Glee: Keep On Believin' | Biography — Full Documentary

i'd like to take over glee club you want a captain the titanic too it's the toe-tapping show-stopping musical that took television by storm our greatest weapon could be the element of surprise glee introduced us to the new directions there's nothing ironic about show choir soured our taste for cheerios listen here treasure trail we're about to have a smackdown made us fear the dreaded slushy being slushy disliked being slapped by an iceberg got us hooked on the verbal barbs of sue sylvester oh hey buddy i thought i smelled failure we're gonna go extreme extreme extreme and made gleeks out of america i don't think anyone expected what it became you know the lengths that it would reach this is kind of awesome this is fantastic amazing this is the story of how glee became more than a hit tv show the craziest thing that's ever happened it became a pop culture phenomenon that made television and music history from the top [Music] [Applause] everybody loves musical and and anybody who tells you they don't is lying glee is a musical comedy about a show choir with a mission to win nationals as well as some small measure of popularity within the halls of mckinley high by embracing everything from show tunes to classic rock glee has reinvigorated and reinvented the musical what makes glee work is that it's centered around a choral group so yes i mean we have these kids singing where they should be singing on a stage and in their chorus room um so it's not that much of a stretch it's it's kids who love singing of course singing in a glee club doesn't help where it matters most in high school did you get it man we're all losers our casting directors did an incredible job of finding the most talented group of weirdo kids out there everybody hates me do you think glee club is going to change this it's about you know the kids who aren't always represented i get a lot of kids who were like i never had seen a kid in a wheelchair on tv before people can look at it and go i look at kurt and i see myself in him or that happened to me in high school i don't want to be the guy that just drives around throwing exit people that was you you and your friends threw pee balloons at me i know i literally had grown up being one of those kids i i knew what it was like to be in those rehearsals and and maybe singing those songs i knew it had an audience because i was the audience everybody's got a little bit of a secret everybody's got something that is their tenderness and when they go into the glee club they're embraced for it as opposed to getting a slushy in the face we're all here for the same reason because we want to be good at something even their choir director is on the receiving end of his fair share of bullying i don't trust a man with curly hair i can't help picturing small birds laying sulfurous eggs in there and i find it disgusting glee moves effortlessly from comedy to drama by touching on the social issues that are important to teens today when we see mercedes or kurt sing it's all the more powerful knowing what they've survived without a doubt i've shed more tears watching believe than any other show in the history of television as a musical series glee seemed likely to get tossed into television history's dumpster but fox took a gamble on a group of singing dancing misfits and scored big fyi the overnights were through the roof a unique mix of comedy drama and music has made glee one of the most cutting-edge series on the television landscape but the secret to glee's success may in fact be hardwired into human nature we all root for an underdog and the story of glee starts with a whole group of underdogs a glee club from mount prospect illinois our first group of the afternoon set is from prospect high school in mount prospect illinois i was in show choir for three years in high school and we were terrible i knew at the time like what you're doing is sort of ridiculous it sort of plays on both sides of your brain i guess the side that wants to like laugh at it and the other side that sort of wants to get up on stage and join in and in 2005 actor ian brennan sat down to write a film based on the experience and i was like you know what someone's going to write something about a glee club at some point and if it's not me i'm going to be really angry undaunted by the fact that he had no idea how to write a screenplay ian put himself through a crash course for a textbook he selected screenwriting for dummies and then bought uh final draft which is a screenwriting software and then over the course of four weeks wrote this screenplay called glee uh the movie script was was much drier and and darker sort of a snarkier darker turn because i i actually didn't love show choir like i it was one of the things that i couldn't i couldn't really abide that i had done but without an agent to handle his script ian couldn't get anyone in hollywood to read glee and so for the next two years he was obsessed with getting his script into the right hands in 2007 though he caught a lucky break a friend of brennan's went to the same gym as a famous television producer he um was at the gym with ryan murphy and he sort of passed it to him at the time hollywood producer ryan murphy was at the helm of the award-winning and critically acclaimed fx series niptuck i read it and i thought well i don't think that this subject material is necessarily a movie but let's do it as a tv show and not just any tv show murphy envisioned a modern twist on the classic musical i didn't want to do a musical where people just broke out into song and that seemed corny to me i wanted to do something more rigorous and more as a tribute to sort of pop music brennan worked with murphy and his producing partner brad falchuk on a pitch for glee the television series it had very little in