And That's What You REALLY MissedWRITEUP:
Was there anyone more unique than Unique on Glee?
Powerhouse performer and Tony Award-winning actor Alex Newell joins Jenna and Kevin to talk (and laugh) about their time on Glee and the Glee Project, but right off the bat ... Kevin gets called out by Alex for something he said more than a decade ago! You won't believe what was allegedly said!
Alex also reveals the challenging conditions they faced shooting The Glee Project on a campsite, what it was like to join Glee while still in high school, and so many hilarious behind-the-scenes stories that leave Kevin and Jenna literally gasping for air!
And that's what you really missed with Jenna.
And Kevin An iHeartRadio podcast.
Welcome to and that's what you really miss podcasts. The guest too. Oh, let's know, Alex just finish Shocked on Broadway. They just recently closed, and Alex has a concert coming up at the Polladium and in London doing Pippin. I would love to see that, I know. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we talked about the Glee projects.
And then Alex's memory is unmatched.
It's a vault. Yeah.
I hurt from laughing. My side's hurt, my cheeks hurt.
Just be prepared. Here is the.
Maybe funniest thing that's ever happened on the show thus far. This is Alex Noble.
How are you? How is? How was the closing of Shocked? Congrats on that beautiful.
I almost hemorrhaged my chords after Thanksgiving and so I was out of the show all of December.
Oh my gosh, and.
My Auntie cleared me to the very last one and then sat in the audience just in case something went wrong.
Oh my gosh, that's crazy. That must have been hard, you know, No, just a nice break.
My body was exhausted, that was a lot. I mean, if there was the morning show, I did it. If there was a TV show that had the in front of it, I did it.
All across the country too, and then also eh show truly and.
Then eight shows a week. I think my body was just like, uh, you're done.
Sit down, please, yes, please God, I'm glad you got to sit down.
Then same and I'm glad Beyonce has followed your lead and started putting out country music.
Honestly, just stunt on the whole. She just said, look over.
There, said Alex is doing it so good.
Honestly, Beyonce should play Lulu in the movie. It would be a success, and I would gladly bow out.
Whoa, no, no, no, you have to do it.
Yeah, I mean I think Beyonce would be better.
No, no, no, no, Beyonce can cover it on the soundtrack.
Okay, yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, exactly need to see you on that screen, Oh my god, as much as I love Beyonce.
Beyonce Knowles, yeah, sacred. Okay. So the last time we talked to you on this podcast, we were just talking about your Tony and all things Tony. Congrats on the Tony. You're a Tony Winner. You're still a Tony Winner forever. So this one I would love to talk about because we've had like Damien on and we've had Sam on and so I'm just curious, like how that whole thing one for you because you won like a two episode arc and then you ended up being on our show for a very for a very long time.
My experience was traumatic, to say the least. Kevin called me lazy and I pulled up.
Kevin called you lazy.
I will never let Kevin live it down for the rest of his life and mine. Whoever goes first put it on my tombstone.
Kevin, what did you say?
It's Kevin, Remind the people what you said.
Look, and I grew up watching American Idol, right, and you watch these judges. Simon mostly was like he was mean, but a lot of the time he was right. Yes, and I always I mean, we're all the same in this way. We're like, if you give me, if you put me in the position to be that person, oh let me. However, when you when I got on set, because that was my mind set going into the Glee project, I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be a bitch. Yeah, but when you get there and you see all like everyone talented children, everyone's living under these conditions that I wasn't even sure about, right, and you're not Like I can't do that to these kids and I don't know where they come from if they can handle it, Like who am I?
I also just got hired on this random show. However, I looked at Alex.
And I was like, oh, this bitch is good, and guess who knows it? Alex does, and I could something jumped out of me. Oh it was because like I can't let how I felt was we all know how good you are, like please shut them down, like you can't phone it in, yeah, because it's easy for you. Like I feel like your resting is better than most peop people. Was going full out, and so it was like I didn't know like where you were in your head during that time, like what was going on at all? So like who am I to go up and be like you need to do more like my dad? But it was just something I just was.
Like, oh, this is good.
I mean we all knew and not even to cheat my own horn. It was just like I I really just was different than everybody, and not to like brag about it, Like the mechanism that I have was just so different than everybody there. It's like, you want to sing. I know how to sing. I've been singing for my life and bread and butter since I was two.
