SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers for “Too Much.”
Jessica Salmon, played by Megan Stalter in Lena Dunham‘s new Netflix series “Too Much,” is unlike any romantic lead we’ve seen before. Fans of “Hacks” or Stalter’s online comedy will recognize the erratic, tragic-but-self-assured attitude that’s made her characters so popular. But here, it’s encased in deeper, more painful circumstances.
Jessica begins the series sitting in bed when she discovers, via Instagram, that her ex-boyfriend Zev (Michael Zegen) has proposed to his new girlfriend, Wendy (Emily Ratajkowski). She begins sobbing and screaming, but there’s no one to hear her but her dog.
It’s Jessica’s first day in London, where she’s moved temporarily for a work opportunity. There, she reflects on the worst parts of the breakup — namely, the night she got drunk and broke into Zev and Wendy’s apartment to scream at them both. But she tries to embrace her “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary”-inspired fantasies of London and heads out to a pub, where she mets Felix (Will Sharpe), a moody musician who’s immediately taken with her quirks and general American-ness. Quickly, the two fall into a whirlwind romance.
As much fun as they have together, the new relationship makes it hard for them to ignore the pain of their pasts. Jessica still isn’t over Zev, which she channels into an obsession with Wendy. She constantly records videos of herself talking to Wendy, which she posts to a private Instagram followed by no one. Felix is newly sober after years of drug and alcohol addiction, but he still hangs out with all the people he abused those substances with — including his ex of 10 years. The more Jessica and Felix get to know each other, the less they can run away from the parts of themselves they’ve tried to hide.
Everything climaxes when Jessica accidentally makes her private account public, and her videos about Wendy instantly go viral. She starts to panic, but she’s on set shooting an ad with Rita Ora and doesn’t have time to dwell. After rescuing the shoot from an egotistical director who flakes at the last minute (Andrew Scott) and getting encouragement from Ora to forgive herself for the Wendy fiasco, she goes home to Felix ready to celebrate. But he confesses that he’s been relapsing on drugs and alcohol, and that he ran into an old friend (Jennifer Saunders) and had sex with her. Jessica leaves her apartment and tells him to get his stuff out by the end of the day, during which her sickly dog dies. She meets Felix at the vet, where the two have an explosive fight.
Later, Jessica gets together with Wendy, who’s in town for work and asks to see her. Wendy has suspicions about whether Zev and Jessica were actually broken up when she started dating him, and speaking with Jessica, she realizes she was lied to. The two bond over the way Zev treated them, and Jessica apologizes for harboring so much anger toward Wendy. Wendy says she hopes Jessica finds someone perfect for her, and when she says that she did but the relationship was ruined, Wendy says, “Are you sure? I always say I can forgive pretty much anyone who’s willing to say sorry, and who tells the truth.”
Jessica goes to Felix, who is at a protest about climate change, to tell him that her time in London is over, but that she forgives and loves him. “Do you want to get married?” “I feel like it’s a weird time,” she replies — cops are dispersing the protest, and Jessica is literally getting arrested as Felix proposes. But after a short time jump, they have a small wedding.
Stalter spoke to Variety about the chaotic ups and downs of Jessica and Felix’s relationship and what she thinks about their spontaneous marriage.
Jessica makes a lot of mistakes, but almost never seems to feel shame — starting with the first episode, when she accidentally lights herself on fire. She’s mortified that Felix saw that after they just met, but she’s still comfortable letting him in. Where does that quality come from?
It’s so interesting, the place you see this character in the beginning. Even though she’s crashing out and breaking into her ex’s house, her heart’s open. She’s so eager to have a new experience and get her spark back. At the time she meets Felix, she’s like, “Why not? Let’s see!” If you already set yourself on fire and broke into your ex’s house, it’s kind of like, “What’s the worst that could happen?” She came to London for the fantasy of having a new start. She romanticizes it so much. She should be embarrassed, but she’s confident enough that she even goes for the second kiss. I love that about her, that she wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn’t always make the typical choice. If I kissed someone and they weren’t moving their lips and we had that awkward moment, it’d be hard to go in again for the second, even though he does show up for her.
