Episode 49: TV’s Most Talked About Show: The Cast of Glee
It’s the quirky surprise smash hit show which has hit a high note with TV viewers across the country. Glee is the story of a misfit high school glee club with big dreams of ruling the school. The little show-choir that could is led by Rachel, the self absorbed bossy diva played by Broadway sensation Lea Michele. In their never-ending quest to fit in and be show choir champs, the members of New Directions endure endless torment. Just when it seemed like the Glee club was headed for total failure, a handful of the cool kids reluctantly agree to put their popularity on the line. The star quarterback Finn is played by Hollywood’s newest heartthrob Cory Monteith . Fresh faced newcomer Dianna Agron is the outwardly perfect but secretly pregnant cheerleader Quinn. TONY nominated Broadway veteran Matthew Morrison wins hearts as the endearing choir director Will Schuester. The hilarious Jane Lynch rounds at the cast as Sue Sylvester, Mr Schuester’s arch nemesis, the scheming cheerleading coach who has it in for McKinley High’s newest stars.
Singing Queen’s Somebody To Love, please welcome the cast of Glee. The crowd go wild and are all singing along, including Oprah. The applause is deafening. Much more Glee to come, shouts Oprah. Glee mania has given birth to a brand new brand of superfan, Gleeks. From Milwaukee to Melbourne, Gleeks have gone global. They have an entire audience full of Gleeks, screaming and cheering. Ok thanks says Oprah, let’s meet America’s most popular Glee club- Lea, Cory, Dianna, Amber, Chris, Kevin, Jenna, Mark. From the audience, 4 others stand up. The most dedicated Glee club director on TV, Matthew Morrison. Mr Schuester is here, Oprah shouts. Oprah Winfrey is here, Matthew shouts. Wow, says Oprah. So everybody wants to know who is most like their character. Matthew says that Lea is, because she is a very strong woman and knows exactly what she wants. Lea rubs his arm and says thank you. Oprah asks if it is also because she has been performing since she was 8 years old. Yes says Lea, “I’ve been performing since I was 8 years old on Broadway, and I was very much like Rachel when I was younger, so I kind of draw upon that. But I think she’s amazing. If I can say I’m like Rachel, you know, she knows who she is and she’s proud of that, and I think it’s amazing. I’m so honored to play a character like her.” Really, says Oprah. Matthew says that they call her Child Star. Oprah asks Cory if it’s true that before being cast he only sang in secret. Yes, in the shower, in the car. But it wasn’t really something that he did, he was a drummer, so he never really thought of himself as a singer, so this is all new. Now you’re singing, says Oprah. How do you explain the phenomenon? Matthew says it’s hard to pinpoint one reason Glee has become such a big hit. “If you asked any one of us, I think we’d have a different answer, and I think that’s what makes the show work so well—it works on so many different levels. For me, I think music is the language that we all speak, everyone in the world speaks. So I think its the universal language, and I think the music is the most important part of the show.”
When Glee won their best TV comedy musical Golden Globe. Dianna says attending the Golden Globes was a dream. “The room is full of people that you admired your whole life and, you know, Julia Roberts came up to the table…and I thought just us girls were going to go quiet, but the boys went quiet too,” she says. “She talked to us! And Tom Hanks and all these wonderful people were saying they watch the show with their families, and it was outstanding but astonishing at the same time.” Oprah asks if it felt kind of out of body. Everything feels out of body, this feels out of body says Lea. Oprah asks if they are all friends in real life. Amber says they are. “We do love each other,” she says. “The funny thing is, we were planning a trip to Cabo and then we found out we’re going to The Oprah Show. So Oprah trumps Cabo.” The crowd whoop. Oprah asks her what it means to her to be in this cast. She says being part of Glee is especially exciting because she gets to do everything she loves. “I get to dance, I get to act and I get to sing, and I do them all equally on this show,” she says. And the show is loved and they love their viewers and they are on Oprah, what can I say? Says Amber. The crowd go wild. Oprah says that she has heard that Chris finds being on the show therapeutic. “When I was in high school, I was kind of daily reminded of my imperfections by other students and sometimes the teachers,” he says. “To be a part of a project that kind of celebrates your differences and makes your disadvantages your advantages has been very therapeutic.” The crowd cheer and applaud.
