The 35-year-old actress and singer, Lea Michele, has always been a talk of the town for her vocal range and great performances. She has been seen in multiple musical productions, as well as in several well-known television series. Some of them are The Mayor with David Spade and Yvette Nicole Brown, Scream Queens with Emma Roberts and of course, Glee.
Rachel Berry has been the character that has brought her the most fame and recognition, not only for her performance, but also for all the covers she has had to do with the Glee cast during the 6 seasons. Like Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, We Are the Champions by Queen, Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tayler, Don't Rain on My Parade Barbra Streisand and a lot more.
Although Lea hasn't always gotten along well with her co-stars of Glee, that's where she met her best friend, Jonathan Groff, with whom she starred in the play Spring Awakening. A documentary of the play, called Spring Awakening: Those You've Known, was released in May on HBO Max, featuring both actors on tour to sell the play.
Lea Michele and Funny Girl
Lea Michele and Funny Girl have always gone hand in hand, as the actress made a lot of reference to her love for the show in Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan's musical series Glee. There is a chapter dedicated to how her character idealizes Barbra Streisand and wants to be the new Fanny Brice.
The show is set in and around New York City, just before and after World War I. Fanny Brice stars in the famous Ziegfeld Follies, as she awaits the return of her husband, Nick Arnstein, from prison, and reminisces about their life together using the racconto method. Fanny is shown as a restless young woman making her way in vaudeville. On her rise as a comedian and singer she meets the sophisticated Nick Arnstein. They fall in love and marry. When Fanny becomes Ziegfeld's star, Nick's business goes from bad to worse until he is arrested for embezzlement. The play ends where it begins: Nick arrives, and he and Fanny decide to separate.
Lea's dream has come true and she will be replacing Beanie Feldstein as the lead in the Broadway play. But the decision has not gone down well with a portion of the audience and several rumors of Beanie's departure began to circulate.
According to NPR, any effort to present this as an uplifting story of a dream come true for Michele is complicated by the fact that some of the people she worked with accused her of appalling behavior on the set of Glee. Samantha Ware said the actress' traumatic microaggressions made her question her entire career. And in response to Michele's casting in Funny Girl she quoted: "Yes, Broadway champions whiteness. Yes, Hollywood does the same thing."
Lea Michele's Love life
The actress has been dating Cory Monteith for many years and they even got engaged. They met on the set of Glee and began their relationship in October 2008. The two were engaged for several years but never officially married, due to the actor's death from an overdose on July 13, 2013.
Lea spent many years single, before meeting her current husband, Zandy Reich. They got engaged in April 2018 and married at Carneros Resort in Napa Valley on March 9, 2019. Lea has always been quite private about her love life with the businessman. In May 2020 they revealed that they were expecting their first child, Ever.
In her book Brunette Ambition, Lea confessed that she had dated for a while with co-star and fellow cast member Matthew Morrison, who plays the school's principal, Will Schuester. "When we shot the pilot, I met Cory Monteith , Kevin McHale, Amber Riley and Chris Colfer for the first time. I had worked on Broadway before with Jenna Ushkowitz and Matthew Morrison. Matt had been a friend of mine for years and we had actually dated in the past for a Broadway beat", the singer wrote.
Lea Michele's TV shows and movies
Ryan Murphy wrote the role of Rachel Berry specifically for Lea, as he believed she was the right one to star in the role. From 2009 to 2015, the actress worked on Glee, Fox's teen musical series.
After gaining great fame giving life and voice to Rachel, she was chosen for the character of Dorothy in an animated movie of The Wizard of Oz, called Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return. She spent some time without acting because she wanted to concentrate on her solo music, as on December 10, 2013 she released her first single Cannonball and then her album Louder. Which contains the song If You Say So, dedicated to Cory Monteith.
In 2015 she starred in the comedy and horror series Scream Queens, alongside Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Roberts. The actress gave life to Hester, a pledge of the popular Kappa Kappa Kappa Tau sorority at Wallace University.
She also participated in productions such as New Year's Eve, The Mayor, The Cleveland Show, Dimension 404, Mumbai Musical, Glee Encore, Buster and Chauncey's Silent Night and Same Time, Next Christmas.