common with the original film script ian's script you know was so adult that we didn't take anything from it at all really we started from ground zero and he was very open to doing that ryan and brad and i working together we had such such i think disparate talents and and very different voices but we just we just clicked to come up with some big ideas come up with some small ideas of who the people are and then all these people just kind of came to life out of our heads i sort of had this opportunity of a lifetime to be a writer something that i sort of always secretly harbored inside of me and so it was uh it was it was just amazing ryan murphy had a previous relationship with dana walden and gary newman at 20th century fox and took the pitch to them this was a person who had created nip tuck so we were expecting it would probably be something edgy and dark and he was pitching a high school glee club show let's just say the initial reaction was oh my god and then ryan began telling the story in the pitch and he talked about this innovative crazy idea to do a show set in high school that would have about five or six musical numbers in each episode it was so specific the characters were so well drawn ryan was so passionate about it that it just it just came to life sitting in the room and we just fell in love with what he pitched 20th century fox bought the pitch but they're just a production company the hard part was still ahead selling glee to a television network the concept was unlike anything else on the television landscape in 2008 we've got you know your law and orders and all its spin-offs and your csis and all these spin-offs the shows that were really succeeding on network tv were these kind of predictable procedural dramas the television musical wasn't exactly an easy sell this was a format that had failed spectacularly in previous outings matter of fact one of the most notorious failures of all time was a show called cop rock the tendency with cop rock for most people was to burst into into laughter but glee was no cop rock walden and newman took murphy and his pitch to the fox television network and its head kevin reilly and then next thing we know they said okay write the script he gave ryan the green light to start writing we wrote this group very very quickly we handed in the script we got one round of notes in which kevin reilly said you need a villain and i remember being on this conference call me and brad was sitting on a couch and ryan was sitting at his desk and he just sort of sat up and then he goes yeah i think it's going to be a cheerleading coach named sue sylvester and i think we can get jayden lynch and brad and i sort of looked at each other and we're like that sounds awesome my agent said they want you to play the cheerleading coach read it do you like it and it's you know ryan murphy is offering it to you which is kind of a lovely situation in the script uh there the description of sue sylvester and the pilot was um sue sylvester may or may not have posed for penthouse and may or may not be on horse estrogen i said i i must play this role i must hello boys who needs to pick me up scene in the teacher's lounge where i bring in the lattes ryan yelled out to me from behind the camera he says say you like your scalding and so i was okay i know who this woman is we're gonna go extreme extreme extreme the recipient of sue's verbal assault would be put upon choir director will shuster a lot of actors in los angeles went out for that part and every broadway actor went out for that part tony nominee morrison was starring on broadway in south pacific when he auditioned for the part you know i wanted to do something really you know musical and i i thought i played a little bit of ukulele and i thought it was a very teacherly instrument like an instrument that that a teacher would use to to teach kids so i learned how to play somewhere with a rainbow and i just had a really great audition matthew morrison is the definition of a triple threat casting one triple threat was challenging enough but finding enough kids who could act dance and sing would prove much more difficult yeah it was pretty daunting to cascally it was overwhelming i mean when i first read the script i was like well this is going to be really a challenge and it was a challenge that had the potential to make or break the show [Music] in the summer of 2008 fox broadcasting greenlit glee the longest of long shots in a genre that had been a proven loser on television the musical with veteran comic actor jane lynch and broadway star matthew morrison signed on the biggest challenge became finding the young members of the glee club the producers were looking for players who could not only tackle the overwrought emotions of the high school jungle but also handled the challenging music and dance numbers as well it was a tall order for any casting director it was overwhelming i mean you know when i first read the script i was like well this is going to be really a challenge when i have characters that were archetypes for high school we wanted to find a way to twist them a bit and shake them a bit to make them a little bit unexpected we needed people who were misfits and outsiders and yet had great talent and great promise and that's that's a tricky balance and producer ryan murphy had one more demand to make on an already complicated casting process ryan really felt very strongly that we go with unknowns and we wanted to introduce people to rachel barry not a successful actress who you were trying to convince had become rachel berry in all they would audition close to 3 000 hopefuls for glee's young cast including the role of mckinley high glee club's self-proclaimed star you need somebody who you looked at and you listened to and you said okay i can't stop looking at you and i can't stop listening to