Meg Stalter is perfectly fine with free feet pics. “They’re literally the hands of the leg,” the actor and musician tells me. “We see our hands—what’s the difference?”
It’s refreshing. Everyone’s gotten so precious about their feet—hiding their toes behind strategically placed text on Instagram Stories or keeping them tucked away in chunky shoes all summer long. But Stalter, unsurprisingly, has no interest in gatekeeping foot content. For Meg’s lookalike contest in Brooklyn (which turned into a surprise listening party for her debut album, Crave, releasing this summer), she got “papped” mid-diy pedicure on the sidewalk as part of a campaign with Essie, showing off a fresh coat of Essie’s Watermelon with zero hesitation.
“I really do only use Essie,” she says. “It’s affordable, and you can do it yourself or get it done at a salon.”
Beauty, for Stalter, feels a lot like everything else she does: playful, low-stakes, and never overthought. We chatted about everything, from the end of Hacks, her upcoming Broadway debut in Oh, Mary!, and her take on beauty and style (including the advice she’s gotten from costar Lena Dunham).
First of all, I’m so sad Hacks is ending.
I’m so sad. I'm watching the new episodes as they come out, because it’s fun to save them and watch them as everyone’s watching them. It feels so emotional that there's only one episode left.
If we could get a Kayla spin-off, what else would you want to explore with the character?
I really would like to see Jimmy and Kayla's personal lives. I want to see who he’s going out with. I want to see Jimmy get a girlfriend, and then see Kayla be secretly pissed but also happy for him. I actually feel like it’d be really interesting if she went on a date and he realized, whoa, and actually deal with being jealous. If you remember, there's a scene where she's gonna go to the movies with Randy, and he's sort of a little bit jealous because they’re close.
Did you keep any of Kayla’s outfits?
There's a rhinestone denim outfit that they sent to me because I really wanted it, and I wear it all the time. It's like a rhinestone jean vest with matching rhinestone pants. [Editor’s note: It’s from Good American and actually on sale right now.]
Do you feel like your beauty or style has changed throughout your 20s?
I feel like the older you get, the more you come into your style because you're thinking about what you really want to wear, right? You just stop thinking about whatever everybody else wants, and you just want to wear what you want to wear. I wore jeans and a white T-shirt on the red carpet for the Emmys last year. I wore a ‘ceasefire’ bag with it. It makes a statement without being so loud with my outfit. I think it’s really fun to play with fashion and events like that, because everyone dresses up, and we thought it was so cool to be there, but also thought it would be cool to be like more casual. People were mostly just jealous because they wanted to wear something more relaxing.
So about doing a pedicure on the street…
You gotta sometimes do your pedicure outside! Why would I get a pedicure and worry about that and not let anybody see my feet? Doing a pedicure in public, I feel like it shouldn't be scandalous. That’s a woman who has a lot to do today! It’s crazy how a pedicure can make you feel, even if you do have socks on. The way I feel when I get my nails and toes done—I’m literally the queen of the ball.
One of the coolest things about nail polish is the fun names. What would you name your own polish?
I feel like I would go for naming the colors a feeling. If it was a sparkly, dark nail polish, I would call it something abstract, like ‘Midnight Attitude,” because that’s how it would make me feel. Or a bright yellow could be ‘Morning Surprise.’ I don’t wear long nails, so it’s fun to play with color. But when I have long nails, I feel like the ‘it girl’ of the season. When I have long nails, I am Jessica Rabbit. Sometimes I'll do it for an event, but I'm like trying to pull them off the whole time.
How are you prepping to play Mary Todd Lincoln in Oh, Mary! on Broadway soon?
I have this idea that it’d be funny to put my own twist on it. Like, I want to be Mary, but her lips are a little overlined. It's like Mary, but sort of diva. Well, she is a diva, but it's Mary, but also me. I want to do winged eyeliner. I want to do my version of Miss Mary. Like, I’ll do the traditional makeup but then overline my lips.
You’re not new to wearing wigs, though, so that won’t be an adjustment.
Wearing a wig feels more like me than ever. But I also have very long hair, so there's a lot of hair in the wig. Anytime you see me in a wig, just imagine literally the longest hair inside the wig. Not to brag—I need to get it cut, it's getting creepy long. [Editor’s note: Meg just recently walked the AMAs Red Carpet topless, with thigh-length hair covering her chest. So, she really meant it.]
Do you think about chopping it all off?
It gets hot! I do like having my long hair, but I'm always wearing wigs. It's getting hard. It's kind of cool that for Oh, Mary! I don't have to have my hair a certain way, because I could just put it in the wig. Whereas for film, I've had to have pretty similar hair for five years. Kayla can’t come back to the show with a bob, it’d be too confusing. We would have to work it into the storyline of why we cut it all off.
You’ve worked with so many incredible stars, from Jean Smart to Lena Dunham to Naomi Watts. Have any of them taught you anything about beauty or style?
I kind of take little things from every person I’ve ever met and that I’ve clicked with. Being around confident women who know themselves—you just feel seen and you're only encouraged even more to find your own style. After I worked with Lena [on Too Much], I feel like I have like even more of a whimsical style. There are things in my closet that I took from that set that were things that were for the character that we were creating together, so it's like when I like wear that one shirt, I think about Lena. I felt like my style kind of rubbed off on Lena as well, because guess what, she dyed her hair dark at the end of the show, because my hair was dark. I don’t think she took it from me, but she said, ‘Look, we’re twins.’
I love your single ‘Prettiest Girl in America.’ There’s a line in the song where you say you wish you could be a server or barista. Where would you want to be a server or barista?
Well, you know, I was a server at Friendly, and I was also a server at a pizza place, and both of those places, I wasn't amazing at it. So I think it's sort of a fantasy that I would be good at doing those things, but you know what, I think it would be kind of fun to work at a coffee shop that's like also inside of a bookstore, so then you could serve some coffee, and then go grab a book on your break. Not like a Starbucks inside a Barnes and Noble. But a random, mom-and-pop coffee shop/bookstore that’s whimsical.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Beth Gillette is the beauty editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers skincare, makeup, hair, nails, and more across digital and print. She can generally be found in bright eyeshadow furiously typing her latest feature or hemming and hawing about a new product you "have to try." Prior to Cosmopolitan, she wrote and edited beauty content as an Editor at The Everygirl for four years. Follow her on Instagram for makeup selfies and a new hair 'do every few months.
