Lea Michele says she did “a lot of personal reach-outs” after her several of her former Glee castmates accused her of cruel and diva-like behavior on-set. The Broadway star, 36, opened up about the situation and its fallout with Interview Magazine, telling the publication, she was able to have some “healing” conversations with former castmates.
“I think these past two years have been so important for everybody to just sit back and reflect,” the star of Funny Girl told the magazine. “I did a lot of personal reach-outs.”
“The most important thing was for everybody to just take a step back,” she went on. “More than anything, I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to apply the things that I’ve learned over the past ten-plus years in a positive way.”
“What I told myself stepping into Funny Girl was, ‘If I can’t take my role as a leader offstage as important as my role as a leader onstage, then I shouldn’t do this show.’ Because that was always a struggle for me. So to have this opportunity now at 36 years old as a wife and a mother — to step into this job that comes with so much pressure and a huge amount of responsibility — was a very, very big achievement for me.”
She went on to explain how the situation taught her, that “At the end of the day, what matters the most is how you make people feel.” Lea told Interview, “The conversations that I’ve had behind the scenes with some people were incredibly healing and very eye-opening for me. I’ve been doing this for a really long time and I’m not going to ever blame anything on the things that I’ve been through in my life. But you also can’t ignore those experiences or deny them. They are a part of the patchwork of my life.”
Lea is grateful that her role in Funny Girl has offered her an “opportunity to introduce people to who I am now.” Talking about the stress she was under during the 2009 to 2015 show, she said, “I think about what the Glee days were like, just working so hard and having such pressure on my shoulders to keep that show afloat, and navigating through that whole experience at such a young age while also dealing with a really intense life trauma that happened at the same time. This is such a different experience. I’m finding so much joy in the connections I’m having with the people around me. That’s what’s giving me energy.”