Since her star-making turn in The White Lotus, actress Meghann Fahy has been booked and busy: This month, she stars in the drama Rebuilding, as the ex-wife of a cowboy whose ranch burned down in a wildfire. Unsurprisingly, her packed agenda requires catching up on sleep wherever she can. But if you see her resting on an airplane, kindly avert your eyes. “I famously am always sleeping with my mouth open if I’m in a seat that doesn’t go all the way back. My boyfriend has so many videos of me, just teed up,” she says. “If it’s a night flight, I love to get on the plane, watch a little movie, eat some dinner, have a glass of wine, and then lights out.”
Fahy chatted with Condé Nast Traveler about the experience of making Rebuilding below Colorado’s wide open skies, why her work schedule requires 24-hour room service, and the movie she loves watching in-flight just before she drifts off.
On the filming location for Rebuilding:
It was Alamosa, Colorado, which I had never been to before. Colorado generally is a state that I've not spent a lot of time in, and it's a totally different world than what I'm used to—I grew up in a really small town in Massachusetts—and it was amazing. Just driving down one of those really long, really straight roads and seeing that much sky, with the radio on, continues to be one of my favorite parts of having been there. And the sunsets were absolutely incredible.
Her coolest filming location to date:
Sicily [for The White Lotus] definitely takes the cake. It'll be really hard to beat that. We traveled around a bit while we were filming and bopped from town to town, so we got to see a fair amount of Sicily, which was wonderful. Then we actually finished the shoot in Rome. It was just one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. There’s still so much of Italy that I haven’t been to that I’m excited to explore. I love the culture, I love the people, I love the food. I just have no notes on Italy.
Her approach to packing:
I'm sort of a chronic under-packer, because I get really overwhelmed when I'm doing it. So what I do to soothe myself is just say, “Don't worry about it! If you forget anything, you can just get things as you need them.” But I have recently gotten into packing cubes. Honestly, it makes such a huge difference, not even in terms of space necessarily, but just knowing where everything is. I'm leaving on Monday to go to England to do a film, and I'm going to be there for a couple of months, so I'm going to have three big trunks. When you have that much luggage, it's really hard to know where all your stuff is, and it becomes frustrating to be going through your bag all the time trying to find one thing. The packing cubes are really helpful with that organizational component.
Her first flight in first class:
I was being flown to Atlanta for work. It was the first time I had a guest spot on a TV show, and if you're a member of SAG, they have to fly you business. It was from New York, so it was a short flight; it wasn’t like when you’re going to LA and they have the flatbed and everything. As for the first time I walked onto an airplane and saw that there was a bed? So crazy! I still can’t believe that.
The movie she’s always watching in flight:
It happens to be Mamma Mia!. I just love that film so much, and I think it's really cozy to watch on an airplane. I actually just watched it on my way back from Paris after Fashion Week. I'm very seasonally driven; I like to watch things that feel like the season. Mamma Mia! is a very summer movie to me.
Her priorities when planning a vacation:
I really love trying new food and walking around new cities and getting the lay of the land and exploring. But I also tend to sort of gravitate towards beach places, and also really love going into the woods and having a cozier vibe, where there's a fireplace, and you can go on a long walk wearing a coat. I know it’s not for everybody; I just love the fall. But I'm not a huge planner. I don't plan a lot of activities when I travel. I’m very go with the flow as a human, and I like to wing it.
Her travel pet peeve:
Oh my God. I feel like this list is l-o-o-ong. I get frustrated when you're on a plane really early in the morning, and everyone has their shades drawn for courtesy, and there's always that one person that's just fully shining the sun into your face from across the aisle. I really, really, really detest that. We’ve all made this conscious decision to look out for each other and close the blinds so that you can rest if you want, and the one person who doesn't get that? It really gets under my skin.
The hotel amenities she craves:
I really love a hotel that has a good sauna. When I'm traveling, I just find that it's so useful to sit in a sauna. That to me is top of the list. But also, 24-hour room service feels important. You would be so surprised! We went to Marseilles and we were staying at this beautiful hotel, but it was so French: They literally just served cheese from noon to two, and then you couldn’t get any food until five, and then they stopped serving dinner at eight. You don’t realize how much you value being able to eat whenever you feel like eating until there’s a particular schedule! And I work such insane hours and my schedule is just weird. It’s not just that I come home late and want a snack. Sometimes I need dinner, and everything is closed. So if a hotel has 24-hour room service, it’s so exciting!
A destination that pleasantly surprised her:
I just went to Telluride for the first time and I was taken aback by how beautiful it is, how sweet the town is, and the history there. It is definitely the kind of place that I wouldn't have thought to come to [if it weren’t for work]. I’d love to come back with my girlfriends and have a mountain weekend.