Yeah, and I have like a when I hear people sing like that, I have, you know, like all the already hands like going up and that's just me. Yeah, like I can't, I can't help it. It jumps out of my body. And so when I saw you sing for the first time, that's what happened. And I was just like I need, like I want to selfishly, like I want to hear this on a ten right now. And I know you're just like cruising out of six.
Cruised out of six, But you know, it's also the scared the scarcity of not the scarcity of the scaredness of it all of being eighteen and thrown into this wild circumstance with this myriad of different talents from everywhere and trying to figure out one how you last and one how you shine at the same time. And somehow I was trying to play nice to everybody, but it wasn't really working, and we love a good editor, because between me and Lindsay had a peers we were the bitches of the season. It's because we always I mean in theater you have to know, like you're going to hear a lot of nose and you have to create this thick skin around that. And I think we come in knowing that we're very confident, but then that doesn't read well even if you're being nice and trying to just coast on die.
No, it's an immediate villain edit for you.
Yes, right, which is crazy?
Yeah, which was And you both come in there like trained can seeing your faces off. And we talked to Damien and Damien was like, I didn't know what I was doing in that. Damien also has a very different voice, but had been on tour station in a different way, and so it was like all these people were like why why are we here with these people? And why are we here with those people?
It's just the different people that we're around. And also seep sleep deprivation. I mean we were woken up to just lights being on, like it's pitch black darkness, and then all of a sudden you hear the ripcord of the generator and then like studio lights come on and you're just like, ah, okay.
Oh my god, well you have to just shoot in the school, right, So it was like at the odd hours of when they were not no, sorry.
We shot on a campsite.
Yeah, they were like in the woods.
We were in the woods in a campsite in Glendale.
Yeah, like dusty.
Like the boys had their own uh what do they call it, little turret, not a turret, little cabin, and the girls had their own little turret cabin over here, and then there was like a bathroom cabin in the middle. So like to get to the girl's turret, I don't know why that word sounds so wonderful right now, we had to like walk outside. But also every elimination day it chowse like it wanted to rain. I don't know what was happening in La when I got when I moved to La and they were like, I was like, it was raining every Friday last year for like two solid months. But like you're in these like these dirty conditions and you're outside in the mud because it's raining every day, you're in your boots. And then on top of that, it was like, y'all, can we have like a housekeeper come and clean the bathrooms because it's a free for all. It's a shared bathroom, and it's a free for all. Yeahs is a bathroom for a good week and a half. Yeah, like tears, like actual tears where Emily who's on the show, she's like, baby, you.
Need to go, oh my god.
And then you have an asshole like me show and be like you're not doing enough.
Well, we also had nicky Anders kicking our asses every.
Every week, right, every week?
Right, And it's still jarring that. Like Ryan was told me that I was the first person that didn't win the Glee Project and then got on the show and never left. Well, I eventually left.
So you and Lindsay both won?
Are we both won consolation prizes of two episodes and a song on the Christmas album?
Right? Right?
Okay?
And then what was it like getting a call? Who called you?
I'm pretty sure it was just my agent being like, hey, bitch, you're flying out. And I was also in my high school mind you, yeah, and it came at this No, I'm very just very experienced. No, I was my junior years when I filmed the Glee Project, and then my senior year is when I did my first episode of Glee, the Glee Project couldn't tell anybody about it until it started airing or until like so, so we finished. We finished filming in February of my junior year, which is what twenty eleven, and then it aired that same summer. So I came into my senior year a star, very fame, very famous. I was already famous because I was only a black kid in my school, but like very even more famous. But no, my agent just called, She's like, you're leaving, and I remember because I had just booked what did I book Chicago at my theater for first senior year musical and couldn't do it.
It was very straight, it's done to Hollywood.
We so when you got to Glee, we just watched your episode. Let me tell you, thank god you ended up on the show. I know because you're like Wade's first interaction and also just the pairing of like Chris and Amber together that whole magical that was absolutely right. And then when you show up as you need and that fully realized, and it was also just I don't know the contrast to seeing you as Wade and then Unique and then performing boogie Shoes was just like, yeah, ship on.
