Sorry for the long delay! I was finally able to get around to work and add all the pics of Lea at 2012 Do Something Awards last month!
I will have more latest pics of Lea to come! Stay tune!Tweet
Check out Lea’s interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night! As many of you know, Lea brought Jonathan to the show with her. He was there with his parents in the audience. Check out Part 2 for that interview with Jonathan in the audience talking 
They also talk about Lea Michele, the goat.
Here is Lea’s tweet below:
Backstage at @jimmykimmellive! So excited!!!!!! So happy my BFF J Groff is here with me:)
On Sunday, it was the closing night for Red and Lea went to see Jon in the show. Lea tweeted:
Just saw the amazing Jonathan Groff and Alfred Molina in RED. They were so incredible. Such an amazing show. So proud.. Just saw the amazing Jonathan Groff and Alfred Molina in RED. They were so incredible. Such an amazing show. So proud.. to know them both and to have had the pleasure of working with both of them. Feeling so inspired:)
Lea will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday to promote the new season of Glee:
Mo 9/10: Lea Michele, Simon Bird, the Avett Brothers
Check out Skylar Astin’s interview with Celebuzz at Pitch Perfect screening where he talks about Lea
Think starring in a film like Pitch Perfect or TV show Glee is easy? Think again.
Pitch Perfect’s Skylar Astin– who starred in the Broadway play Spring Awakening with friend Lea Michele– told Celebuzz he realized during filming he didn’t give enough credit to how hard the Glee beauty has it.
So what did he text her from set?
“There’s a lot of moments in these kinds of movies or TV shows when you’re filming where you have to do a lot of reactionary things,” said Astin. “Sometimes the music isn’t finished and you have to play pretend in a way, like you’re putting on a play or a musical.”
“I can relate so much to that, but I texted Lea and was like, ‘I do not give you enough credit how you make everything seem so seamless on your show,’” praised Astin. “I think she’s phenomenal on Glee, the show is great, but I really have a different appreciation for what [she does.]..
Happy Birthday Lea Michele! Lea turns 26 years old today. Remember to tweet @msleamichele a happy birthday!
Lea tweeted:
One hour left before my birthday! It’s been such an incredible year. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life..
Someone very special is already making it the best birthday ever. So happy:) See you in the morning! #lasthourbeforeiturn26!!!!
Lea is on the cover of Nylon Magazine‘s September issue. I will post the cover and outtakes later when I have time. I have been very busy lately. So sorry if there isn’t much updates this week. Check out some of the interview below including Lea talking about Spring Awakening with Jon:
She appeared on Sally Jessy Raphael when she was just nine, shocked Broadway audiences with Spring Awakening, but perhaps Lea Michele’s greatest feat yet has been making singing cool again. With the fourth season of Glee set to premiere September 13, Mallory Rice talked with the TV star about dodging diva rumors and dealing with on and offscreen romances.
On making people uncomfortable: When I was in Spring Awakening, every night I had to do this nude scene. I always loved to find the one person who I knew was going to be uncomfortable–who throughout the show was cringing in their seat–and when [co-star] Jonathan Groff would undo my top, I loved it!
On being open-minded: I grew up in a very, very different world than a lot of people did. Everyone I knew was gay–the weirdos were the straight people. Obviously we don’t just deal with homosexuality on Glee, but nothing shocks me. Nothing.
On all those diva rumors: I think I was fighting so hard to change [representations of my personality], that I was not really being myself. [But] I came to a place where I’m much happier personally in my life and because of that I really don’t feel like I need to explain anything or be anything. I’m really proud of who I am.
On her relationships on and offscreen: We were Finn and Rachel before–I feel like they come first.
On her love affair with Glee: When the show first started I knew immediately that it was so special. But so much was happening for us so quickly that it was very much a whirlwind. And I don’t know what happened, but when this third season finished, I fell madly in love with it again.
Check out Vulture‘s blog scoop about their Glee set visit:
On Vulture’s visit to Paramount’s Glee soundstage last week, all signs suggested that the upcoming fourth season is shaping itself into the spin-off that never was, with new NYC sets erected to accommodate the split-off storylines of McKinley grads Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Rachel (Lea Michele), which will now make up at least half of the show. On a brief tour of all things East Coast, we saw the spacious loft with exposed-brick walls where — spoiler alert! — soon-to-be-roomies Rachel and Kurt will live. When the season begins, Rachel will already be struggling in a sea of superstars at the fictional New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts (for which there is a fancy dance-studio set), and Kurt, bored and aimless in Ohio, will wind up in New York as an intern at Vogue.com. They’ll decide to bunk together somewhere in Brooklyn (probably Bushwick given Glee boss Ryan Murphy’s Girls fixation) and Rachel will trade in her schoolgirl skirts and knee-highs for something edgier and fashion-forward (thanks to an assist from Kurt’s Vogue mentor Isabelle Klempt, played by Sarah Jessica Parker.)
