Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Nager.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born and grew up in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Since the time I was little, I’ve been obsessed with all things film. I would watch movies over and over and go through periods of even dressing up as characters from films (I refused to wear anything but Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz costume to kindergarten for six months straight).
I was very academic and was placed into a high-achieving prep school from the time I was five, so I used art and acting as an outlet for my creative energy. By the time I was around 12 – 13, I started to become increasingly fascinated with comedy. I would watch Saturday Night Live episodes from the late 1980s and 90’s and dream about appearing on the show.
In middle school, my parents sent me to Stage Door Manor, a theatre camp in the Catskills in New York, where I performed in musicals and plays, took dance classes, and learned how to perform in front of the camera.
After high school, I attended Washington University in St. Louis, during which time I wrote and acted in several plays for Washington University’s theatre department and Wash U Greek Life philanthropy event, Thurtene. In addition to acting, I also interned for KSDK Newschannel 5 in St. Louis and MTV’s True Life in New York City, which allowed me to strengthen my writing, editing, and filming skills. I graduated with honors and a major in both English and Spanish and a minor in general business from Washington University in June of 2012.
Instead of following the path of most of my friends and colleagues, I took a risk and decided to move to Los Angeles for a year to follow my childhood dream of becoming a professional actor. During the first year, I was in LA, I attended The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where I re-discovered my love for comedy. Towards the end of my year at the academy, one of my friends pretty much forced me to perform at an open mic stand-up comedy club, and I quickly discovered my passion for stand-up. I continued to perform throughout Los Angeles and South Florida and became a regular at comedy clubs such as Flapper’s, The Comedy Store, and The Hollywood Improv.
After my time at the acting conservatory, I began to write and create my own content including a television pilot called “Cuckoo’s Nest” and a short film titled, “Love You, Dad”. Throughout these two projects, I realized my true passion was creating my own (mostly comedic) content. I opened a small production company with a friend and we quickly began producing music videos, short films, and Youtube videos for ourselves and other artists.
In 2016/2017, I worked at Carousel Production Company owned by Steve Carrell, where I received a ton of producing and writing skills. During my time there, I helped produce two documentaries, read hundreds of treatments and scripts and gained a ton of knowledge about the inner-workings of how a production company is run.
In addition to producing, I continue to act and have booked roles in several feature films, television series, and short films. You can find me on TruTV’s Laff Mobb’s Laff Tracks and several Amazon Prime Series, including the newly released Big Trouble at Barney’s.
In 2017, I began to create even more content for myself and my friends and wrote, produced and acted in Verified, an Amazon Prime Original that is currently in several film festivals. My second series titled All My Friends will also appear on Amazon Prime in March 2019.
In addition to creating long-form content, I have spent the past two years creating short-form original content for Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter. My content is comedic in nature and makes fun of trends and stereotypes that I find inspiration from on a daily basis. I’ve developed several characters that I regularly create content with including Serena, a fake fitness model, Lacey, a fake lingerie model, Linda, a Jewish grandmother, Trevor, a typical “bro”, and a Beverly Hills dog mom who sells real estate. I’ve also begun to create content for the cryptocurrency community with my lingerie model, Lacey. In September of 2018, Lacey appeared on a crypto talk show where she interviewed celebrities such as Brian Austin Greene on their opinion of Bitcoin.
I have a ton of acting training including Upright Citizen’s Brigade (improv), Killian’s Commercial Workshop, Lesley Kahn’s Acting Studio, and Eric Morris’s Method Acting Studio.
I am in the process of launching a media company where I will create content for small businesses and other artists who want to take charge and put their concepts and ideas into motion. When I’m not creating my own content, I continue to audition, write, perform stand-up, and hang out with my chihuahua, Mr. Peabody, who also appears in a lot of my sketches.
Please tell us about your art.
Like I said earlier, I make a ton of my own content. When I first arrived in LA, I was told I needed to focus on only one aspect of this industry and had to pick between writing and acting. After becoming increasingly discouraged waiting around to be sent on auditions by agents and managers, I took it upon myself to bring all of my skills together and create my own projects. I write, act, edit and recently began to direct my own content.