Them, right, what was boogy Shoes?
Like that song? It's so ingrained in my brain now if anything else is that one right there. I remember every ounce of it. I remember even hearing Tiffany's guide vocal for the first time. I was like sitting in a hotel in West Hollywood because I had flown out the night before recording and they sent it to me and I literally started sobbing. I was like, this is so good. And then I get into the studio and just fully go unhinged singing. And then I'm in the Powerhouse with Zach and Brook when all these gorgeous, gorgeous dancers, and I'm like, I can't keep up. I can't keep up. And then the shoe was walking and I said, I definitely can't keep up. And there were some tallest seals because I I just kept pushing myself and pushing myself because I really wanted it, and I really wanted it to make a splash, because I was the last one. Damien had started, Sam had started, Lindsay had already done her thing, Danny Go was tapping the house down boots and it was just like the run of the group me just trying to make it up as you go, because I mean here hearing that you weren't the win of the Glee Project and then dealing with all like the backlash from the fans that watch the Glee Project where you're not the forerunner and nobody likes you and everybody likes the the Irish brogue or the outcast for the Dreadlocks or the Broadway princess like Lindsay, and then here you come. You're just like, ah, I know how to say, I know what I say pretty well. But it was very nice you do enlightening seeing it for the first time, and like just in englfing what that experience was. It was very cathartic at that time. I mean, like, who would know that you were just a teenager in your freshman year and your boyfriend at the time like tells you about this magical television show and you watched a pilot on the YouTube, and then you become a fan of all these lovely people on the lovely Glee Show and then you're on it. It's stupid. It doesn't happen that way, right, and honestly shouldn't happen that way. It was wild. I mean, I remember Brooke walking up to me and she's like, I know what you're doing with your face. Stop it smile And I said.
Okay, Oh my god, I said, sure.
Babe, I can smile. And then you know, then you're called back to do another episode that you weren't supposing. You're like, well, that's it. They're like, no, this isn't it. You're gonna do another one as well. But then this one is just like a cutaway. We just put you in the script. Put you in the script, and I said okay, and then you're lifted up by all the gorge gorgeous boy dancers and a split lift. Yeah, I might have a hamstring, but like, yeah, and you got to work with Jay Groff. Yes, my babies.
Amazing.
It's crazy to think even to think how I kind of just fit into this world back then?
Yeah you did? How did you?
How did it feel coming on to set with everyone? And I mean because in that episode you we didn't really get to work with you at all. You you worked with Amber and Chris, Amber and Chris the best and Sean.
Yeah. The first person to greet me when I got to uh uh base camp was Leah. Hm. The very first one. She was very warm, she was very inviting. She welcomed me with open arms, and I can hold that to be true. Yeah, I had no qualms back then.
Hm.
I was like, work, bitch, this is your show. I'm just here for a few I'm just for a little pal. I'm not even near your little show choir yet.
I haven't touched it.
Yeah, hebby, I'm at a whole other school. I don't know what from me, baby girl.
When you did come over, though, it did feel like you just fit in.
I don't know why that was though.
It's just a personality that wasn't it like we all have. I like, I don't know a world in which we don't get along.
Yeah.
Same, And maybe that's it.
I think it was just and I mean we weren't around each other outside before we started doing everything, even before I even walked in, because I was at the Little Glee movie premiere. Come on three D, right, come on three D? I have a three D film. I still understand where the three D came in at Was it they that came in at the Green? I don't know where three D was.
It had to be three D that was real and yeah, yeah, you were around. I was around, Now were you? Like most people newcast members who came in were week to week where a script would show up on their door and they'd say, oh, wow, I guess I'm doing another episode. Was that the same for you?
I think so?
Yes?
Were you flying back to school like in between episodes?
No, because I graduated high school after season three, got it okay, and I was on my way to Berkeley School of Music on my little scholarship to you know, ooh and and struggles as a college kid and being did and then my agent called us, Ryan said, to you on the show next season, So bringing the Last to Hollywood. We'll give you this little ten thousand relocation fee, and you better make it. Wow, better make it work, Make it work.
Some of my favorite memories. You were in that newer class like one, Jacob and Becca and Melissa and everybody joined us and we created like our new group of people. Yea, and boy did we have fun.
