Matthew Morrison

Why leave Broadway for Glee?
I’ve done a lot of theater in New York, and I was starting to do guest-star spots on TV and some movies. I really wasn’t gonna turn down any projects. I’m just so thankful this project came along. If they offered me a role as a detective with a chimpanzee sidekick, I would have done it.

Will there ever be a day where the choir kids are seen as cool?
Well, here’s how I see it: the choir kids are always going to get tormented. But the guys in choir, when they’re done with high school, if they want a lady, they can sing to her. And that is going to get a lady. You’re not gonna get a lady after high school by throwing a football.

So you just do it for the chicks. How is that working out for you?
It’s going pretty well.

What’s your most painful high-school memory? You must have one.
I really got away with so much in high school. I was that guy. I had friends in the bad crowd that took a lot of falls for me. I was very smooth. And criminal, like Michael Jackson.

Did you go back to the reunion only to find out everyone hated you?
No, but I did find out I had three kids I didn’t know about. No, actually, at my reunion, I was the president so I had to organize it. The people who were kinda cool and popular in high school are kind of messes now, and it was kinda awesome to see that.

So, glee clubs, show choir—it’s musical theater without a pesky plot, right?
Pretty much. And it involves risers and stuff.

Seems like an invitation for sprained ankles.
I think that’s why they put the risers there. They are inviting it. It’s like watching a NASCAR race to see the wrecks.

Because high school needed to be more traumatic.
It’s so boring.

What other Fox show would you want to do a crossover episode with Glee?
Personally, I’d love to do 24. Jack Bauer, sing a song!

Who from Broadway would you steal over to Glee?
Denis O’Hare. As some kind of really quirky science teacher. That sings. But Victor Garber and Debra Monk played my parents; this show brings so many people from the theater world.

On your personal website, on your résumé, it says, “Commercials: List available on request.” What are you hiding?
That’s something they tell you to do, especially if you don’t have a lot of them. But in a lot of the commercials I’ve been in a boy band.

Is that a big sector of commercial work?
It was in the ’90s. Let’s see, there was an American Express one: cheesy, lame. I don’t even think it aired.

Having been in a boy band—a real one—and on a soap opera, which one taught you more about life on the street?
Well, while I was rolling around with my entourage in my boy band, I had my people take care of everything. I hated every second of being in a soap opera; I don’t even put it on my résumé. It’s a point of my life I like to forget. I have more respect for soap actors, though—it’s literally like learning an entire script a night. So I had no life. I was someone’s long-lost son, and when I left the show, they just replaced me with another actor.

What do you sing in the shower?
I don’t. And in the car, I listen to Howard Stern. I hate to admit it, but I used to enjoy singing so much more, but now that it’s becoming more of a job…I want to find the joy again.

So you’re not singing “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” in between takes?
It’s such an interesting dynamic on set. The kids, in between takes they’re always singing all these songs that aren’t in the show, all these songs I haven’t heard of. God, I feel old. Living in New York, you don’t listen to the radio very much. Most of the stuff they’re singing is shit anyway. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything.

Do you share your opinion with them?br />That their music is shit? Nah, I keep it to myself.

—Interviewed by Allison Williams

Morrison’s new show, Glee, premieres Tue 19 on Fox.

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