Megara, also known as Meg, is a fictional character in Disney's Hercules franchise. Meg first appears in the animated film Hercules (1997) as a young woman enslaved by Hades, god of the underworld. Hades forces Meg to seduce Hercules and uncover his weaknesses in exchange for her own freedom, only to develop genuine feelings for the demigod instead. Loosely based on Megara and Deianira, Heracles' first and third wives in Greek mythology, directors Ron Clements and John Musker adapted Meg into a morally conflicted con artist, and based her role on 1940s screwball comediennes, particularly actress Barbara Stanwyck's performance in The Lady Eve (1941).
Meg is voiced by actress Susan Egan, who had been playing Belle in the Broadway adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1994) 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 Meg and Belle's personalities were too different. To prepare for the role, Egan drew inspiration from several classical Hollywood actresses, including Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Lauren Bacall. After opting not to draw the character realistically, supervising animator Ken Duncan decided to input elements of Greek pottery into Meg's hair, body, and clothing, while borrowing some of Egan's own mannerisms.
Reception towards Meg has been positive, with critics citing her independence, wit, and moral ambiguity as welcome departures from previous Disney heroines, as well as praising Egan's performance. Retrospectively, the character is regarded as underappreciated by critics, with several media publications ranking her among Disney's most underrated heroines. Meg has made subsequent appearances in the film's sequel, television spin-off, and video game adaptations, as well as a live-action iteration in Once Upon a Time, portrayed by actress Kacey Rohl.
Role Meg first appears in Hercules (1997) as a slave working for Hades, god of the underworld. She meets Hercules when he frees her from Nessus, a centaur Meg had been sent by Hades to recruit for his army. Resisting Hercules' help, Meg distrusts men, having once sold her soul to Hades in return for an ex-boyfriend's life only for him to pursue another woman, leaving Meg indebted to Hades for eternity. Hades enlists Meg to entice the seemingly infallible Hercules in hopes of distracting and ultimately defeating him, offering her freedom for uncovering his weaknesses. Upon convincing Hercules to take a day off, they share a romantic evening during which Meg realizes she has unwittingly begun to fall in love with him, although she denies feeling this way. Meg refuses to assist Hades any further, prompting him to kidnap her to lure Hercules upon discovering that Meg is Hercules' weakness. Hades tricks Hercules into giving up his strength in return for Meg's guaranteed safety, only to reveal that Meg was initially working for him. With Hercules incapacitated, Hades attacks Mount Olympus and Thebes, but Hercules remains determined to defend both regions. During the battle, Meg pushes Hercules out of the way of a falling column, by which she is fatally injured. Meg's injury restores Hercules' strength and deems his agreement with Hades null and void, which he uses to confront Hades and retrieve Meg's soul from the River Styx before it reaches the underworld, ultimately reviving her. Hercules' sacrifice for Meg proves himself a true hero, becoming a god in the process and finally allowing him to return to Mount Olympus. However, Hercules chooses to relinquish his immortality so that he can remain on Earth with Meg.
Meg appears as Hercules' wife in the film's direct-to-video sequel Hercules: Zero to Hero (1999), in which she learns about Hercules' past and childhood.
Development Creation and writing Meg's role in Hercules is one of several creative liberties Disney took when adapting the Greek myth into an animated film. In Greek mythology, Megara is Hercules' first wife, with whom the character has several children. The eldest daughter of King Creon, Megara is gifted to Hercules after he defeats the Minyans at Orchomenos. Megara and their children are eventually killed by Hercules himself, having been driven to insanity by Hera, the wife of his unfaithful father, Zeus. These elements were entirely omitted from the animated film while retaining a female character named "Meg", instead adapting her into a con artist with a troubled past, whose relationship with Hercules ultimately redeems her.
The writers adapted the way in which Hercules meets his second wife, Deianira, into the way he meets Meg. Herakles author Emma Stafford determined that Disney had assimilated the character with Deianira, in addition to making Meg older and more experienced. Directors and screenwriters Ron Clements and John Musker primarily drew inspiration for the film from screwball comedies during the 1930s and 1940s, particularly films directed by Preston Sturges and Frank Capra, with Musker describing Hercules as "a comedy about the battle between idealism and cynicism, in the same way as some of those Sturges and Capra movies". Thus, Meg was written as a cynical heroine who finds it difficult to trust men.