you no matter how annoying you might be robert ulrich had high hopes for a little-known up-and-coming broadway talent named leah michelle i started working on broadway when i was eight years old my first show was les mis in 1995 all rich invited her to join the cattle call when i was on my way there i got into a car crash right outside of the driveway for the fox lot i had glass in my hair and little cuts on my skin and we said to her leah please come back tomorrow and she said oh no then they didn't believe me that i had gotten into car crash so i pulled out chunks of glass in my hair and put it on the table not even a trip to the emergency room is going to stop that girl from getting that part i think the rest of the team expects us to become an item you the hotmail lead be the stunning young man who everyone roots for i was reading with her and she walked in and in the original pilot there was a scene where she slapped finn and i was reading finn's role [Music] and she hauls off and slaps me and that just shows you know she embodied that character she went with it and she got the part after leah got the part one of her friends auditioned for the show broadway actress jenna ushkowitz i was on broadway when i was younger um and then that's where i met leah and we were doing two different shows but the broadway kid community is quite small so we were friends jenna read and sang for the role as shy insecure goth glee clubber tina cohen chang and her challenge was to make the character unique and stand out and she did they called me they told me i got it and um it's kind of a whirlwind very nice thank you i think that the most difficult role to cast was probably finn ryan from the beginning wanted the character to truly be believable as a high school jock and the challenge was to find somebody who could play kind of clueless but not stupid and he wanted to be able to sing corey monty's acting manager caught wind of a new fox pilot that was struggling to find a lead she's like you know it's called glee and it's a singing and dancing show can you sing and i was just like well not really they sent in an audition tape that showed his musicality it was like two in the morning we were watching tapes and we saw this tape of corey i did take myself playing the drums on whatever i found in the office which was i look like a huge dork he played this tupperware which was very charming and actually very smart because it made him stand out it was enough to convince casting directors to ask corey to come out to la so i got in my car and i drove from vancouver to los angeles i picked up billy joel's greatest hits and the soundtrack to rent i was just singing the entire way on the drive down the first time i think corey ever sing it from in front of anybody was when he sang for ryan the producers and the second time was in front of the studio network 25 minutes later he got the part careful all right chris colfer had a much different audition experience he created his own role just by walking through the door kurt is the um fashionable soprano he's the gay student in mckinley high and he's the character that i think audiences uh get to watch grow up and get to grow up with him colfer was only 17 when he auditioned for glee i read the script and it was i mean i laughed out loud and i i recognized songs that i knew from guys and dolls from a chorus line i love the fact the show celebrates kids just like me the the gleeks that they're called now my kind did not have a title before the show came along initially colfer tried out for the part of artie abrams a wheelchair-bound outcast with heart and he really wasn't an arty but i had him read and i had him sing and i knew that he was so special so i took him to ryan and i said ryan there is not a role for this kid but i think you're gonna love him the script called for an indian student named rajeesh still robert brought chris into audition for the role so he walked in and he obviously wasn't a rajeev no i'm not rajeet no no rajish died a long time ago r.i.p rajish he was more of a curt as soon as i walked through the door ryan murphy looked at me and said why do i have a feeling you've been in the sound of music and i said i said well i was hurt in the sound of music um when i was 14. and then lo and behold when i went to the next audition they were replacing rajesh this new character named kurt and i thought interesting and i was the only one there auditioning for kurt and i thought hmm interesting again and then the rest history and actually my original contracts early the ones that i signed the day that i that i got the job still say already too because the character wasn't officially in the system yet the role of artie one eventually went to a former member of the boy band nlt kevin mchale my audition was in one of those places that when you go in the room you can hear everybody's audition which is horrifying he's saying one of my favorite songs let it be i think he did it beautifully i screwed up and repeated the same words and did some weird oohs that weren't in the song he waited hours after the audition to get word i had to wait and die on the inside like i'm out it's been a fun run i've never gotten this close to something before i had a blast he always tells the story he thinks he screwed up i think i don't think he did i think he was amazing and then my manager called and told me i got it and i screamed in the middle of the restaurant the next member of the new directions to be cast was mercedes the diva in training who refuses to sing back up amber riley got the part but it wasn't her first time in front of fox amber had auditioned for american idol previously and it just shows that one door closes and another opens not all of the stars had as much singing experience my name is jayma mays i play emma pillsbury on the show emma is a