The joy of change

Lea Michele and Glee producers on moving on to Scream Queens.

SCREAM QUEENS REUNITES star Lea Michele with the triumvirate that created Glee - Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. And while they all still miss Cory Monteith, they say going right into Scream Queens helped them heal. "It really has been a gift," says Murphy. Here, they open up about saying goodbye to Glee - and moving on to Scream Queens.
Star Lea Michele on how hard it was to say goodbye to Glee: "It was really hard. But I was so thankful to know I didn't have to say goodbye to Ryan and Brad and Ian and a lot of our crew. I loved Glee so much. I miss Rachel Berry so much. We would be starting our seventh season right now. But I do think I got to a point where I was proud of the job I had done, and I felt very satisfied. I was so happy with how they were able to end the story. I don't feel that I wish I could have sang that song or danced that dance. I did it all. That was the last song on the show, 'I did it all.' We did it all."
Executive producer Ryan Murphy on how Scream Queens has made him find joy again: "The Cory (Monteith) thing was a very dark and destabilizing thing, and I don't think I really realized how hard it was until (Glee) was over. I love seeing Lea happy. It feels like I'm laughing again. Brad, Ian and I did go through a dark period, and I feel like this is a joyful experience because we love the cast so much and the story so much. It reminds me of a lot of happy beginnings. You never really get over it, and it comes in waves that you do not see coming. Recently, I was playing with my two sons. I'd bought a CD of instrumental nursery rhymes, and Don't Stop Believin came on. I really felt Cory in the room. I'm sure I'll always have just a sadness in my life. I do think that there was so much possibility in him. But the show feels like a happy thing after a sad thing, because we do have so much fun making it. We laugh all day long at Ian Brennan's jokes. It feels good to be in that space again."
Executive producer Brad Falchuk on whether he was ready to end Glee: "I think it's like graduating high school. You're sort of sad about it, but at the same time you're like, 'OK, gotta go.' In a perfect world, that show probably was a 50- or 60-episode show, where we could have told three seasons of stories and graduated from high school and been done. But it doesn't work that way. I think that when Cory died - all of us really lost it then. I know I did. He was always my access point to the show but I think, in general, he was everyone's access point to the show. Because he was the guy who could look at all this craziness in this world, and all this weirdness and be like, 'What?' But not judge it, just be confused by it. To me, what gave the show the broad appeal was seeing him accept Rachel and Kurt and those people who are the more fringe characters in the world. He was saying, 'No, I'm gonna try and embrace them. It's hard because they confuse the hell out of me.' When he was gone, there was no one there to use for that. And then suddenly it's not there. Every day I think about it. I talk about it with Lea, too. I loved him very much and I loved writing that character very much. I just miss both of them." Reuters