The writers based Meg on actress Barbara Stanwyck's character in the film The Lady Eve (1941). Clements said that Meg "was especially interesting for us [to create] because she was so different from the other Disney heroines" of the time period. In addition to her "sharp-tongued" nature, writing Meg as a heroine who plots with the film's villain against its hero was a stark departure from previous Disney heroines and virtually unprecedented at the time. Since Meg initially works for Hades, the writers also drew inspiration from Lola, a temptress contracted to work for the devil in the musical Damn Yankees (1956). According to The Baltimore Sun, Meg was one of Disney's first heroines to have been written with a past and backstory. According to Meg's supervising animator, Ken Duncan, the character undergoes a dramatic arc in the film, "which takes her from being untrusting and hard-edged to being a softer, more open person by the end".
Voice Meg is voiced by American actress and singer Susan Egan who, prior to Hercules, had auditioned for every animated Disney film since 1991's Beauty and the Beast. Disney was interested in casting Broadway talent as Meg, instead of casting different actors to provide the character's speaking and singing voices, which was becoming more common in animation. At the time, Egan was starring as Belle in the Broadway adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, a role she originated, and had been four months into her tenure when she learned about auditions for Meg. Despite strong interest in the role and assuming her professional relationship with the studio would increase her chances, Disney refused to let Egan audition, believing Meg's "bad girl" personality was far too removed from Belle for Egan to play. Egan pursued the role until Disney finally relented.Several of Egan's Broadway peers lobbied for the same role, including Donna Murphy and Audra McDonald, both of whom attended Egan's audition. Composer Alan Menken and musical director Michael Kosarin, both of whom Egan had worked with on Beauty and the Beast, oversaw her audition. She described the auditioning process as unusual because the creatives did not look at her, preferring to either close their eyes or study a drawing of Meg to avoid being influenced by Egan's appearance. Egan read Meg's lines in her naturally deep voice rather than the manufactured "Belle voice" Disney had grown accustomed to hearing, which surprised the casting directors. Egan explained that "when I play Belle, I'm acting", describing herself as much more similar to Meg personality-wise, and credited her own dating history with preparing her for playing the character. Aware that Meg was based on Stanwyck, Egan researched some of Stanwyck's films, as well as performances by Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Lauren Bacall, drawing inspiration from their cadence and mid-Atlantic accents. Egan performed "Somewhere That's Green" from Menken's musical Little Shop of Horrors (1982) as her audition song. Apart from periodic updates from Kosarin, Egan would not hear from Disney until six months later when the studio selected her as one of three contenders to begin animating the character to; she was finally cast after her last animation test.
Egan continued to perform in Beauty and the Beast while working on Hercules, playing Belle in the day and Meg during evenings. Egan's first recording session was postponed due to an onstage foot injury. At one point, Menken warned Egan that she had begun incorporating aspects of Meg's personality into Belle, saying, "You're onstage and your hip juts out ... it's like you're going to roll your eyes and tell the Beast to shave", which she corrected. Egan continued to draw inspiration from classic Hollywood performers, adapting "a hard-boiled frame of mind" when approaching Meg's putdowns, retorts and insults. She channeled actresses Jean Arthur and Ginger Rogers for the scene in which Meg first nicknames Hercules "Wonder Boy". Some of Egan's lines were lifted directly from her audition, particularly "So did they give you a name along with all those rippling pectorals?" and "My friends call me Meg. At least they would if I had any friends". This posed a challenge for the sound engineers, who were tasked with removing background noise such as New York City traffic from the footage. Egan described Meg as "the gorgeous, girl-with-a-track-record" female character that she had always wanted to play, possessing "the Liz Taylor look and the one-liners I wish I could come up with in real life." Egan felt it "fun to be funny" as Meg, believing that her sarcastic and witty personality is typically reserved for male characters.
Personality and design
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." Egan said Meg and Belle are "not exactly the same type" of character; 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".