Idina Menzel says playing Lea Michele's mother on Glee 'wasn't great for the ego'
While casting Idina Menzel to play Lea Michele's mom on Glee may have been one of the biggest no-brainer decisions in recent television history, Menzel wasn't always so keen on the idea.
In a new interview with Irish mag Stellar (via the New York Post), the Tony-winner recalls how being cast to play the mom of a teenager was a real blow to the old ego.
"You're worried you're not going to work again, and then people hire you to be someone's mother when you probably should be their older sister," said Menzel, who is only 15 years older than Michele.
Adam Rose/FOX Lea Michele (left) and Idina Menzel on 'Glee'
"It just wasn't great for the ego," Menzel continued. "But I sucked it up and sucked myself into my clothes, and was excited to work with [creator] Ryan Murphy and be a part of that hit show."
Menzel revealed she had just given birth to her son in September 2009 and was worried about acting roles drying up when she booked the Glee gig.
"I had my son Walker, and then three months later, I got the call and so I said 'yes,'" Menzel said, noting that she was still breastfeeding at the time of filming and "couldn't fit into any of the costumes."
Menzel debuted as Shelby Corcoran, director of the rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline, in the season 1 episode, "Hell-o." She's revealed to be overachieving belter Rachel Berry's mother several episodes later in "Dream On," in which the pair finally gave the gays what they wanted with a melodramatic and melismatic duet of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Misérables. And in the following episode, "Theatricality," they perform an adorable if thematically odd cover of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face."
Menzel would continue to guest as Shelby on Glee, most notably in the third season as the director of the technically superior Troubletones (for proof, look no further than their Glee all-time top 3 performance of "Rumor Has It" and "Someone Like You"). Shelby makes her final appearance in the fourth season episode, "Sweet Dreams," to help Rachel with her audition for the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, to the tune of Emeli Sandé's "Next to Me."
In real life, Menzel was supposed to star in a Broadway revival of Funny Girl, but COVID and the spirit of Rachel Berry eventually propelled Michele into the role, winning rapturous raves, if not a Tony.
Of her former TV daughter taking on the immortal part of Fanny Brice, Menzel said, "Lea's the right choice."
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