One of the most surprising things fans may notice when they see the Glee cast live is that Kevin McHale, who plays wheelchair-bound Artie, is not actually in a wheelchair. “I love playing Artie in a wheelchair as he is,” Kevin says. “It’s an honor to get to play a character like that.” We have some Glee moms here today, says Oprah Lea’s mom Edith Is here (“My mom is going to freak out” says Lea), Dianna’s mom Mary, Amber’s mom Tiny, they must be so proud. Is must be great to have your mom’s in the audience too.
Oprah asks Jenna what a typical day is like when they are shooting. During a typical day, Jenna says the cast is juggling shooting scenes, learning dances and recording songs. “It’s quite the mash, but we love it all and it keeps us fresh,” she says. Fantastic, says Oprah. Is it as fun as it used to be Mark? Asks Oprah. No, he says, it’s better. He says the busy days, which are usually 14 to 16 hours long, keep him on his toes. “It’s just a whole bunch of extremes. Sometimes you’re just, you know, tired, and sometimes you’re on cloud nine, like today” he says. “But every one of these people is so talented and hardworking, and I’m just so proud of everybody. Our crew, we have to shout out to the crew”.
Oprah asks if they shoot one day a week. No, they shoot every day, says Lea. Every day they are dancing rehearsing and singing. They do 14-16 hour days. It’s a grueling schedule. Lea says what keeps them together is the energy they provide each other that gets them through the days. Their writers provide incredible material that inspires them and pushes them through the day. Oprah asks Dianna if it is fun to be mean and snooty and snarky, yes she laughs. Luckily she doesn’t get mistaken for her character, people don’t push her for being mean. But they do think she is pregnant on the lot, they’ll look he up and down thinking she is very young to be having a baby.
She plays the ruthless, scheming and gleefully mean Cheerios coach Sue Sylvester, come on out movie veteran Jane Lynch. The crowd go crazy. Wow, Jane and Oprah both say. Oprah says they were just talking about playing mean characters, and Sue is the snarkiest. I love it says Jane, Anne Brennan writes all the stuff that comes out of her characters mouth. “Sue Sylvester has like that devil on her shoulder that’s whispering in her ear that we all have, although we have filters, we don’t let it come out. She just lets it fly,” Jane says. “It’s liberating. It’s wonderful. It’s delicious to play her. I’m a much nicer person.” The crowd scream. Oprah asks if she gets mistaken for a mean person, Jane says fans never mistake her for Sue, luckily. “They just love it. They go, ‘You’re so mean!’ She’s almost cartoonishly mean,” Jane says. “If I had a mustache, she’d be [twirling it] all the time.” After playing Sue Sylvester for six months, Jane says she’s suddenly hip again. “My demo is 16-year-old boys. They never noticed me when I was 16, you know? I wasn’t in the hip crowd. But now all of a sudden there’s these cool people in coffee shops going, ‘Hey!’ I go back to my 14-year-old self,” Jane says. “And they like me”. They show a photo of Jane at 14. Oprah asks what kind of student Jane was at school. “I sang in the choir for four years and I did plays and I was also in sports and I kind of kept under the radar in terms of being mocked and made fun of.” She hung out with popular girls and dweebs. Oprah asks if the others were made fun of at school. Lea was the musical theatre girl, which was not understood, nor was it cool like playing sports. She loves that the show shows you can be cool too. Oprah says that is so cool. She says that she loves the quote attributed to Bill Gates- be careful of the geeks you make fun of because they’ll be your boss some day. They all nod.
The cast and crew of Glee have never given anyone an all-access pass to the show, so when they offered one to the Oprah Show, they jumped on it. At Paramount studios, it is 7am and they have a big day ahead of them. In the dance studio, the tin shed, they are learning a new number. First they learn the dances without the music, then they go through with the music. It can take 3-8 hours, working on 2-4 dances at any time. Jane Lynch shows them wardrobe, her track suits in a rainbow of colors. In the trailer they get their costumes, hair and make-up. The crew are setting up lighting and cameras in the High School choir room. Neil Patrick Harris is on set, playing a villain, he thinks that the program is amazing. Jane Lynch shows her office with trophies, fake books and cheerleading memorabilia. Amber shows the singing studio, where they do all their own singing. They are now at the final step at their location High School where they get to shoot today. The Oprah Show producers said after that tour that they have to be the hardest working cast in TV. The countdown is on to the highly anticipated Spring season of Glee, starting April 13th it will be on Tuesday nights on Fox at 9pm Eastern.
