she’s used since her early teen days. If only that girl could see her now. “She would be so happy that I’m acting and doing comedy and performing,” Stalter says of her younger self. “I think she’d be really pleased that I now know how to do my makeup and hair. She would be surprised that I have a girlfriend, but she would think it was really cool. And she would be like, ‘Whoa, you live in LA?’”

Here, Stalter reflects on her experience in drama club, getting “nerdy revenge,” and the YouTube comedy show she made as a teen.

Take me back to 2004 when you were 14. What did your style look like?

Typically, I’d wear braids in my hair — either that or I’d flat iron it too much. I’d definitely have makeup on. My sister and I loved e.l.f. and I would always use their eyeshadows and foundation.

I was allowed to wear makeup when I was 13. I definitely did eyeliner on both the top and bottom, and it would smudge a lot. I think I looked older in high school than I do now because of that.

Did you have a skin care routine?

When I was 14, I didn’t know how important having a skin care routine was. I definitely slept in the eyeliner I wore to school, and when I did take it off, I was just washing my face with whatever. I was committing skin sins without knowing what they were.

When I was 12 or 13, I asked to shave my legs, and my mom said, “Yeah, go ahead.” My cousin was like, “Both legs?” And my mom said as a joke, “No, just one leg.” We took her seriously, and I had only one leg shaved.

Talk to me about what the drama club was like.

In high school I was really shy in class, and didn’t fit in with my grade. But in drama club, I felt like I was the queen. My drama club teacher actually didn’t like me because I would goof off and laugh so much all the time — I was kind of a troublemaker. But I did get elected president of the Thespian Society, because the students voted and not her, which is a really nerdy revenge.

Was there a play you were in that year that you remember really loving?

I never got really great parts because the drama teacher didn’t like me. But for my senior year, I was the mom in The Miracle Worker, which is a really dramatic play for high schoolers to do. And then I was the old woman in Anything Goes, and that part’s not great. Usually when you're a senior you get a really good part, and that year, a freshman got the lead — because again, I wasn’t a favorite.

That’s so messed up.

I know. But I think everything works out for a reason, and I realized that I loved comedy by laughing and joking around backstage in between my monologue as Helen Keller’s mother.

I was going to ask — did you have any inkling that you’d be into comedy at the time?

Well, the only reason my boyfriend and I were dating is we loved to laugh. We actually did a YouTube show that no one watched in high school in which we were really funny, even though I didn’t think of it as me wanting to go into comedy. I think that’s when I realized, “Oh, I feel like I’m so funny.”

What was your YouTube show about?

I think it was called “The Bathroom,” and we did episodes in one of our bathrooms. I can’t remember what they were about — maybe we just talked about pop culture. I just know we thought it was the funniest thing that we’d ever seen.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.