Justin Timberlake was originally meant to play Glee’s Mr Schue before Matthew Morrison got the role
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Justin Timberlake was originally intended to play Glee’s Mr Schue on the show, with the character written as a meth addict, creator Ryan Murphy has revealed.
Glee ran for six seasons from 2009 to 2015 with Matthew Morrison, 43, as the lovable teacher Mr. Schuester — but while appearing on Glee stars Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz’s podcast, And That’s What You REALLY Missed — Murphy, 56, revealed that the show could have taken a very different direction.
He said, “When we wrote the pilot, I never really talked about it, that pilot was written for Justin Timberlake. Mr. Schue was written for Justin.’
What do you say? Justin Timberlake was originally intended to play Glee’s Mr Schue on the show, with the character written as a meth addict, creator Ryan Murphy has revealed (Matthew Morrison suggested R as Mr Schue on the show)
Murphy said he signed a first-look deal with Fox but was trying to “figure out” how the show would work.
He said, ‘We had these conversations and I was trying to find out. Like serendipity, I went to the gym and I was in a towel and a guy came up to me and gave me a script and he said, “I felt like you were in the show choir, am I right?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And he said, “My friend wrote this script and you should read it.”
The friend became Glee’s co-creator, Ian Brennan, and Murphy revealed that the sane Mr. Schue had a noticeably darker side in the original script.
New Directions: Murphy revealed that the character was originally written as a crystal meth addict
He said, ‘Mr. Schue, I believe, was a crystal meth addict in Ian’s script. The NC-17 version of show choir with a strange protagonist unraveling… I just need something optimistic.
The critically acclaimed program was centered on the William McKinley High School Glee club and starred Lea Michele, Matthew, Cory Monteith, Darren Criss, Chris Colfer, Jane Lynch, Amber Riley, Mark, Heather Morris and Kevin McHale.
The show was nominated for 19 Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, six Satellite Awards and 57 other awards, with wins including the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy.
In 2011, the show won the Golden Globe for Best Television Series, and Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer won Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor respectively, and Gwyneth Paltrow won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.
Mastermind: He said, ‘When we wrote the pilot, I never really talked about this, that pilot was written for Justin Timberlake. Mr Schue was written for Justin’ (Murphy photo 2019)
During Glee’s time on the air and the years that followed a dark curse, it had long reigned behind the scenes among the troubled cast and crew.
In July 2013, Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on the show and was dating co-star Lea Michele, died of an accidental drug overdose after taking a deadly combination of heroin and alcohol.
One of the most horrifying incidents to come out is the conviction of late star Mark Salling in 2017 for possessing ‘the worst collection of child pornography the nation has seen’ before dying by suicide the following year.
On July 8, 2020, Santana Lopez actress Naya Rivera accidentally drowned at age 33 while boating on Lake Piru, California with her four-year-old son
Glee: Glee became an instant phenomenon with its 2009 debut (Pictured top row LR: Chord Overstreet, Harry Shum Jr., Naya Rivera, Dianna Agron, Iqbal Theba, Heather Morris, Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch. Bottom row LR: Kevin McHale , Mark Salling (floor), Amber Riley, Jenna Ushkowitz, Cory Monteith, Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison in 2011)