Glee executive producer and co-creator (and former real-life glee-clubber) Ryan Murphy said the award was for anybody who ever got a wedgie in high school, in his Golden Globe acceptance speech. “To me, the show is about celebrating the difference in you. I think when you’re that age you think the difference in you is the worst thing, and I think the older you get, you find out that it’s the best thing,” Ryan says. “So that’s what the show is about. That and about that the arts matter.” Oprah says that she is already worried, what happens when everybody graduates? They never will says Ryan. The crowd applaud. It’s a ten year high school, he says. Oprah asks where the idea came from “I had wanted to do something optimistic. I thought that there wasn’t anything on television that was really sort of upbeat and had a happy ending every week. So I’m as shocked as anybody that it got picked up, but it did.” Oprah says that she heard that he told Rolling Stone that Lea has a once in a generation voice. He did say that, he thinks that it is true. “It sort of cuts through you. It pierces through you. It’s incredibly moving and soulful beyond her years.” It’s great to have her in their midst he says. “Like that next sort of Barbra or Patti LuPone or just that great, big, universal talent that is so inclusive to people.”
Oprah asked if casting was like casting a Glee club, was it like art imitating art? “We took three or four months and we went all around the country and we wanted unknowns.” They spent a lot of time in New York, they got Mat and Lea from the Broadway auditions. “We encouraged people to just come in off the street. I think Chris had to drive down from where he lives and walked into the room and sang and was so unique and we’re like, ‘We’ve got to write a part for that guy.’ And we did. That was the spirit of the show. New voices, new talent, fresh faces.” They are casting 3 or 4 parts for season two and they have alot of online auditions and all of the talent is going to come from those auditions.
Wow says Oprah. Matthew wasn’t in the performance earlier and they can’t let the show go by without something from him. Mr Schuester has agreed to show off some of his best dance moves. The crowd cheer. As the elder statesman of the group he says that he’ll do his best. As they are dancing he wants to bring up one of the biggest hitters, he’s so pleased that Glee can showcase the talents of someone who just breathes dance. He asks Harry Shum Jr to come on up. Mr Schuester isn’t backing down for nobody they both say. They both dance, Matt waves a white handkerchief.
Ryan Murphy told the Oprah Show that while researching the show, he spent a lot of time looking online at choir groups, and one of them served as a great inspiration for Glee. The choir room was even modeled after theirs. Just last week, a few of the show’s stars helped deliver some big news to them.
Amber, Matthew and Cory are at John Burroughs Public High School in Burbank CA, and those inside have no idea what is about to happen. The Glee cast walk into the room and the choir are shocked. Matthew says that the cast of Glee are going to be on Oprah and they are excited, and that the High School choir are all going to fly out to be on Oprah too. Some of them cry, they all scream. They all sing together.
All the way from Burbank California, please welcome the John Burroughs High School Choir Powerhouse. They perform Madonna’s Vogue dressed in Baroque period costumes. That was fantastic, says Oprah. She hears that they practice every day of the school year and they do all their own fundraising. They are big Glee fans. Oprah says that when the producers were at the school they noticed one piece of equipment that was on its last legs. Oprah’s friends at Dove had an idea, and made some calls and here is their new Baldwin Grand Piano. Thanks to Baldwin. That is not all says Oprah. The students are responsible for raising 99% of their annual budget for their school music program. Dove Haircare wanted to help them keep doing what they love, because that is what this show is all about, feeling the glee inside. Inside the piano is a little gift from Dove, a check for $100,000. Thanks to Dove, that should help you in your fundraising. Thank you, thank you so much says Ashley of John Burroughs High School.
Before the show the cast of Glee did something really spectacular. Each of them signed the pledge to never, ever text while driving and to only use a headset if they absolutely have to talk on the phone. The John Burroughs Choir has also signed the pledge. Oprah appreciates it, spread the word everyone. For all the Gleeks in the audience, they are all going home with Season one of Glee on DVD. Stand by for the season 2 premiere on April 13th. Thanks everyone.
WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:Glee is extremely popular; fans in the audience of the Oprah Show shout and scream alot.Glee has inspired a new breed of Superfan, the Gleeks.The cast of Glee are probably the hardest working cast on television.The cast of Glee are on set 14-16 hours a day singing, dancing, rehearsing and filming.The cast of Glee are all very proud of each other and they love each other and they are the best of friends.
A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:Glee shows that the uncool can be cool. Oprah thinks that is so cool.