Too Much Stars Megan Stalter, Will Sharpe, and Lena Dunham Talk On-Set Chemistry, Feminist Outlook, and English Pop Culture References
Lena Dunham’s newest romcom series Too Much follows young New York City workaholic Jessica who moves to London after a terrible breakup. In hopes of finding herself and opening a new chapter, she meets dreamy musician Felix and the two have a chaotic romantic journey. Dunham, Megan Stalter, and Will Sharpe met up to dish all the details on the series and what to expect at a virtual press conference.
Curating the series and characters in this London transplant story, Dunham expressed her joy for learning niche English pop culture references. “I would say it was easier to become an English pop culture expert than it was to become an English interpersonal behavior expert, so I'm still working on that one,” said Dunham. “That being said, I love pop culture. I love gossip when it's not mean. I love gentle gossip that's out in the ether. I love studying up on obscure pop cultural facts. Sometimes my British friends are alarmed because I know so much about the band members of Atomic Kitten and who they married and how that went for them. Or the entire history of Katie Price's Mucky Mansion. It was fun sometimes to be able to stump even Will because I'm not necessarily in the highbrow. I'm maybe deep in the lowbrow, but I experience it as highbrow because I love it so much.”
Stalter and Sharpe spoke about the chemistry they built on set. “Will is so nice and I love to work with nice people. I think that Will is so funny,” Stalter said. “I've said before that I was nervous that maybe Will would think I was too much, but guess what? He loves everything about me. I mean, he's this amazing actor-director. I thought, am I too goofy? And then we clicked and we just have been laughing ever since.”
Sharpe responded: “Amen and back at you. I also felt that it was nice that we had some rehearsal time in the beginning. We met, but we didn't go in too hard, too early. We didn't overcook it. So that meant that as the characters are meeting each other in the show, we also were getting to know each other bit by bit as the series went on. I found that quite helpful that I didn't already know your entire life history when we were shooting.”
When it comes to casting, Dunham knew how she wanted to build that chemistry with the leads of the series. “What I love is that they're both really curious and they have a lot of incredible questions about the script. They have so much understanding of the process. One of the reasons that I wanted so much to work with both of them is because they knew how much input they would have and how much they would bring to bear,” she stated. “From my first meeting with each of them, before the show was even written, there was a level of wisdom that I just really felt that I needed. I try to really let actors lead and what it is that they want. But there were a few moments like climatic scenes that I wanted to keep them apart on those shooting days, so we didn't rehearse. They got ready separately. I loved that they were in for all that. We did end up using the first takes in those moments and using the moments where they surprised each other and it was really emotional, or sweet. I was also glad that they were up for trying things like that.”
Dunham also took a moment to gush about the duo from a director’s standpoint. “It was really lovely because I always take photographs of you guys to kind of make sure that we have the shots in order,” she said. “I was looking through them because Netflix had asked for some pictures and […] at first, you're both sitting there and then, as it goes on, there's just every rehearsal […] smiles and laughs. You can see everything getting more relaxed. You can see it and I was also very impressed by how respectful they were of how the other one likes to work, and how much they understood each other in an intuitive, creative way. It was just a joy for me to watch them.”
Speaking of climatic moments, Stalter and Sharpe touched upon the freedom they felt in that scene to improv. “I mean, the script is just so incredible,” said Stalter, specifically calling out a fight scene. “That was a good example of everything on the page was there and then [Dunham] encouraged us to kind of surprise each other and improv a bit. That felt scary and exciting, especially in a fight scene where the emotion and tension are so high and that was so cool that you kept us separate and then encouraged us to improv.”
Sharpe agreed. “I feel like it showed such confidence you have in the tone of a show and what the show is and bound to. So, that and the whole environment on set was that we felt very safe and supported the whole time,” he said. “You feel like you are able to maybe take some risks to be vulnerable and you're already working from a script that is so brilliant and funny and tender. It always felt like just a bonus to make each other laugh sometimes or to try, in that example, to hurt each other.”
As much as the series is about love and life, the series also tackles issues from anxiety to women’s rights issues. “It's a very anxiety-filled world we live in. I remember when I was a kid being diagnosed with anxiety and thinking that it was incredibly, in some way, shameful or odd. It's interesting to grow up and realize that basically everyone has anxiety,” Dunham spoke on how she found a balance. “It’s not like having a very specific illness that is rare and hard to understand. It makes sense in the world that we live in, so showing what some of those pressures were for these two people and not just the idea that there are certain pressures that Jessica has coming from a matriarchal family. There's certain pressures that Felix feels coming from a patriarchal society. Those kinds of binaries make it hard for everyone. They make everyone feel crowded inside their framework. I felt really lucky both to have my husband’s perspective on the male character and then to have both of these two reflecting. We had really interesting conversations that really reminded me what I was doing and why I was doing it.”
Adding onto this, Dunham also explained the responsibility she felt to tell Jessica’s story from a specific feminist point of view. “I feel like we have a feminist generation, but I feel like there's a lot of different voices to it,” she said. “I get so much from being part of a community of female writers and it's not monolithic. There needs to be a lot of perspective. I do feel a responsibility. Even though when I'm writing it doesn't necessarily feel political because it feels personal, I think that my sense of politics and justice, particularly at this moment in time, definitely seeps into what I'm doing and seeps into the storytelling.”
She continued: “I think the abortion storyline in this series is a really good example of that. It's not a massive storyline. It’s a moment and it's a feeling. We worked with Planned Parenthood just to make sure that every detail of it felt accurate and that it was a reflection of safe, healthy access to abortion care. Especially, at this moment in the United States with Roe v Wade being overturned. It's not a given that you're even going to be allowed to put something like that on screen or talk about it, which is shocking to me that that's a fact, but it is. I'm really grateful we got to put it in the show and that I had so much support in doing it, and that Megan's performance is so, so beautiful and moving.”
Too Much premieres July 10 on Netflix.