mysophobic guidance counselor the audition process for me was one of the most terrifying experiences of my entire life i remember the room kind of spinning when i started to sing and i thought i'm gonna projectile vomit on ryan murphy i magically got a call back i think they were on crack that day for sure rounding out the cast were puck a teen jock and bully played by mark salling santana a mean girl cheerleader played by nia rivera and principal figgins played by character actor iqbal taba the final part to be cast was quinn head cheerleader and finn's girlfriend but the day before production was set to begin on the pilot the roll had yet to be filled diana agron had previously auditioned and got a call back to meet with the casting director she had to be there in one hour i was already out of the house and the notes were be there in an hour have your hair straight and wear something sexy we wanted to be perfect because everybody was so busy that they didn't have time to see her so it was a lot of pressure on me to make it sure that it was right my hair was curly so i bought a straightener and i went to a starbucks bathroom i straightened it went back in and sang her song and did her lines and sent the tape off and she got the part i went over to fox this time science and paperwork was told i started work in two days was very confused as to why i didn't meet anyone it's not very typical that you don't meet any of your executive producers before your first day of work so i was pretty lucky with the cast assembled the production team was on the verge of attempting something they had never done before a full tilt unabashed in-your-face musical with all the trimmings and they had just three weeks to pull it off on october 10 2008 with the cast assembled production on the glee pilot began on location at cabrillo high school in long beach and as with any first day of school there were challenges i remember the first day that i was shooting um i had no idea where to go and um i was um kind of um shepherd into a big room with all the extras and literally sat there for like an hour not knowing where to go who to ask like what i'm supposed to do and find like a pa walk by they're like uh chris you you have a trailer you should you should probably come with me and i was like okay nice talking to you guys bye we had a lot of actors who had never acted in front of a camera before you'd have to sometimes tell them like okay it's cool that you said that line turned around because it's sort of natural but you have to remember that thing there with the big lens on it that's the audience and you have to be looking at them okay we're doomed we know now that you know when you come to rehearse you don't have to beat full wardrobe i show up the first rehearsal fully dressed ready to go thinking that that was it and uh people were like what's this deal is he method or what's going on um nope not method just new in the pilot episode spanish teacher and former glee club star will shuster takes over mckinley high's glee club in hopes of restoring the group to its former glory with the goal of winning a national show choir competition will hopes to transform a group of misfits into a talented team of high-wattage stars i need a male lead who can keep up with me vocally while the members of his club definitely weren't the cool kids mr shuster had a plan for recruiting new talent first day on set uh the very first scene was a scene between finn and will i was accusing him of smoking weed but i was actually setting him up so i can get him in in glee club i swear it's not mine i'll pee in a cup i'll pee ryan murphy was directing it and there was just a great energy and it felt good and we felt good we were we're back in high school again it was really cool good feelings notwithstanding the success of the show hinged upon the cast's musical talent the pilot showcased over a dozen musical numbers the most elaborative witch called upon the untested vocal and dancing skills of the entire glee club the song was a rallying call for the underdog journeys don't stop believing the minute in the pilot script when it said that we started singing don't stop believing i got such chills and i started thinking about how that song starts and i went this is amazing the simple fundamentals of how do we shoot the musical number when do we record the vocals how do we play this back on set we had to figure all of that out there was no rule book that you opened it was new to everybody you think this is hard i'm living with hepatitis that's hard the first step was to reimagine the song glee style ryan murphy turned to music producer adam anders who had a track record of working with young talents such as miley cyrus and the jonas brothers it was up to anders and his team to create a new arrangement for don't stop believing in addition to the other 10 plus songs in the pilot the one thing i think i left ryan with in my first meeting with him was don't make this music sound like karaoke whatever you do the challenge for anders would be to turn one of america's most beloved classic rock anthems into a show choir number traditionally not the hippest vehicle for music when you put that many voices on songs that aren't intended to have them it can very easily become like this sing-songy goofy thing so that was the hardest thing with that song because it's not cheesy that song is epic so we start going to town arranging i'm arranging vocals my partner's arranging on the tracks we get a demo together then i sing the demo with my team we arrange the vocals and figure out who's going to sing what this will be cory this is lee with the new arrangement ready to record anders brought the actors into the studio to record the vocals that they would later lip-sync during the filming of the show some needed more coaching than others corey who'd never