It’s super important to me to take action and not wait around for someone to make my dreams a reality. I quickly discovered that a lot of Hollywood is based on waiting on other people or trying to position yourself to be put in other people’s shows or movies and it really began to affect my self-esteem. Creating my own content and helping others create their own original content has really empowered me. I firmly believe that every artist – especially with today’s technology – is fully capable of creating whatever they want. No longer do we need the approval of big studios or agents and managers to bring us work. I’m super passionate about sharing this with other artists and inspiring them to take their power back by producing whatever their passion project is.
In addition to this, and like I said earlier, I LOVE comedy. I suffer from horrible anxiety and have gone through periods where I’ve been so anxious I can’t leave my house. The only thing that has helped me out of these bouts of anxiety has been comedy. I believe laughter is literally medicine. Any time I can make someone laugh, I feel like I’m fulfilling my life’s purpose. I receive a lot of my inspiration for my comedy through my everyday interactions with people. Los Angeles can be a very unhealthy place where the beauty standards are often times really unrealistic. People here are into flaunting their wealth, their looks and their style. The characters I’ve created in my sketch comedy shed light on the silliness of some of these people.
I began writing sketch comedy in 2016 when the rise of the Instagram fitness model was at an all-time high. I noticed I was spending hours scouring through Instagram and looking at perfect women with chiseled abs and 2% body fat and felt myself falling deeper into despair. I also noticed that this whole phenomenon was spreading like wildfire – everyone and their mother was trying to become an Instagram model and posting pictures on Instagram that were photoshopped, promoting unrealistic beauty standards. I came up with a concept for a fake fitness model named Serena (@worldsbestfitnessmodelonig) and started to film parody fitness videos with her. I knew that not only was I being negatively affected by the over-saturation of perfect bodies on Instagram, but also so were my friends. I used Serena as an outlet for my frustration and to shed light on the ridiculousness of these beauty standards.
From Serena came other characters that I developed. I now regularly develop content with all of my sketch characters.
Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
I believe that the role of the artist has drastically shifted even since I first moved to LA in 2012. Never before has technology made it so easy for the artist to create their own content and it’s become increasingly easier for artists to take control of their destiny. With platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Youtube Red, etc. gaining popularity, the artist has been given even more freedom to create their own original content. I find that super empowering.
In addition to that – local, national and international events are crazy today. 2018 was one of the most active and event-filled years I’ve been alive to experience. There’s so much information floating around and being shoved down our throats, that it’s become even more important for people with creative ideas and abilities to spread what they’re doing. The world can be a really dark and negative place and the role of the artist is needed now more than ever. I believe artists are healers and literally vessels of information. They have the power to spread light and positivity by producing work that nurtures, heals and entertains the masses.
My work has been centered on comedy now more than ever. I love writing series that highlight or bring to surface bigger issues that we all deal with as people. I’ve learned to take dark, taboo subjects and put a comedic spin on them in order to comment on today’s events or issues. Like I mentioned earlier, social media has become increasingly more popular and influential. Kids at young ages are comparing themselves to photoshopped models they see online. My television series, Verified, produced by The Following Productions, was created with the goal of commenting on these unrealistic beauty standards. My character in the series, Megan, is dumped by her boyfriend for a “professional Instagram model’, Just like many women in today’s world, Megan feels insecure and less-than because she isn’t posing in lingerie online. In attempts to win her boyfriend back, she actually decides to become an Instagram model herself. However, she quickly realizes that this online persona isn’t really what she was after. The whole time, Megan has just been dying to take her power back and boost her self esteem. She discovers that posing online and copying this trend really doesn’t do more than make her feel even more empty inside.
That being said, I hope that my series can shed a light on the issues that social media has created for young women today.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
On my website: www.megan-nager.com, My Instagram: @meganager, Twitter: @nagertherager, My Blog: www.meganmakescontent.com, Facebook: @mbnager
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5835556/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Amazon Prime Verified: https://www.amazon.com/Episode-3/dp/B07LBB2MFG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548285975&sr=8-1&keywords=verified
Contact Info:
- Website: www.megan-nager.com
- Phone: 954-614-7849
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @meganager
- Facebook: @mbnager
- Twitter: @nagertherager
Image Credit:
Brian Zager
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