Oh we had too much fun.
It was so much fun. And it was I was worried too, because it was like everyone that we knew that we had like going away. Yeah, like half of them left and like, oh, thank God.
Like all of you are so cool.
It's what you said about personality. It's I think that it was like a good group of people that did mesh well together or knew what like the greater good of making a sixteen hour day less shitt.
That's right, that's right. We really, I mean really did some ridiculous things.
Like I'll never forget that Christmas episode Becus boy Child, my God, and Jenna looking at me and listening like drink chugging mountain dew. Oh my god, we're not worried about our sperm count, ladies, And I said help.
That's that's right, I said help. In our white outfits were our wipe arrays like talking.
It was like, but seeing Mary's boy Child, I will always go back and look at that thing and look at the one mistake that haunts me for the rest of my life.
What is that one?
I don't know what I was where I was. I was in the white room, and we were doing one piece of choreography, like a little gyration, and somehow it just snuck up on me.
And I just say, oh shit, I gotta go watch just like looking it made it, you know, broke in the front of the stage doing it for us too, like we had somebody to watch.
I mean, Britney Parks was doing Divas right while filming. I said, hey, I don't know what this is. You taught this in ten seconds.
I mean, roar, We're like, you know, trap across the stage.
I've never thought in my life I would see a man in a wheelchair heeded across the stage.
I was like, please fall, I could collect an insurance check.
I mean, there were some dark times in that show, but like somehow I wanted to be there most days.
Yes, you got me through too. Like I looked at during that Christmas episode. I hit a wall one night and I was like, I don't have to do half the shit Alex is doing this episode like you had to do some crazy shit.
I gave birth to black baby Jesus.
Yeah, and you came up to me and you're like, we're just we're just don't make belief.
It's like I needed to hear that, thank you.
It is adult. Make believe. It can't be that serious all the time. We're not curing cancer, all right, We're changing lives sometimes, yes, but me giving birth to black baby Jesus and a glitter diaper not changing lives.
That was a Saturday too when we shot that number, wasn't it though?
It was?
I remember vividly those sequins scratching the side of my armpits so badly.
The City Hawkins dress that Vanessa wore was like she was bleeding for her art and I said, it shouldn't be this.
Deep, literally, it should not be this deep for her art. I was like, and she had like all across her and she never complained. It was a sweet little thing, like the blood cloth.
I was like, couldn't be me.
No, she think she had been like physically abused in front of us.
Tell me I was perfectly always good to walk into the wardrobe trailer and make my new costume and walk on set. Did you do that all the time they would send They would set an outfit and I'd be like, absolutely not, and I'll just walk in and I'd look at Jen and be like, baby, we're not doing this. Hand me this, because you know, they the whole premise of like Unique. I almost said, Monique, Wow, racism is real. Unique was like she was wearing her mother's clothes. So I was just in, like the finest of Lane Bryant like the finest of Lane Bryant and like the top tier of tour Rid and you know, they got dark real fast, so where everything was just like falling off of me. The entire time. I was just like, I'm really not that fat.
Everything are coming into like the classroom with kids Drenk.
Looking like I didn't belong to I'm like, everybody.
Gets to wear like gap, like what are you wearing today? You're like, I don't know. I have no idea.
And then there were days that I'd be wigless and I'd like, I really don't know what's going on.
Those were the days, right, Yeah, I.
Was like, I have no idea. What was this person talking about? A character with like identity crisis? I mean yes, but still.
Oh my gosh, I.
Didn't see you like that aspect of it was like thoughtful to you, like the identity of it all because it was one of them.
No, I think I just made it in my own delulu. I made it.
Thoughtful, Okay.
I'd be like, oh, so this is what it is, because remember that time, they did not tell any of us who the catfish was.
But it's me. I forgot it.
Everybody to sit here, I guess and I was like, no, it's.
Me, and we're wondering why we got along.
I was like, thank y'all, y'all are not dance? Like who else is going to be the person who's never had a scene with this person? Who else is it gonna be?
I remember we were all sitting around in the choir room talking about it in between setups, and You're like.
Like, we can me stop calling a kid kater, like we know it's me. They were like what really, yes, yes, so right, like it is the obvious tell story right.
Oh my god, the catfish story.