It’s a big leap for the Broadway-obsessed BFFs, but also for Glee as it heads into what is arguably a make-or-break season. When the series returns to Fox on Thursday, September 13, it will be airing on a new night, in a new 9 o’clock timeslot, and — the most risky gambit of all — episodes will be split between The Rachel and Kurt Show in New York and the kids who have yet to graduate back at McKinley High School. As we wandered around the just-built New York sets, we noted the casualties of the experimental “show within a show” format: Mr. Schuester’s apartment has been taken down for the time being, and McKinley’s teacher’s lounge has shrunk in size, though the latter won’t be noticeable to viewers. The stories of the adult characters will be less of a focal point (as much as Sue Sylvester with a baby can be) and, as Murphy warned us back in May, half of the graduates won’t be back except for holidays and other major events. Even Finn and Santana — characters who aren’t in Ohio or New York — will be used very sparingly in the first four episodes.
In their new dominant locale, Rachel and Kurt will do some heavy-duty post-grad growing up. We observed Lea Michele performing a slinky version of Britney Spears’s “Oops! I Did it Again.” (Making sure this is not interpreted as a teenybopper number, early in the song a hunky young dude grabbed Michele from behind and his hands headed downtown. Oops.) The number, a part of the show’s second tribute to Spears, is meant to prove to Rachel’s nasty dance instructor Cassandra July (played by Kate Hudson) that she can raunch it up with the best of them. “I do have it in me to be sexy,” Rachel says in the scene. “Sexy enough to play Evita. And Roxie. And Charity.” The guy with his paws all over her is Dean Geyer, whose character Brody is a NYADA classmate she’s recruited to help heat up the Fosse-esque routine. He also has the hots for her, and that helps with the choreography, which includes some suggestive humping, her from atop a table and him from underneath it. (Finally, all that “Push It” training has paid off!)
“New York’s cooler, the stakes are a little higher. It’s a completely different world from the original Glee,” Geyer told us between rehearsals. “Rachel has to adapt quickly.” Hence, all the bumping and grinding. “Yeah, it’s a little racy. That’s the difference between the old Glee and the new college Glee. It’s a little more controversial.” Well, not all of it. On a separate Ohio-set soundstage, Darren Criss was getting ready to sing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” because Blaine’s big dilemma in the beginning of the season will be keeping busy without Kurt (so glad we’ve almost made it / so sad they had to fade it — awww) and when we wandered back to Brittany’s bedroom in Ohio, the track for Spears’s super sad break-up song “Everytime” kicked in. There was Heather Morris lying face-down on her bed, miserable without Santana, who’s far away and cheerleading for the University of Louisville. Oh sweet, teenage agony. Some things on Glee will never change.
I’ve added the screencaps of Jonathan’s first episode of ‘Boss’ to the gallery.
Gallery Link:
[HD] 2×01: Louder Than WordsTweet
Check out Jonathan’s interview with the Los Angeles Times where he talks about about Boss and Red along with his thoughts on gay actors who stay in the closet. He also talks about the Newsweek article that came out when he was on Glee with Lea:
Jonathan Groff, 27, who earned a Tony nomination for “Spring Awakening,” squares off opposite Alfred Molina in the Mark Taper Forum’s production of “Red,” about the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Groff also joins the cast of Starz’s original series, “Boss,” as the assistant to Chicago Mayor Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammer), which has just returned for its second season.
It’s interesting that you play an assistant-apprentice in both “Boss” and “Red,” but the characters are pretty different. Can you talk about your roles?
I feel that the best way to learn is to work with people who are better than you. On “Boss,” I got to play the assistant to Kelsey Grammer, who is an incredible actor and doing something in that show that I think nobody has ever seen him do, and he’s just killing it. And then to play the assistant to Alfred Molina [as Rothko]. He’s just a total beast onstage, and getting to see him play Rothko, which I think is one of those stage performances that people years from now will say, “I got to see Alfred Molina play Mark Rothko in that production of ‘Red,’” and it goes down in theater as one of those historical performances. The fact that I got to play the assistant to both of those actors playing both of these characters was a huge lesson and growing experience for me, and both happened to be generous, sweet men.
So what were the lessons?
