O/T How Megan Hilty Survived

How Megan Hilty Survived TV Flops 'Smash' and 'Sean Saves the World' With Grace
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/08/how-megan-hilty-survi ved-tv-flops-smash-and-sean-saves-the-world-with-grace.html

(What doesn't Megan do with grace? and style? and amazingness?)

From the article:

After weathering the negative press about Smash’s creative struggles (while still earning raves for her performance as a scorned and immensely talented Broadway actress clawing her way out of the chorus line) and reports of cast wars backstage of Sean Hayes’s heralded—and then maligned—return to NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup on Sean Saves the World, Hilty is in an unusual place for an actress. She’s survived two of the most high-profile television cancellations in recent industry memory, and has come out on the other side with more brains, heart, and courage when it comes to the business. And that’s not to mention the good will of critics and fans who have seen her shine on the respective series and can’t wait for her to find a better outlet for her light.

If you live in New York City, you’re most likely familiar with Megan Hilty even if you’ve never seen an episode of Smash or Sean Saves the World. A clip of her absolutely setting fire to one of Smash’s original songs, the torch ballad “Keep Moving the Line,” played almost incessantly on those little TVs in the back of taxicabs for what seemed like months last year.

Watch the brilliant performance, almost criminally effortless, in the clip below just once, and you’ll see why no one seemed to mind its taxicab omnipresence.

“I was terrified,” Hilty says. “I also felt like I had a lot to prove, being the theater gal in the cast, because we get a bad rap. People think that theater actors are too big for the camera. It’s like, ‘No, we’re actors and we adjust for our audience.’ So without being like, ‘I’m going to show that every theater girl can do it!’ I felt like I had to prove something.”

The pilot was spectacular, and Hilty was clearly a star, commanding every scene she was in and dominating every musical number. It was a blessing and a curse for the show, particularly when the writers tried to convince viewers that her character wouldn’t be cast as Marilyn, despite Hilty being so talented that the decision, though fictional, became increasingly ludicrous.

But that was just the beginning of the series’ creative struggles. Characters began to act so irrationally and plot twists began to be so ludicrous and unrealistic that fans who once tuned in to the show because of its strong pilot and theater-geek appeal began to revolt. The term “hate-watching” was quickly coined to describe their relationship with series.

Throughout it all, Hilty remained relatively good-natured with the press, a proper balance of self-aware and self-deprecating. (It’s not many actresses who would, with charm and grace, answer a barrage of questions about the “failure” of TV shows she worked tirelessly on while promoting an unrelated animated film.)

For “hate-watchers” of Smash, few moments are as hallowed as the time Hilty’s character took prednisone because she was getting sick—as actresses often do—but inexplicably started hallucinating and acting erratically as a side effect—as almost no one does.

“There were times when I told them, listen, this can’t physically happen,” she says, remembering the prednisone arc. “Like, ‘I’m on prednisone now!’ They tried to justify with her taking all these other pills and blah blah. Whatever. There’s only so much that I can do.”

“There was something magical that happened every day on that set,” she says. And, it bears repeating, that Hilty was really good on it. So good that when Smash was canceled, NBC inserted her into the cast of one of their most hyped and most promising pilots for the next season, Sean Saves the World, even though the pilot had already been shot with actress Lindsay Sloane in the role Hilty ended up playing: Hayes’s work best friend, Liz.

“It’s funny because on social media and stuff, everybody’s like, ‘Oh, poor Megan. When is she going to catch a break?’” she says. “It’s like, guys. Do you know how hard it is to even get on TV? I’m lucky to have any of these opportunities at all. Don’t cry for me. I’m going to be just fine.”