Oh my god, that was I mean, there were a lot of unhinged. The shooting story. I'm still unwell from crying real tears.
I wasn't even there. I didn't need to be with you. You you how is that?
As someone who watched the show and was a fan of this show and then you end up on the show.
And you watch what the show is, it.
Starts becoming really crazy, unhinged, unhinged.
It was strange, but like then you really just I mean, by season five, I was just like, well, y'all, come on, from all of us, play my dress on, come on, we ain't got to traumise too much happened to just do it, just say a little, We're gonna get through it. Brad is gonna eat a yam.
Right, you learn quickly. You saw how we were like, okay, come on.
But that's why I was so quiet most of season for quiet Esque, because I was just watching.
I was just absorbing. When did I walk out of with the porter potty? Do you remember that one? Uh if I.
Were a boy episode? Oh?
That was ad episode that was.
The end of work is good?
It's really good, good, Alex. I didn't remember that, thank you. Oh my gosh, it's great.
The end of work where a wig was thrown down. You know the shittiest part about that scene where the wig was thrown off. I sat there on the Glee set for about three hours trying to make the peak contraption because I was supposed to be so scared that I peed on myself. It eventually got cut because it was just like I was giving birth to a child. Because it wasn't just this gorgeous cinematic stream coming down my leg. It was just like what it was just like ah, and I was like, this is not cute.
We were going for It's.
Like I don't think y'all gonna use this, but there I am just standing there singing if I were born wet for three dates.
Al just just oh god, oh my god.
What I do remember that episode was I had a breakdown because you know who wouldn't be triggered and traumatically stressed by being bullied in the bathroom. And Wendy looked at me and said, what do you need? And I was just like, smoothie. I got that damn smoothie.
Both and then I spilled it on myself on that white top. Oh my god, sweet Wendy, Sweet Wendy.
Yeah, sweet, sweet Wendy.
That was a big storyline for you.
That was the That was the biggest one. O than the catfish one, Darling. Oh my god, oh the cat I was put to the ringer. They were like underdog, where can we put the underdog? And what's beneath the underdog?
Cat fish?
Truly in the toilet? What a time. And then just rolling around on a star bus.
That was fun, unhinged.
But very fun.
It was fully school like field trip schooled out. Yeah, Becca and I got drunk.
Brooks hiding in the back of the on the top of the truck laying down always we're on the top of the bus right and you're going down like towards the Hollywood sign. By way, that bus was rickety as hell. But the trees when they were like, dump, the trees are going to hit the branches are going to hit you, we were like, we've made it. We really made it.
Top tier work.
Also, at that point, the headlines we were all talking about like could you imagine this show was like the biggest thing on the planet, and then during production just wiped out.
Branches. Well, and that's what you really missed. Yeah, they all they all got to capitate it, honey.
Oh my god.
But nope, we stayed alive to make it to Pink's Hot Dogs.
Honestly, the fact that we made that day is quite stunning.
Every day felt like that, really, yes, exactly, astonishing that we made our day or just seeing wrong.
Ryan didn't come down and say, I didn't improve this, I didn't I don't know what you're wearing.
Get it off. Uh.
I remember they filmed that whole entire rooftop scene. Uh, Heather and Darren and then Ryan came down and said, nope, I don't like to set.
I remember when we're hearing about that, right.
Oh, so can I go home because I have to see it? I can go, Okay, bye, I'll see y'all later.
It was I wish people could understand how it was so high school, oh, because we would it was fully just games of telephone all day long, because Alex would hear that then for example, like might text us and be like, oh my god, I saw this thing, Like oh, so then we're not getting called in later, so then like we might have tonight off, and so we were all just God, we were assuming.
Planning our days because you know when you work that long of hours, which I never understood the term friturday until I'm sitting at a circus in the middle of paramount.
Pictures on a tilt whirl the tilted worl scare for my life.
I'm still that wheelchair should be in the Smithsonian because how they rigged that bitch? Oh no, no, no, they just made you because the wheelchair was on there for a second. I was like, insurance check again.
No, No, that wouldn't have worked.
That wouldn't have worked. That that is a liability because had it come flying at me, I would own a lot.
Of things, Yes, and it was like, physics tells me that for.
Trifical force is not going to keep that metal hunka hunkah down.