Tell me about Jessica’s obsession with Wendy. She’s a feminist, and knows that she shouldn’t blame Wendy for Zev’s choice to break up with her, but she still calls Wendy a bitch and makes all these angry videos about her. How does she rationalize her relationship to Wendy?
Her fascination with Wendy is so relatable. You don’t really hate the new person. It’s almost helping her have an outlet for that pain that she’s feeling. And when the videos become public, she’s like, “Wait, I don’t actually want to hurt anyone.” One of the parts that made me the most emotional about this show was reading that scene with Jessica and Wendy, where they come together. Because, ultimately, she is a girl’s girl. She knows that she’s actually mad at Zev. In fact, she’s coming on too strong to Wendy, being like, “Are we going to be best friends?”
She does that with every girl she meets, even ones she doesn’t seem to like, like the Pollys (Adèle Exarchopoulos, Celeste Dring, Elle Piper). What drives the way she speaks to other women?
There’s just something so vulnerable about her. She wants so deeply to connect and be loved and to love that she is able to take a step with Felix [by meeting his ex and friends]. She’s at an insecure place from the breakup when she meets these women, and she’s like, “OK, I’m intimidated, but also I want to be their best friend.” Because she’s open to love, and wants to be a part of the group. Even when she’s insecure about these women, I don’t think she has any hate or negative feelings towards the women themselves.
How self-aware do you think she is about her outbursts? She keeps talking and talking even when the people she’s talking to get weirded out. Does she not realize that? Or is she aware and just unable to stop herself?
I think it’s a little bit of both. Even in moments where she’s aware, she can’t stop herself. Like at the office dinner party where she’s oversharing with her boss’ wife [Naomi Watts], she just can’t help but be open to love and connection with other people, which is something I really love about her. She’s also in her own world in certain moments because of what she’s been through, so I feel like she doesn’t always understand how she’s coming across, but it’s kind of endearing.
After drunkenly breaking into Zev and Wendy’s apartment, she decides to take a break from alcohol and tells Felix she’s sober, but she makes him uncomfortable when she starts drinking and experimenting with drugs again at that dinner party. Her behavior never rose to addiction territory like Felix’s had, but there was clearly a problem at least for a little while. What do you make of her relationship to substance use?
It really speaks to her trying to keep everything together. It’s like the promise of being like, “No, yeah, I’m sober too,” and then not being sober. When you’re meeting someone new, before you feel safe, you feel that you have to hide parts of yourself and present yourself a certain way.
And she was with someone for a long time that made her present herself a certain way and dress a certain way — like that scene where Zev is judging her sailor dress, but that’s who she is and what she wanted to wear. I think that’s why she’s saying it. She’s trying to hide a part of herself, but ultimately, she’s falling for Felix because she doesn’t have to. He says at the end of that episode, “No, you’re ‘too much’ in a good way. You’re just enough and a little bit more.” And I thought that was such beautiful writing from Lena.
There’s an episode early on where Jessica starts listing Felix’s “red flags,” but they don’t stop her from dating him. She allows herself to to live out her London fantasy, but she’s also smart enough to know it’s more complicated than that. At that point in the season, what’s her perspective on the relationship? Does she think it’s gonna last?
It’s that feeling of, “Wait, I’m starting to feel safe, but that makes me so scared to lose it.” She’s having a hard time letting go of her ex, even though she’s falling for Felix and doesn’t want to be with the ex. I feel like sometimes, when you’re in a healthy relationship, you trigger each other because you’re finally safe and can reveal things that the other person isn’t gonna leave you over. She’s wanting to hold onto that. So she’s extra aware of red flags, and she’s extra protective, and scared and obsessed over Polly, but also she’s so excited. She’s really wanted this new start, and he’s so different than her ex.
