Overview (2)

Mini Bio (1)

Megan is an only child born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Martha, was a model, and her father, Carter Mullally Jr., was a contract player for Paramount. Megan first entered Northwestern University intending to study acting, but switched to English literature. However, she still ended up starring in several campus musicals, which gained attention from producers and prompted her to drop out of school. In 1985, she moved to Los Angeles with no particular success. But, in 1994, she co-starred in "Grease" on Broadway with Rosie O'Donnell and, in 1995, in "How To Succeed In Business" with Matthew Broderick. Her star has been rising ever since. Her band Nancy and Beth have recorded two albums and tour extensively. She has directed four music videos for Nancy and Beth, which can be found at nancyandbeth.com.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: John Sacksteder <jsack@ka.net>

Spouse (2)

Trivia (31)

Lives in California with her husband, Nick Offerman.



She is in the band Nancy and Beth.



She starred in and directed an original performance art piece, The Sweetheart Break-In. The band released a CD of some of the songs in the show, called The Supreme Music Program: The Sweetheart Break-In. They have released two other CDs: Big as a Berry and Free Again.



Graduated from Casady High School, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.





Her father, Carter Mullally Jr. , who died in 1992, was a contract player with Paramount in the 1950s. Her mother, Martha, was a model.



Megan announced her engagement to actor Nick Offerman in September 2002.



Close friend is Emergency Room: Die Notaufnahme (1994) actress Laura Innes . The two met at Northwestern University in the late 70s and have been friends ever since.



She studied ballet from the age of six and was a soloist with Oklahoma City's Ballet Oklahoma. She also studied at George Balanchine 's School of American Ballet.



Tested for the role of Elaine on Seinfeld (1989). (According to The Seinfeld Story (2004), which aired on 25 November 2004.).

Attended Northwestern University



Has won three consecutive Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Comedy, and has a total of four SAG awards and two Emmy awards. Nominated for 8 Emmys and 5 Golden Globes.





First cast member of Will & Grace (1998) to win an Emmy. She won in 2000 for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Comedy. Her co-star Sean Hayes also won that year.



Originally auditioned for the role of Grace on Will & Grace (1998), but was later cast as Karen.

She has English and Irish ancestry.





She was nominated for a 1979 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical for her performance in "Bagtime" at the Wisdom Bridge Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.



Withdrew from the Broadway production of "Lips Together, Teeth Apart" because of difficulties with the director, Joe Mantello

Starred as Beverly in the acclaimed production of Adam Bart's "The Receptionist" at the Odyssey Theatre. (notably, the longest sold-out run of a show in that theater's history), for which she was awarded the 2010 Backstage West Garland Award for Best Performance by an Actress. [2010]





Starred as "Elizabeth" in Mel Brooks ' original Broadway musical, "Young Frankenstein" in 2008. [September 2007]



Her acting mentors were Ellen Burstyn and Elaine Stritch.



Mullally filmed some scenes for the groundbreaking 1986 film Blue Velvet: Verbotene Blicke (1986). She played the college girlfriend of Kyle MacLachlan 's character, Jeffrey. Not only were her scenes entirely cut from the final movie but her character went totally unmentioned. (There is no sign that Jeffrey had a girlfriend before coming home and becoming romantically entangled with both Laura Dern and Isabella Rossellini .) Mullally's deleted scenes did appear in a 2011 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray edition release.

She won the Women in Film Lucy Award "in recognition of her innovation in creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television" in 2005 and the women in film Gracie Award in 2018.





She was to do a voice-over role in the Disney-Pixar film Findet Nemo (2003), but was fired from the production for refusing to do her Karen Walker voice for the film.

She is of English, Irish and Scandinavian ancestry.



Following her graduation from Casady School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, she attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she studied English Literature and Art History, and subsequently became active in Chicago theatre.



Personal Quotes (16)

It doesn't matter who you love, it's that you love.





I didn't get Will & Grace (1998) until I was almost 40. Had I listened to everybody else who kept saying, 'Oh, there's too much competition, you'll never get an agent, you'll never get a part, 90 percent of actors are out of work," if I'd listened to that, if everybody listened to that, then nobody would leave the house and the world would come to a crashing halt.

When I went up there and accepted the [second] Emmy, I remembered that when I was about 20, a psychic told me I was going to win two Emmys that were going to be like bookends for playing a secretary on a sitcom. And I said, 'I'm not going to do sitcoms. I'm a great actress and I'm going to change the world.'



I'll quit coffee. It won't be easy drinking my Bailey's straight, but I'll get used to it. It'll still be the best part of waking up.



I'm getting to do choreography, which I really love. Stephanie [Hunt] doesn't have any formal dance training. But she picks up the moves quickly. It's interesting, my coming from a dance background. I don't have anything to compare it to, except musical comedy. It's easier to break things down, even if you're working on a writing piece.



I got to be the lead in a few ballets that required acting ability, story ballets. But then I realized in the midst of 36 fouettes that what I really liked was not the 36 fouettes. What I preferred were the parts where I had a mad scene and then died from love."



Theater is great because you're able to perform a narrative arc without a break. I think it's more about the material, about whether what we get offered is good.



My favorite thing to do is just stay home with Nick and the dogs and read or watch movies and just hand out together.



Karen Walker was always such a lawless rebel: carrying a gun in her purse, flirting with 14-year-old boys. She's the worst. You know that horrible guy Milo Yiannopoulos? She has about as many redeeming qualities as he has.



Ballet gave me a sense of discipline and a work ethic. It's funny, it's been so long since I've been in a ballet company, but some of it sticks with me.



Selling a band predicated on nothing is always an interesting proposition, and of course, the fact of the matter is that I really started out in music before I ever acted, and I've done a ton of singing.



It's funny when you follow your own sort of bliss, then other people tend to respond in kind, meaning audiences. It's really weird how that works, but it does seem to apply to 'Nancy & Beth' especially.



I think of myself as a character actress, and Karen's just one of the characters I've gotten to play, but I feel like Karen takes on so much more weight because the show was on for eight seasons, and it was such a popular show. But you have to move on to telling another story in a different world.



John Cleese was my personal favorite because he played my husband for a whole season - and Minnie Driver. We almost had our own, spin-off - the show within the show- all living in a house together. And Gene Wilder was just so dear. Then, of course, Alec Baldwin and my friend Molly Shannon.



Isn't that sort of what happened with gay marriage? Right before gay marriage was legalized, everybody was just losing their minds and, like, the worst possible things were happening, and it seemed as if it couldn't get any worse, and then it suddenly got a lot better.



I consider myself bisexual, and my philosophy is, everyone innately is, although I've never had a full-on relationship with a woman, just a couple of what I'd term half-assed dalliances. So I haven't explored it to the degree that I'd like to, but I'll tell you, I'm open to it. And I don't have any problem saying that.



Salary (1)