Lea Michele

[Wol]

I will dish the gossip dirt on any and all that I know, but y'all gotta remember that I've been out of the business for almost 10 years, so my dirt is usually outdated. I do happen to know some folks in the NYC theater world, so that stuff could be more current (hence Lea, or as we like to call her, Toucan Sam).

I mentioned Julie Bowen because I just saw her on Celebrity Jeopardy, and she still irks the crap out of me. I knew her when she was just a struggling actress and she didn't strike me as very nice. She seemed like a classic mean alpha girl who gets away with murder because she's so pretty (and she is SO SO SO pretty in person it's criminal). Also, her real last name is Luetkemeyer; Bowen's a stage name. I don't know why that makes me laugh but it does.

Back to Lea - re: the West Side Story revival - there were some great comments on theater sites after they cast Josefina Scaglione instead of Lea, mainly because Josefina is so ridiculously beautiful and Lea is...not.

[Deleted]

She seems to get the job done well for someone who seems to have Lohan-like parents. I'm surprised her parents are that bad since usually the stage parents, for whatever reason, generally seem to birth the untalented children.

I think Lea has talent, a good voice, and I like her interpretation of the character she plays, but I don't see her becoming a movie star because of her face. I don't think she's unnattractive by any means, but usually you don't see people with her kind of face in movies (if she were a university student she'd probably be considered rather pretty but for movies you need something extra in the face which I can never quite put my finger on). I do see her doing well on tv though.

I think she sings with the right amount and quality of emotion on Glee too. For that particular character, her voice serves her well. I was somewhat disappointed when I saw her singing a rendition of a Barbara Streisand classic at the Tonys. She really wasn't as good at Streisand. But she is still in young. Maybe in time and with the right kind of training she'll be able to deliver a song in the same kind of way.

Nonetheless, I'm stunned she does her job as well as she does with such strange stage parents and with her penchant for breaking up relationships "just because". It's usually those types who don't get the job done at all (they're not usually good at multi-tasking). I don't condone what she's like in her personal life, but since she gets her job done fairly well on Glee, I guess I'm having an easier time compartmentalizing the personal from the professional when I evaluate her on Glee than I could with others who also have the same humongous sense of entitlement, like, say, Lindsay Lohan.

[HotLips]

Sept 2, 2010 2:26:02 GMT -4 @regencydrama said:

Sept 2, 2010 2:16:13 GMT -4 @solly79 said:

Maybe Lea suffers from Gwyneth Syndrome: be super-nice to everyone you consider your equal/worthy of your presence but be completely awful to everyone else because they're beneath you.

Urgh, I think you're right. And the annoying thing is, she's going to hit the big time anyway.

Man, where's karma when you need it?

Karma's busy with Paris Hilton right now. It'll get to Lea eventually. Glee has been waaay too overhyped. It's going to burn out quickly, and when it does, I don't see Lea bouncing back with a film career.

[Deleted]

Glee is already starting to burn out, my friends that watch it have all complained about how awful the second half of season one was. They're amazed by how quickly it went bad.

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The writing on Glee is wonky and stinky and rather weird (though I did like the "Election" feel to the show that it had going on at the beginning of its run), but I think it's the cast's interpretations of the songs that keep the popularity going.

[kali]

Everyone I know mostly just watches it for the music performances now. The plotting, the characterization, the pacing, it's all just really sloppy. Characters are totally inconsistent from ep to ep. And the show can get really, really VERY SPECIAL EPISODE at times. I think it's in for a fall this season.

[Deleted]

I guess it all hinges on how the second season goes. Since I just recently discovered Glee, I would be sad to see it go down quickly. I've become really fond of the cast, some of them have a good thing going. I don't find the character of Rachel very interesting (or particularly well-acted, imo), so I'm not all that perturbed to hear that LM is awful. But I just love all this Glee gossip, it's even better than the Gossip Girl gossip because with Glee there's Broadway drama involved, yay!

[Deleted]

Yeah, I just watch it for the songs (and Kurt) anymore, and even they've been hit or miss ever since they've begun stuffing six or seven in an episode. I think the whole iTunes and album thing was the worst thing to ever happen to this show - the reason the plotting, characterization and pacing are really sloppy is that they've just become barely-there frames from which to hang a bunch of increasingly slapped-together song and dance numbers.

[Babycakes]

I'll admit that I've never seen one episode, but I think they took a good premise and screwed it up. It's not really a glee club anymore from what I've seen of the performances. It's like bad karaoke or American Idol group performances. Glee clubs take an old or popular song, and skillfully reinterpret it. I haven't seen that since the Don't Stop Believing performance. The Gaga stuff was like they were trying to capitalize on what's new and hot, and not really bringing anything new and fresh to Gaga's songs. I liked this performance a lot. It's what I think of when a glee club does a pop song. JMHO.

ETA: I know it' a 1hour dramodey that has to have more than just singing to make it entertaining, but the performances don't seem that creative anymore.

[incognito]

Sept 2, 2010 12:58:58 GMT -4 Wol said:

I will dish the gossip dirt on any and all that I know, but y'all gotta remember that I've been out of the business for almost 10 years, so my dirt is usually outdated. I do happen to know some folks in the NYC theater world, so that stuff could be more current (hence Lea, or as we like to call her, Toucan Sam).

Ooh, I would love Broadway gossip. Who's nice? Who's evil? Which cast secretly hates each other? The usual.

More on topic? I wonder if Glee will fall harder and faster than Heroes did in its second season. That would be saying something. I would admittedly feel a delicious sense of schadenfreude, because so many people associated with that show - Lea, Ryan Murphy, Matthew Morrison, etc. - annoy me.