What’s her emotional relationship to sex throughout all of this? She seems so excited to be with someone who’s more on her level than Zev was, but she also seems to use sex to cope when she feels lonely.
I remember Lena talking about how “Girls” was about sex, and this show’s about being in love. So there’s a really specific way the sex scenes are shown. I think they’re so loving, and so vulnerable and realistic. I also like that the energy between Jessica and Felix feels different than Jessica and Zev during intimate moments, because you are different with different people. She’s more comfortable with Felix and more herself than in the old relationship, and that reflects those kinds of scenes.
Let’s talk about work. In the episode where Jessica and Felix stay up all night, it feels like foreshadowing for her oversleeping or messing up at the office. But she actually just takes care of business, because she’s good at her job, as she continues demonstrating throughout the season. What feelings does she have about her work, and how does it affect her relationship?
The career stuff made me emotional, because when she was in the bad relationship with Zev, even at work, she didn’t feel capable and confident. Then you see her get more confident in her abilities and really step up. She’s not perfect, but she pulled off so much in London. It really moved me, especially because [the show] is not all about that — that’s not where she’s getting all her validation. But to see her winning meant a lot, because I feel so connected to the character, and our lives are so much bigger than just one thing. We’re not our careers, but it’s so much more emotional than just a job for her.
Right as she starts having all these wins, Felix relapses on drugs and cheats on her, and she immediately breaks up with him. It feels good to see her stand up for herself, but Felix is also going through a tough time, and they do seem to have potential together if he can get things straight. Then Wendy encourages her to rethink whether things are really over and she runs back to him. Are you rooting for the relationship, or is it unwise for Jessica to forgive him?
I had a lot of talks with Lena about this, because I’m so protective over Jess. I’m like, “He did this to her, and I’m upset!” But of course it had to happen like that, because both characters accept the other person not being perfect and not always making the best decisions. He definitely self-sabotages, and they both have so much trauma that they’re working through. And they both kind of cheat on each other at some point — although when Jessica’s with Andrew Scott’s character, I guess it is pretty early on. I don’t know if they’re official. But I’ll say is: I love that she stood up for herself, but I ultimately love that they accept each other, and it’s so romantic for them to do that and accept those flaws in each other.
For the big fight they have, Lena kept me and Will separate from each other the whole morning, so the tension was really high. Usually, we’re laughing and being silly. It put us in a different headspace. And that was a really hard scene, because we improvised. And I thought it was really beautiful to be able to show them having that bad of a fight and still ultimately accepting each other.
Right after Jessica forgives Felix, he rashly asks her to marry him. Why do you think she agrees? What do you predict for them moving forward?
It was really a romantic part of the show when Jessica realizes that Felix thinks she’s too much in a good way and accepts that. Then Jessica is probably the first person to accept him, fully, for who he is after doing something like that. I think that made him want to jump in, like, “This person in front of me is really seeing me and accepting everything about me.” I think that’s why they want to get married. They both have never felt like that. Like, “You are messy and imperfect and you really messed up, but I want you know I accept you.” They’re both in a place where they really needed that.
But what’s the line between accepting each other and glazing over their problems?
That’s the thing about relationships. It’s not like you’re allowed to make mistakes and keep doing those things. It’s more like, “OK, you made a mistake, but now we need to do the work.” I would love to be able to do more seasons and see what happens, because things don’t just all of a sudden work out perfectly because you got married. In fact, it’s a time to address everything. Those kinds of mistakes don’t just stop if you don’t do the work on yourself. So it’s really interesting to me to see where Lena takes things.
Ana Blumenkron/Netflix
By the end of the season, do you think Jess has made enough growth to really hold Felix accountable for that work?
I think neither of them are. Maybe they feel ready, but it’s hard to say that both of them are ready to get married. And that’s what makes it so exciting that they do. When you’re in love, you actually trigger each other a lot, but that that’s so fascinating to me. So no, I don’t think that they’re ready to get married, but I’m certainly glad that they did.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