How many times did we do that until the world thing I got sick.
I think we only did it like a handful of times because that's enough.
That was enough.
They couldn't stop it midway. So it was like a minute ride.
Each and it was the only time I've ever done that in real life until to Worl. I think probably like any of those carnival rites, because I think it was like, well, this should be safe, right because they have to protect this.
Why would you think that, I don't know, why would you think that naive?
I was even nice?
Both the cars alone could have broken somebody. Oh, because there was there was a camera on each one of them.
That's right, that's when Mandy Moore was choreographing. Right, Yes, we need a different choreographer for a little bit.
That's Cod's collaborators, cohorts.
One might say, that's right, now, can you on this show?
I thought I was just acting, Jenna, Well.
Call it what you will. What was it? Do you have a favorite song or a song that you loath singing? What does a fox say to this day, you and Kevin with my fist up my likeness and image right, yes, somebody they offered to like.
Us to buy them at the end of the season.
Five thousand dollars.
Mine was ten.
Oh wow, she's more expensive. Wow. I was like that wig better be made from my own.
God, damn here, just just cut off. Oh that was my least favorite. My favorite, I mean coming rising like a phoenix out of the ashes was Diamonds Are Girl's Best Friend, only because the day before I had a fever beyond fevers, like I should not have been standing. That's when they brought the set medican and said, please go home. Oh really, I'm always filmed that scene in the bathroom right before the song.
I was dead, just like printed primming and right, that's right, And.
I literally was dead.
I was deaf, I was hot death mmmm fever.
I should have been in the hospital, I probably, but no, you know, I didn't know, didn't feel like it. I wanted to be there and I wanted to be a team player. Didn't speak in the scene glorified extra.
That's always the worst one when you're like, I don't need to be here. And I also shouldn't be here glorified.
Yeah, I mean that was most of season four.
It was most of our tour.
I'm just like, y'all are really paying me a lot of money to sit here. I'm not going to and I'm not gonna let you know that. I know that, right because I'm smarter than that, and I have bills to pay because I'm eighteen.
You came in like you were thirty guys.
Imagine me having to come in with these veterans and acting like a child. Y'all did that enough?
See?
But that mentality, that perspective alone, It's like, not everybody's coming in with this.
They couldn't. I was happy to be there, but I also knew that I had to task at hand.
Was there any time do you remember like I have, I don't know handfuls of stories where I either loved being in the recording studio or like, had a terrible time in your quarter studio. Because you are a vocalist, did you enjoy the recording process?
Sometimes yes, sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think.
Alex God scooping to the note.
I would never want to scoop to anybody's note. I was like, I just sang it. It was kitch person, what do you mean scoop up to? Okay? It's not okay. But Alex got very meticulous because I am a vocalist and he's like, honey, I'm not going to sit here and edit these vocals. You don't sing it perfectly.
He brought out the best. He really did. He was so it was so infuriating at the time. Yes, he really did push you though, to the point where you're like, oh, I guess I can do it if I needed to.
I mean I sang I sang Sergeant Pepper's Only Heart Club band that Top Harmony until I was actually just screaming. I was like, sir, I don't get nothing else in me.
The thing is that you go back and it's like nobody's getting a cleaner vocal.
No way, no.
But I mean I was the hollers, the holeration, like it's still iconic. It's still iconic, Like it's stuck in my brain and I can't listen to Katy Carry's Wide Away without thinking.
About me God wide Away.
There are a lot of songs that I can't listen to without thinking of the versions of Glee.
Yes, well, the amount of times that we would also just do them like they are pounded into our brains. Yes, because you do them for an hour in the recording studio, then you do them for eight hours on set.
And then you wake up the next day thinking about it. Oh no, or the crew member would be singing it the next day.
You're like, pay if you see me out in Like I have been in public at bars or something and somebody to leve will come on and I'll be in the corner by myself just doing the background.
Okay.
So then Alex, then you did another musical TV show.
I've done three Darling Okay, I did one episode of Empire. That's right, honey. Listen. Every meeting it's like, so, what's your next musical project? I'm like, can I not? I've been singing for my supper since i was eighteen?
BIB What were those like after doing Glee? And then also were they similar or were they different?