sung in his life before he met me that's a big challenge it's uh pretty incredible how hard he works to try and get it you're good white boy i'll give you that but you better bring it once the song was recorded dance choreographer zach woodley taught the cast the dance steps don't stop leaving took weeks for us to learn weeks it was i think hard for some of the actors to wrap their head around weight i'm dancing on a show the first couple rehearsals were the the worst um and i remember thinking like there's no way i can do this forever this is just this is so rough i can't dance what am i doing i'm way over my head my oh my god moment was the first day corey showed up i have a group of minnie me's and then one in a chair and then i was with that record i'm like all right so how am i gonna make this work what am i supposed to do with this we suck uh it it'll get there we we just need to keep rehearsing i had no dancing experience i always maintain if there was a dance audition for the show i wouldn't have got the job because it was like pulling teeth when i first started when you see someone trying so hard and they're really trying it it translates to the screen as endearing and you kind of you it loses a cheesy factor and it becomes poignant and sweet and then you root for them when the time came to film the scene that would act as the pilot's grand finale all that hard work paid off when that song comes in the magic of just the combination of the perfect song the perfect emotional setup a great delivery by the cast um it was just magic it all just worked i thought oh this is great and what i loved about it was not that there were huge production values they were wearing like red t-shirts on an empty stage that's when i thought oh my god people are going to be so excited about this show it just felt like we were all a part of something very special while the cast and creators felt they had made something special it was time to show the executives at 20th century fox the final result it was a make or break moment when we sat down to watch the pilot for the first time it was a you know the stakes felt very high i remember sort of cramming into a room and seeing like the first sort of long version of the pilot it was with tremendous anticipation and nervousness that we sat down you know i i was so dazzled by the pilot and um i have to say the experience was so fresh and so unique fortunately it really delivered unquestionably that pilot was a slam dunk it made me emotional it made me engage i couldn't wait to see what would happen next i cared and those are the sorts of emotions you're looking to engender in people we sent it over to fox and then it was the next morning heard it was like a very quick green light the pilot was a hit with the network and they ordered 12 more episodes for their 2009 fall schedule for me it's sort of been the first milestone in what what had been a very long journey of several years i sort of had this opportunity of a lifetime unfortunately for brennan his opportunity of a lifetime had the potential to come crashing down thanks to fox's unorthodox marketing strategy it was basically come to you know tune in and sample this and if you like it you have to wait three months to see more of it with the glee pilot completed and 12 additional episodes ordered for the 2009 fall schedule the fox network was about to do something that had never been attempted in television history they came back to us with this pitch of let's put a sneak peek behind idol and then you'll come back in the fall and honestly we weren't sure whether that was a good idea or not fox was hoping to cash in on the built-in audience for song and dance that came with american idol by airing a sneak peek of glee directly following idol's season 8 finale there's two time slots that any approvers would kill for one is immediately after the super bowl and the other is immediately after the finale of american idol the problem was how are you going to get an audience to remember this show from may until september i was nervous there was always sort of that sense that like god they could just yank us and no one would know [Music] the glee sneak peek aired on may 19 2009 the sneak peek was successful but not wildly successful i don't think anyone looked at the numbers uh the ratings and said oh my god we had a huge hit [Music] and the reviews of glee were mixed people weren't sure what to make of glee sometimes people don't get the the quirkier shows and when they saw it it was just so different some people weren't sure that it had succeeded or if it did if it would be able to continue that storytelling week to week but something other than the ratings was creating a buzz the glee cast recording of don't stop believing went to the top of the itunes chart overnight when we all watched the pilot together at leah's house and by the end of the first episode the pilot don't stop believing was already number one on itunes i have goosebumps talking about it now this is a generation that is accustomed to going to itunes to be able to have instant gratification i think i forgot that people would actually be able to buy the music and when they actually could they responded in such a huge way i think that was the first sign that we're like oh this could be something very special and it made us all very nervous and anxious fox not only wanted to capitalize on glee's itunes tidal wave but also that energized glee fans didn't lose interest in the show over the long summer break they sent us around the country to like this mall tour and like we were just hoping that more people the number of us would show up like if we get like nine people we'll be good hundreds of kids were waiting at the malls already so we were definitely a little flabbergasted by the whole idea it was kind of amazing i think it was nice