Meg Donnelly Admits the Hardest ‘Struggle’ She Faced While Making Her Broadway Debut in ‘Moulin Rouge!’ (Exclusive)

Meg Donnelly is opening about the challenges that came with making her Broadway debut in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. 

On Nov. 11, the 25-year-old actress fulfilled her lifelong dream of performing on a Broadway stage by stepping into the role of Satine, the glittering nightclub star and tragic heroine made famous by Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 Oscar-winning film of the same name. But while catching up with PEOPLE in a recent interview, Donnelly expressed that even the most “surreal” milestones come with a few obstacles.

“I think I didn’t realize the mental game would be so hard,” she said. “In the industry and any arts, it’s really hard because you’re always just hard on yourself and you think you can do better. I really struggle with, every time I’m onstage, I’m so conscious of what I’m doing and how I’m sounding and all of these things.”

The Zombies actress went on to admit that navigating the shift from TV and film to live theater has been “a bit harder than I thought.” After all, putting her all into eight shows a week is no easy feat.

“The schedule is so different,” Donnelly noted. “Getting used to that, I feel like I was preparing for my debut night and then there was a two-show day the next day and I was like, ‘Oh right, I have to keep doing this.’ But it makes it fun to do something different every night.”

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As for how Donnelly overcomes the challenges that come with performing on Broadway? She told PEOPLE that while she’s been given “so much advice,” the most meaningful guidance has always come from her parents. 

“It’s funny because they’re not in the business at all, and they’re not creatives at all,” she said. “But I think that always helps me because they give such realistic advice that’s not super creative.”

“My dad and mom are always just like, ‘As long as you’re having fun,” she continued. “As a kid they were always like, ‘If you stop having fun, we’re just gonna take you out of the business because it’s not worth it because you’re a kid.’ But I feel like I still hold that now of like, at the end of the day it’s just fun.”

Admitting that she still finds herself “shaking like a leaf” during certain parts of the show, Donnelly says that she simply reminds herself to “have the most fun.”

“It’s like I’m putting on a performance, like when me and my cousins wanted to sleep over and we would perform in front of our parents,” she quipped. “Just having fun at the end of the day and just being present and listening onstage and just having a good time is what really matters. Because then the audience is like, ‘Oh, I wanna have fun too.’ So yeah, I need to keep remembering that. But it’s hard sometimes.”