I mean, coming back and coming off of Glee, anything was possible, right, I mean doing Zoe's was such a walk in the park, mainly because it was a minute steady cam maybe like three to four takes and you're done. But I also didn't I sang a lot on that show, but I didn't do so there was the concept of like her hearing heart songs and that kind of thing. A majority of the time that I sang on the show, it was like out in real life, like they just made the character a singer. So I didn't do that many heart songs. I think over like the the seasons, I did like six and I like did five other or something. Got it, But it's like it's it was always just so easy because like I'm also not doing multiple camera angles and takes and we didn't get it. And also we weren't filming with film. It was digital.
Doesn't that sound so nice? Like three or four of the steady cam and then you're done with a radical number and then it's over. That was like the last setup for us. I I don't get it what it was.
But also like the scenes, I didn't have to act with seventeen other people in the room.
It was like two barely.
I was always attached to her hip, so there was always two cameras on either of us.
Oh my god.
Is this what TV is? Like? Is this what people keep coming back to? Right without like truly like yeah, sitting there for hours upon end because you think about sitting in a choir room full of twelve people. You have to get everybody's reaction to every minute detail and then turn it.
Around right and then do something weird with it, and then have a directors put their little spin on it. And costumes Katy Perry costume, cupcake costumes, you know.
Yes, put us in the largest costumes and then say walk to the door. I don't fit right, Oh you don't fit. Nope. You do some of that raffle down on TV match.
Cut cut, and then it's at delay to figure out how we work the person out.
Oh my god, I'm wow.
But Zoe, it was so easy. Like I was just like, okay, what do you want me to do? Oh, we're done for the day. The sun is still up.
Wow.
Like I would go to work with the sun up, and then I would get out of work with the sun sun still up.
That was always the weirdest part where we'd be on the soundstage for hours and then you come outside and it's just pitch black and you're like, that.
Is pitch back.
It's like eleven pm, I've missed it. Just the light of the Paramount New York City Street.
You're like Okay, oh, here heard the text from my friends who are out.
They are their home now you Oh they're drunk. Okay, so yes, exactly, exactly, Yes, I definitely can come out.
It's gonna be easy to There's only one scene with like two people, so definitely gonna make No, we'll be there. But for Zoe's was just like I would always make my plans wow constantly. I know you guys really missed out.
Yeah we did next my next one. Literally, you just tell us which one and we'll join you.
I'm just out here doing musical television for the rest of my life. Who would have thought that little reality competition would have got me that far? Yes, I will give you all the credit I would give you out.
I deserve no credit, but I will secretly take it.
He said.
Don't be lazy.
Said okay, don't you sit in a chair all day?
I do the guilt.
I felt like that leapt out of my mouth.
I was like, oh, does it keep you up? And is it one of those that you replay in your mind, Kevin? Or you don feel that at all?
Okay? But who asked you? You know what? I think I partially owned Jenna's first Tony.
You do Yes, it was the whistle tone on the Tony performance that actually did win that They were like, well, let's change the envelope.
Bitch this one. It's this one, just screaming into the either like, hey, remember who didn't get nominated the whistletone, I screamed.
I mean, I was on so much, so many drugs that night, not like bad ones, like roided out of my mind and I had at least a whole milligram of Xanax in my system. My body was.
Relaxed as a possible through trendizone.
Thretnos own alone, the Lord that strengthens me, because let me tell you, that was the tone came out from my my dreams and hopes and aspirations.
In life, and it was I felt that it was.
I have never done a whistletone directly in the center of it.
It was just you. Just I threw my remote. It just said, it's like I hit a button on a keyboard. It was strepid. And I've watched a lot of bootlegs of you, and.
Chones never came out that way on stage. I mean there was one that it was just so flat on the bootleg. I said, baby, you don't have to be impressive. These people are from Middle America. They don't give a damn.
But it's just one time to do it properly televised. That's right, that's right. It was.
Oh my god.
Well, Kevin will take credit for Alex, Alex will take credit for my Tony. We'll just all take credit for each other.
I think that's the best way. That's a functional healthy.
H I think I think.
So, yeah, as long as you're good with it. I in the back of my head, I'm like, I can't be that story of like Brandy tells. You know, if Brandy's like a teacher told me that I will never be anything, it's like.
