The Stage

A labour of love: Glee’s Matthew Morrison

Published Friday 23 July 2010 at 11:59 by Matthew Hemley

Glee star Matthew Morrison talks to Matthew Hemley about dealing with fame, acting as a mentor both on and off screen, rumours of a West End debut and venturing into music with the release of his upcoming album

Matthew Morrison and his Glee co-stars have a new name for Fridays. “We call them Fraterdays,” he says.

“Because we don’t finish filming at the end of the week until 4am on a Saturday. Then you end up sleeping all day Saturday, you have Sunday off, but you have to go to bed early because you have to wake up so early on a Monday. Really it’s a seven-day week job.”

Being in Glee, he says, is the “hardest thing” he has ever done in his life. Not that he’s complaining.

Because being in Glee, the hit US musical drama which has just completed its first season on E4 and which can be described as nothing less than a TV phenomenon, has taken him from Broadway performer to internationally acclaimed TV star.

And this in turn means he is having to get used to being recognised wherever he goes.

“This is uncharted territory for me,” he reveals. “It was great at the beginning, being recognised, because it meant we were doing something people liked.

“But once the show really hit, it got a little overwhelming. You can’t walk five feet down the road without stopping to pose for a picture. But you work so hard as an actor to come to this place and you have to embrace it and realise it’s part of what you are doing.”

He adds: “Glee is one of those shows that people have been drawn to and when you are in someone’s living room every week, they feel a personal connection with you, like they have some ownership over you.”

Glee follows Morrison’s character as he attempts to help a group of students to realise their star potential as members of the school’s show choir - the glee club.

Each episode sees the characters singing and dancing their way through a number of popular songs, with Morrison getting to use his musical theatre skills singing, among others, the 1989 Young MC hit Bust a Move and a cover of Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby.

The latter, he admits, was one he initially had doubts about. “When I first read the script I was a little wary of it,” he says. “But they shot it great and it came out cool.”

Because of the number of songs in each episode, the cast are shooting one episode while rehearsing numbers and dance routines for another, often resulting in 16 or 17-hour days,

The sheer number of songs recorded also means there have already been five CDs produced from the first series alone.

And with two new series in the pipeline, the music charts are unlikely to be free from Glee songs for some time to come.

So does Morrison have any say over what songs he and his co-stars perform?

“I will never go to the producers with suggestions, but when they come to us, which is quite often, I will say I think the character should go here or sing this song here,” he says. “I have suggested a couple of songs and storyline plots. And that is the best part of the show - it’s such a collaborative process.”

Morrison was first approached to audition for Glee when he was appearing in South Pacific on Broadway. Broadway has been his ‘home’ for the best part of the last decade.

Having grown up in southern California, where he attended a performing arts high school, he went on to join the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, which is part of New York University.

After a year and a half of this, however, he left to star in a Broadway show, claiming that he felt ready then to start learning on the job.

“I went to such a good performing arts high school and so after a year and a half with NYU I felt like it was time for the next step, because the real learning comes from the actual doing,” he says.

“Training is vital and I would not be where I am without it. But there comes a point where you have to put it to use and you learn a whole different skill set from actually doing the work and making mistakes.

“Once you start making mistakes you learn from them, and kind of start putting your tools into a tool bag and pulling them out when you need them.”

His musical theatre credits include the original Broadway cast of Hairspray, The Light in the Piazza and the aforementioned South Pacific.

But it was about five years into his Broadway career that Morrison says he started looking to do something different, and went on to secure bit parts in a number of US TV dramas, before finally hitting the big time with Glee.

Many of his young co-stars in the US series knew Morrison from his Broadway appearances. And because some of them were new to the business, he found himself taking on something of a teacher role to them off camera.

“For a lot of them, Glee is the first thing they have ever done,” he explains.

“Behind the scenes I have definitely taken on a teacher role to them. That’s been the best part for me - watching their journey and seeing them grow. It’s been amazing to see it week after week.”

The experience of starring in Glee has also been something of a learning curve for Morrison too, given he has spent most of his career on stage.

He says he had to work on making his “expressions a little more controlled”, because he is not playing to the “last person in the audience of a theatre”.

And recently he has watched every episode in the first series of the show, as part of an exercise he calls “homework”.

“I can definitely see a transition from the first episode to the last of how I have changed as an actor,” he says. “I have definitely learnt a lot. But I have never been comfortable watching myself and I don’t think I ever will be. However, I do it as education.”

Filming on the second series of Glee starts this month and will take around nine months,

This leaves Morrison little time to think about much else, including theatre. He says his musical theatre career is on hold at the moment, but reveals he has recently met with Donmar Warehouse artistic director Michael Grandage to discuss future projects with the venue.

Working there, he reveals, is something he might be able to do because runs at the venue tend to be shorter. And when he finally does have a new stage role, you can be sure Morrison will relish the moment.

Performing live, he says, is something he misses “more than anything” when he is working on television. “Performing in front of an audience is like oxygen to me,” he says.

“I love it, I feed off it. While I was over here, I got to perform with Leona Lewis and it was great to be in front of an audience again. I love it and try to go back to it as much as possible.”

There is also a chance that Morrison could one day be performing his own songs live on stage, because he is currently in the UK recording material for a new album he is making.

The album is not yet titled, but will, he says, be “kind of eclectic”.

“There are going to be songs that are more radio friendly and some more artsy songs as well,” he reveals. “Most will be me with a big orchestra behind me and hopefully some I can dance to.”

He adds: “It’s always been on my radar [to record my own album], but Glee has definitely afforded me the opportunity to do it.”