for us to hear what these kids were saying like thank you for playing us thank you for playing the losers and the freaks right this is kind of awesome glee started its official first season on september 9th 2009 to higher ratings than its sneak peak when we actually started uh the season the regular season the the numbers from that the pilot i think it jumped so much because i think people were you know built up that that great core audience and people were ready for it less than two weeks later fox ordered nine more episodes making the glee run a full 22-episode season uh the first time i saw myself on a billboard was in new york city there was jane lynch over my head going like this i had like my friends come down i was like oh let's get pictures of so it was it was just a really um amazing experience someone asked me for my autograph and i was so like wait why my autograph and they're like yeah and i i literally i was so like kind of shaken by it that i misspelled my name and then i didn't know what to do so i just crossed it out and did it again [Music] so let your little glee kids have their little club but don't pretend that any of them are something they're not the phenomenon of glee extended to the music industry fox had shopped around the idea of selling glee's music early on the first man to jump on board was rob stringer of columbia records i saw a two-minute clip of the pilot glee which included 25 seconds of don't stop believing which became the first song from the show and straight after that i just knew that there was something special there there were lots of labels that had a chance to to work with glee and a lot of labels took a pass this sort of formula of we're going to have a tv show lots of people are going to watch it and be very passionate about it and these singles are going to go right to itunes so the second you finish that show and have that feeling of sort of affection for this moment or that moment you can go out and you can make a piece of that your own that was lightning in a bottle for the music industry we're just changing the rulebook as to how you can distribute music and since then the glee cast has smashed records set by some of the most prolific artists of all time every song that's recorded for glee winds up on the hot 100 on the billboard charts the next week so every time an episode airs it's like boom here's another five songs boom here's another seven songs through two series we sold 35 million downloads and 12 million albums glee has more singles on the billboard hot 100 singles chart now than than elvis did than the beatles did i never really thought that i would have a song on the billboard charts every time they announce one of those records i think they're lying just to make us happy on every level glee was a success on january 11 2010 fox announced that glee had been renewed for a second season an ever increasing array of colorful and talented characters began joining the glee club transfer student sam accomplished dancer mike and scene stealing ditz brittany played by heather morris and celebrities lined up for guest star roles kristin chenoweth gwyneth paltrow carol burnett olivia newton john i did the physical video with her there was a list that our casting people sent us that was like three pages long and usually you have people that go so-and-so kind of wants to do it you know and this list was like really really while stars were lining up to get their music and faces on glee what kept the viewers coming back week after week were the gripping stories and provocative topics there is sex on this show people have sex in high school it's no secret with glee fox took a chance on a musical comedy about a misfit show choir and scored big ratings big hits and made big stars out of its unknown cast without a doubt glee has become a cultural phenomenon but exactly what it is is a little harder to define is it a comedy is it a drama is it a musical it changes weeks week but also changes scene to scene despite its emphasis on music and comedy glee is grounded in real issues that teens face today brian murphy came up to me and said just so you know you're about to be pregnant and i thought this is fantastic wonderful originally written as an antagonist at queen bee once diana agron was cast she brought an unexpected depth to the character of quinn whatever i did i'm sorry i'm pregnant i'm really good at finding the motivation behind people's behavior or actions and so even though quinn was very tough and kind of determined and in all of these egotistical ways there's a reason for all that any person that's like that in real life there's a reason for that diana really brought so much to the part and when we started writing for her and we started seeing what she was capable of doing it became we became much more interested in doing even more with that character [Music] quinn told boyfriend finn the baby was his but the audience knew that it was really finn's best friend puck who was the father it's okay the pregnancy also put the stops on the budding relationship between finn and rachel continuing one of television's most angst-ridden love triangles you really are awesome i'm gonna make it up to you someday i swear much more unconventional was glee's depiction of a leading character's sexuality in the episode entitled prager's kurt opens up to his father i'm gay i read it and i thought you know at first i was like ah this guy's gonna be you know the stereotypical intolerant guy if that's who you are there's nothing i can do about it and i love you just as much okay and sure enough towards the end of the show they had the great scene between him and his him and his son and i was like wow he really you know he's really throws the audience for a curveball and threw me for a curveball when i when i read it i'm not gay but i know what it's like