It’s learning by osmosis, by acting with them and soaking it in and seeing how they work. Certainly in my experience with Fred [Molina], I get to do the same play with him every day in a two-character, so we spend 90 minutes onstage together going back and forth every night, which is different from being with Kelsey, being on set doing the scene once and then never again. Kelsey’s process is fascinating: Kelsey turns that character on and off in the blink of an eye. It’s insane. And the way he knows how to work the camera, he would coach me even on camera angles and where to look and how to stand. It’s watching a master at work and taking mental notes. Then with Fred, watching him night after night re-create these incredible moments and keep it fresh every night is a lesson. It’s the best way to learn. I never went to college for acting. I moved to New York pretty much right after high school, so all of my training has been on the job.
It’s interesting that you play apprentices and, in real life, there’s that element to your work. In “Boss,” your character is learning to out power-grab the power-grabber, but in “Red,” your character is told to “banish the father … respect him but kill him.” In real life, since your generation will be paying a big chunk of the tab for boomers’ excesses, do you have a sense of how your peers view the world they’re inheriting? Is it something they want to emulate or smash?
Certainly every person is different. Our generation comes with this world of social media and self-empowerment in feeling the need to share everything on the Internet at all times. Playing the character, what resonates with me is hearing Fred talk about the importance of having reverence for the past and knowing what’s come before you in order to move ahead; that’s really hitting me in a big way. And I think it’s something my generation needs to hear a little bit more of, which is to say I think we all feel really empowered to share by Facebook and Twitter, but oftentimes the listening is going out the door. Sometimes there’s a little more output and a little less input.
You weren’t familiar with modern art before “Red.” Has the play sparked your interest in it?
It really has. I was doing “Boss” [in Chicago] right before I came here to do the play, and they just happened to be doing a Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the Chicago Art Institute, which I got to check out.
Whom you mention in the play.
Yes, and who’s the background of my phone right now and is the poster in my dressing room. I’m inspired by that exhibit. Then during a day off from rehearsal, I flew to Houston for the day and went to see the Rothko Chapel, which is really fascinating. I was reading a lot about Rothko and Jackson Pollock and their art and opinions of their art, and seeing the art was so much more affecting than simply reading about them. We took a little field trip from rehearsal to go to MOCA. I went to “The Painting Factory” exhibit between shows with Fred last weekend. Fred’s voice is always in my head; whenever I look at a painting, I hear, “Lean into it. Engage with it. Let it affect you.” So it’s more fun now to look at art because I feel so ready to be open to it. I’m so blessed and lucky that I got to do this play, because it busted open a whole other side of me that wasn’t there before.
You grew up in Amish country in Pennsylvania, and your father is a Mennonite horse trainer and driver. He’s not a cabbie; he races them, yes?
Yes, it’s harness racing.
Does your father eschew 20th and 21st century technology?
I was raised Methodist. My mom is Methodist, my dad was raised Mennonite. Amish are the ones with the horse and buggy, and Mennonites are very conservative — like my grandmother wore a covering over her head and simple handmade dresses — but they definitely drive cars and tractors. A lot of them are farmers. It’s simple living. Interestingly, the Mennonites in my hometown are very close with the Amish. My grandmother had Amish people work in her garden and clean her house, and the Amish are allowed to ride in cars but not drive them. So I would drive the Amish from her house to their farms.
Professionally, you were involved in community theater in Pennsylvania. Was there much between that and being cast in the lead role in “Spring Awakening”?
When I graduated from high school, I went on tour for a year with “The Sound of Music,” and then went from that to living in New York; after a year and a half in New York, I got “Spring Awakening.” So there was a year and a half of auditioning and waiting tables and doing summer stock, and then I did an understudy role in a Broadway flop musical. And right after that, I got “Spring Awakening.”
Let’s talk about that Newsweek critic who, when you were guest-starring in “Glee” two years ago, said you were unconvincing as Lea Michele’s character’s straight love interest. He said, you seemed “more like your average theater queen.” You’re laughing now, but how did you feel about that at the time?
To be honest, I feel the same way now as I did then. Here’s the deal — I go to my auditions and plug away and try and do my best. People are going to say whatever they’re going to say about your performance, and at the end of the day, you can’t let that stuff affect you. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, and it started a lot of good conversations probably. All I can do is laugh and keep moving forward. Sexuality is such an interesting thing. Unless you’re playing a very effeminate person, a stereotypical queen, it’s hard to say what it means to play gay.
You casually came out at a gay rights event in 2009, and you’re featured in the current issue of Out magazine. And you and Zachary Quinto are public about being a couple. So what do you think about gay actors who stay in the closet?
Ultimately everyone has their own journey. The more people that come out the better, because it makes it easier for the next generation of people coming out, and it makes [straight] people more comfortable with it, the more people they know. But at the end of the day, if people don’t want to come out, it’s their personal choice. I feel really blessed to be living in 2012. Certainly there’s a long way to go, but I feel really positive about how, even in the last 10 years, being gay has become more accepted.