Oh I did that to my middle school math teacher, English teacher. She literally looked at me one day and said, oh, your work ethic will never amount to much. Wow.
Can I tell the people something? On that note? Though, On that note, anytime I've seen Alex in New York postally, nobody, nobody works more and harder.
Than Alex. She's ever on a stage set, always no happy medium.
Oh let's let's do we forget the like independent musical artists career.
I did that one of my songs, just my silver Oh, like I would be.
In the streets like of London and like that's Alex r Just I'm going.
There to do Pippen next. I can't wait to meet my public concert at the Palladium. It's going to be lovely.
Oh my goshing leading player. I love that for you.
I am a full fledged wore in both ways. I'm always working and I.
Was let yeah, knew this is key. Okay, before we let you go, can you tell us what the feeling that Glee, your experience or the show leaves you with.
What it leaves me with? You know, the show brought me so much, like it as a whole Glee project, and Glee, the word Glee and itself and the brand that it was. It gave me everything that I have today, all the relationships that I cherish, of the experience that I got to learn. I mean, I did that first episode and I was truly never anybody's actor, and then I learned what it was to be an actor, which is so much. You don't get that experience if you go to school and learn how to do it. And I'm so happy that I got to have that experience and just even was the good, the bad, and the ugly, and there was some really ugly ugly. It's something that I look back on and very fondly wouldn't do it again, would never do it again, but I loved what it gave me.
Hmm, that's great, beautiful.
I don't think I could do it again. Now I'm your age when you guys started to do it.
Okay, okay, Now i'm.
Your age when like my body, just I applaud you both for all of you, really, every last one of you, for really pushing yourselves at that age. Because let me tell you, oh, my niece, my knees quick every time I stand.
Up well after bleeve, my knees really do Chris.
I look at a pair of heels now daily.
And just no, no, not today.
After wearing them from the years eighteen to twenty one. You plus, that's right every day? No thank you that I almost cussed jakeob out for it, yelling about my shoes.
I remember you picked me up, Fuck I didn't. You really did have the craziest platforms and heels like in part of your costume everything.
But I don't understand the hell I was wearing my mother's clothing, but her shoes magically.
Just fit there. Right, it's the jeans, and they were they were good, better shoes than Lane Bryant. So I mean, yes, I have somewhere. Well. Well, thank you Tony One winner Alex Nowell for coming on and sharing your experience. We love you so much, so much. You're just I love you. I love you both, miss you. Enjoy Hopefully I have a great concert. But also I hope you're getting some time downtime.
Oh I'm not doing anything but drinking every day. It's wonder for my skin. But whatever.
Make you happy, it's not depressed. When is your show with the Pladium.
The first and second of April? I do have some time. I go out the fifteenth.
Of March, so everyone needs to go see that ship one.
It's almost sold out.
Yes it is, Yes it is, and that's so fun. I love you. You're the best.
Thank you here again.
All right now, I'm gonna go put makeup on and be an actual human. I love you both, and I love you.
Oh god, I haven't. I don't even think I talked, okay, so ask me questions. I mean, the last time I smiled and laughed like that was actually when we were with Alex when we saw Shucked, Well we didn't see Shocked. We were out there for iHeart, for the event and for the podcast event, and then we went and we saw Alex afterwards after his show, and we went and hung out and had some drinks and like laughed and reminisced.
And my cheeks hurt just like that. So always a good time with Alex. And this is good. Maybe my six sec will come back after this. So many memories, Like It's funny, some of my more like vivid memories are when like it's towards the end of the season. Maybe it's because it was sooner and there was like less going on, right, like there was more the noise, like less press less all of the stuff and just more work. But I don't know. Anyway, Thanks Alex for coming and chatting with us and share all the funny funny things. Unke that memory, Yes, very good. It was literally I said Porter Potty and she like there you got everything trapped up there? Oh my gosh. That Christmas episode is wildly unhinged and I can't wait to wader. I cannot wait for it because it is a crazy blacked out during it. Yeah, Kitty had a lot in that one. It was a lot. It was a lot o god. All right, well, we love the Alex. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you Alex, and damn, that's what you really missed. Thanks for listening and follow us on Instagram at and that's what you really miss pod. Make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars.
See you next time.