to reach out and want to connect with my dad and so i just tried to make it as real as possible like what would that feel like to tell a secret jew or chain up to your dad and how hard would that be to see a really sort of hyper-masculine father who you didn't think was going to be accepting of his child being gay i mean i think that might be even more important than the kids seeing you know a gay role model it's also parents seeing a role model for parenting there having his story be so mainstream helps if it doesn't help overall then i think it helps individuals at least though curt was a hit with viewers some of his fictional mckinley high classmates weren't as sympathetic the second season of glee contained storylines that echoed some disturbing current events it happened to coincide with the time in our country where bullying really was becoming uh an issue i had to stop reading fan mail because it was so heavy you know stories and of kids being bullied in high school and saying that you know seeing someone on the television going through something very similar with them um you know helped them kurt's heartbreaking journey would take the character to a new school filled with new drama and a new romance i i kind of snuck and snuck in this like the back door into being being accepted because people like kurt so i always joke that if flame didn't date kurt or wasn't involved with him romantically i don't think people would like playing as much darren chris had tried out for glee before i went up for finn which at the time was a very different character and you know i'm not i'm a small guy i'm not a football player i would never cast me as finn but casting director robert aldrich had remembered him when it came time to find a love interest for kurt i cut my hair i usually have a very long shaggy hair i've cut my hair to try to get this part i wouldn't have told anybody that i cut my hair for an audition if i didn't get it but i did so i couldn't tell the story he auditioned on a friday and started work on monday it's pretty cool for a lot of kids out there that the big love story on tv now is is between two kids named curtin blaine i would have liked to have seen that when i was a kid people love curt and blaine they do and um and what's not to love glee's mix of drama comedy and music resonated with viewers and critics alike in its first season it was nominated for both the golden globe and an emmy for best comedy when we first won the golden globe after 13 episodes was kind of shocking to me uh we're like we're not even a full season yet and there are so many people out there who believe in our show that was really big that was our first big you know kind of wow jane lynch and chris colfer both won golden globes for their work on the series in 2010 the entire cast received the screen actors guild award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy and it wasn't just the award circuit recognizing the cast of glee oprah and the white house came calling we were on oprah and we performed and then in the same 24-hour span we got on the plane and went to meet obama and do this easter egg roll and perform there for the first lady and her daughters and we got to meet him and it was just it's kind of incredible that is something i never thought i'd check off of bucket list it wouldn't even be on my bucket list because i wouldn't have thought that to be really possible another thing the cast didn't anticipate was an international tour we broke a record at o2 arena in london we did seven sold out shows so it was remarkable i mean this show really like affects people and you get that feeling you get the feeling that it really affects people's lives the tour was even turned into a 3d movie as a musician i always imagined it's a successful thing for me would be you know getting a smelly van with your bandmates and just touring i never thought i'd a year later be selling out stadiums internationally [Music] while no one could have predicted the heights glee would reach it's easy to see why it resonates with fans no matter what character you feel more akin to there's an overall theme of camaraderie and love and dedication and exploring what you really want to do your passions in life people were kind of ready for this type of a show for a musical i think lee's telling people express yourself get out there don't be ashamed come on step out and be great and don't worry about falling on your face could be any age from any place any race and you can relate to something on glee and if you can't then you could just sit back and listen to these songs that will definitely seep their way into you one way or another i'm still wondering when i'm gonna wake up and kind of go yep see i told you musicals won't work in the u.s even now three years later i'm still in the pinch me moment like i can't believe half the stuff that's happening is really happening like the fact that i'm interviewing for biography from biography my god grub watching biography and look at this mug this shmo answering questions about some show that i got cast on like that is surreal this is surreal all of us this fake library on paramount studios in los angeles in hollywood california that i'm doing this is unreal anyway

Channel: Glee 10 Anos

Views: 130,074

Keywords: Glee extended performance, glee deleted scenes, glee, deleted scenes glee, glee performance, glee version, glee acapella, glee alternative version, glee full, glee hd, glee 10 anos, glee 10 years, glee reunion, glee live, gleek, glee interview, glee italia, glee français, glee español, Glee biography, glee biografia, biography glee, glee keep on believin, glee keep on believin legendado, keep on belivevin glee legendado, glee documentary, documentário glee

Id: dZ0t0g2JFKc

Length: 42min 57sec (2577 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020