The Natural

Comedy, singing, scandal, attempted murder: Meghann Fahy, the breakout star of The White Lotus and now The Perfect Couple, can do it all

- HILLARY BUSIS

THERE'S CONFIDENCE, AND then there's confidence-the kind that helps a Silicon Valley wine mom serenely weather her husband's flagrant infidelity. Or a lowly fashion assistant charge $500 worth of cocaine to her corporate card. Or a totally green 18-year-old nab a gig as a Broadway understudy after one of her very first auditions.

In real life, Meghann Fahy has done just one of these things.

(Guess which!) But spend time with her and you'll see she's as self-assured as her characters. "Because I never really planned a career in this space, I never really had any idea of what I was hoping it would look like," she says on a video call from London, where she's taking a breather with her boyfriend and former White Lotus costar, Leo Woodall.

"I just kind of go with the flow." Growing up in Massachusetts, Fahy dreamed of becoming a singer: if not the next Whitney Houston, maybe at least the next Avril Lavigne. After that pivotal tryout, though, she did contemplate a career as an actor. Fahy wasn't cast in the show she was auditioning for the ill-fated Spider-Man: Turn Off the Darkbut she was impressive enough to earn a spot as a standby in Next to Normal before the musical transferred to Broadway and won a Pulitzer. Later she officially joined the principal cast.

She performed eight shows a week while simultaneously chewing scenery on One Life to Live as the devious Hannah O'Connor, whose greatest hits included kidnapping, stalking, and more than one attempted homicide. "I was fully dressed in a cowgirl Halloween costume while forcing this woman to dig her own grave. And you know what? That is exactly how I would choose to be on a soap opera," Fahy says.