The Comedian Megan Stalter on Finding Inspiration in American Absurdity

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before the pandemic, Megan Stalter was an unknown comedian, trying to catch a lucky break at clubs in New York City. But with the arrival of COVID-19, social media became her only outlet, and she quickly found an audience with her short-form, D.I.Y. character videos, portraying the “breadth of American idiocy,” as Michael Schulman puts it, with such accuracy and heart that it’s hard to turn away. After her rise to Internet fame—she was dubbed the “queen of quarantine”—Stalter was offered the part of Kayla, the overprivileged and clueless assistant, on HBO’s hit series “Hacks.” It was her first acting job. Plus, Helen Rosner joins the chef Andy Baraghani in his home kitchen for a lesson on cauliflower ragu. Baraghani, best known for his YouTube cooking videos for Bon Appetit, is out with a new cookbook called “The Cook You Want to Be.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Before the pandemic, Megan Stalter was an unknown comedian doing comedy shows all over the place, trying to get a break in acting, and posting an occasional
0:21.5	video on Twitter and TikTok. But once the pandemic hit, those videos became her only outlet.
0:29.4	Stalter began producing them at a rapid clip, very short character sketches. And with everybody at
0:35.4	home, on the internet way too much, she started to find a big audience,
0:41.4	racking up millions of views. On social media, she became known as the queen of quarantine.
0:47.9	April 10th, 2 p.m. Central Standard Time. I just got back from an amazing date. I went to
0:53.0	Red Lobster last night, and in between
0:54.6	the cheddar-bated biscuits, I kissed the waiter. And then I got invited back into the kitchen
0:59.1	to kiss all the chefs. It shot on her phone, and the props and costumes are whatever she can
1:04.6	find around the house. Her characters embody the full spectrum of socially awkward and clueless.
1:13.7	And suddenly, Stalter jumped from the internet to television as the worst assistant in the world on HBO's hit show Hacks. Okay, Kayla,
1:21.3	you're supposed to be on mute. Oh, I am. I just push the thing, bud. Okay, bud, we can hear you,
1:26.5	so you're definitely not.
1:27.6	Oh, don't worry.
1:28.1	I'm not listening.
1:28.8	I'm laughing at a meme.
1:30.0	You're supposed to be listening.
1:31.1	We've talked about this.
1:31.9	You listen and you take notes, right? Yeah. So, okay. Where's my notebook? Hey, I need to leave early. I have an adult ballet recital. Like, just I can't miss this one because I missed last week.
1:41.7	It just wouldn't make sense.
1:43.5	Michael Shulman is a staff writer who covers culture for the New Yorker,
	...

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