Glee star Lea Michele has opened up about the antisemitism she faced early in her career before she starred in the 2009 hit musical drama series.
Appearing on the latest episode of internet personality Jake Shane’s podcast, Therapuss, the 38-year-old performer remembered being told she’d never make it on the big screen. She therefore convinced herself she wouldn’t get the part of Rachel Berry in Glee.
“I was like, ‘Whatever, it’s never going to happen. They’re never going to cast me,” she said. “I was always told I was too Jewish-looking for television [and that] I wasn’t pretty enough, all of that.”
Producer Ryan Murphy wrote Glee for her and Jonathan Groff, who played Jesse St. James on the show, Michele said. However, the Funny Girl star still had to audition for the part like everyone else.
Michelle recalled getting into a bad car accident on the way to the studio for her audition.
“I was driving in my little Mini Cooper that I had rented in Los Angeles, blasting Adele and singing at the top of my lungs, trying to make a right into the studio from the center lane,” she told Shane. “And I totaled my car and played dead.
“Then, I realized if I’m dead, I can’t audition. So, I revived myself and literally left the car in the road. I ran up the lot and walked in and they were like, ‘You can go home,’” she continued. “And I was like, ‘I’m not going home.’ I pulled the glass out of my hair, dropped it on the table, and auditioned for Rachel Berry.”
Michelle added: “I got the part that day. They were like, ‘She’s f***ing crazy, give her this part.’”
Elsewhere in the interview, the Les Misérables performer spoke about the effect her Glee co-star and ex-boyfriend Cory Monteith’s death had on her. Monteith, who played Michelle’s love interest Finn Hudson, died of a heroin overdose in 2013, two years before Glee wrapped.
“It was so sad. It was so depressing,” she said. “I was 26. No one handed me a guide book. It was a fast education on more stuff than I could ever even process.”
Michelle continued: “If we didn’t show up for work, then people wouldn’t have work to go to, and that was a lot of pressure for me. So, I had to put my stuff aside and just show up so that everybody could continue to work.
“I think it really fractured so much,” she said of Monteith’s death on the relationships with her co-stars. “I mean, again, I can’t speak for everyone. I think that maybe in some ways it did (bring everyone closer) for certain people, but I think it was so hard for me. I just completely broke.”
Monteith, 31, was found dead in his hotel in Vancouver.
