page_title: Megara (Disney character)
section_title: Personality and design
hierarchical_section_title: Megara (Disney character) / Development / Personality and design
caption_attribution_description: English: Publicity photo of Barbara Stanwyck.
context_page_description: Megara, also known as Meg, is a fictional character who appears in the Walt Disney Pictures 35th animated film Hercules. Voiced by actress Susan Egan, Meg is introduced as a cynical young woman enslaved by Hades, god of the underworld. Hades forces Meg to uncover Hercules' weaknesses by seducing him in return for her freedom, only to develop genuine feelings for the character instead. Loosely based on Megara and Deianira, Hercules' first and second wives in Greek mythology, directors Ron Clements and John Musker adapted Meg into a morally conflicted con artist, while basing her role and personality on 1940s screwball comediennes, particularly actress Barbara Stanwyck's performance in The Lady Eve.
  Egan had already been starring as Belle in the stage adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast when she learned of auditions for Hercules. Despite campaigning heavily for the role of Meg, Disney initially prevented Egan from auditioning because the studio felt that Meg and Belle's personalities differed too greatly, doubting that the actress could voice the former convincingly until she ultimately proved capable.
context_section_description: Meg was inspired by 1940s screwball comediennes, specifically actress Barbara Stanwyck's performances in the films The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire (both 1941). Both Egan and supervising animator Ken Duncan drew inspiration from Stanwyck's "tough-minded" demeanor in her films, with Egan describing Meg as a "fast-talking, 1940s dame who has guys wrapped around her little finger". Egan believes Meg is a character "somewhere in between" good and evil, unlike most Disney heroines who are typically either one or the other. Egan called Meg a "beautiful and brilliant" woman "who knows how to go after what she wants," describing her as "disillusioned with people" until she meets "Hercules, who is so pure of spirit and so honest that it re-establishes her faith in goodness." Comparing Meg to her other Disney heroine, Belle, Egan described the former as the Beast to Hercules' Belle: "[Meg is] the one who's had a traumatic event in her life which has forced her to lose faith in people. It takes a pure spirit to reestablish that faith. For the Beast, it was Belle. For Meg, it's Hercules." Furthermore, Egan believes "there's no other character like Meg", elaborating that she lacks the moral compass that Belle has "because that's Hercules’ job in the movie. She's not a princess, and she's not a villain." Egan believes that Meg undergoes "a much larger arch than the Disney princesses" as she experiences a change of heart, describing her as flawed and feeling that Disney not crowning her a princess makes her "more relatable".
  Disney enlisted cartoonist and caricaturist Gerald Scarfe to help design the film's characters. Alongside Hercules, Meg is one of only two prominent human characters in the film; Scarfe determined that neither character "offer[ed] a lot for caricature" in comparison to the film's non-human characters, opting to draw them as "good looking, hunky, pretty" instead. Observing that Disney heroines "ha[ve] certainly evolved over the years", Scarfe identified Meg as very different from Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), describing her as "a feisty, in some ways cynical girl who has a lot of oomph." Duncan served as Meg's supervising animator, both designing and animating the character. Duncan Marjoribanks was originally intended to animate Meg, while Duncan had been slated to animate Nessus. Duncan asked to replace Marjoribanks when the latter left the production to work for DreamWorks Animation. Duncan originally attempted to draw Meg as a realistic-looking heroine. Upon deciding to incorporate elements of Greek pottery into the character's hair, Duncan ultimately decided to base the character's entire body on pottery as well. Duncan hoped that his animation would change how Meg's personality was originally depicted in storyboards, from "tough and angry to street smart and playfully sarcastic." Clements and Musker described Meg's head as "sort of a vase shape", while "she's got a Greek curl in the back." Notably, Meg's hair is designed and animated in a way that is very difficult to replicate in real life.
  Egan feels her character closer resembles Stanwyck than herself, although some of Egan's mannerisms, facial expressions and features, such as Egan's arched eyebrows, were incorporated into the character's appearance by animators watching video footage of the actress recording. While reviewing storyboards early during production, Egan recognized Meg performing a "slicing" gesture with her hand she had originated during her audition when her character says "Thanks for everything, Herc. It's been a real slice", which producer Alice Dewey confirmed had been borrowed directly from Egan's audition. Meg's eye colour had been changed from blue to purple by the time Phil's line warning Hercules not to be distracted by her eyes was written, prompting the writers to change it from "Don't let your guard down because of a pair of big, blue eyes" to "goo-goo eyes". In 2011, Egan enlisted Duncan to animate animal characters in the music video for her single "Nina Doesn't Care".
caption: Actress Barbara Stanwyck is among several classic Hollywood actresses by whom Meg's personality and appearance were inspired; Egan also based her voice acting on Stanwyck's performances.
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