-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy- and Grammy-nominated
actress and singer you know from her work on "Glee,"
"Scream Queens," and Broadway's "Spring Awakening."
She stars as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival
of "Funny Girl," which is playing now
at the August Wilson Theatre.
Please welcome to the show Lea Michele, everyone!
[ Mid-tempo music plays ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Hello. -Oh, my God, Fred Armisen!
I'm, like, freaking out right now.
-I know. It's pretty -- He's hosting the car Oscars.
-I heard. I DVR'd it while I was waiting.
-Oh, yeah, get ready. You don't want to miss it.
-I'm so excited. -I'm excited to have you here,
and I also want to say how grateful I am
that you are using your one day off
in the Broadway schedule week to be with us.
Thank you so much for that. -[ Laughs ]
Oh, no, I'm very happy. I'm so happy to be here.
I know, I do seven shows a week, and we get Mondays off.
And, yeah, it's a pretty crazy schedule.
-It is a crazy schedule.
I know you have a 2 1/2-year-old.
-Is there at least some upside to the fact
that you get to spend your mornings with a child?
-Oh, it's great. I thought about it at first.
I was like, "Okay, this is gonna work out.
I have the mornings with the baby,
pretty much the whole day, because I don't get to
the theater till 7:30 for our half-hour.
But it's sort of like going from one full job,
then to another full job. I have two kids.
-Oh, I didn't realize you have two.
-No, I don't. The show is the second.
-The show is the second. [ Laughter ]
But I know what you mean. I think, when you get to the end
of a full day with children, the last thing you want to do
is a Broadway show. -[ Laughing ] Yeah.
If I didn't love it so, so, so much,
then, you know, it would be much harder.
-Well, fans of "Glee" know, obviously,
you've sung all these songs before.
-Yeah. -This is a very important show
to you personally. What's it like --
Did it feel like a culmination of things
to finally be playing Fanny Brice onstage?
-It's wild. It's really -- This, you know, show
has been following me throughout the course of my life.
I first watched the movie when I was in "Spring Awakening"
on Broadway. And then I did so much of it
on "Glee." And now I'm a mom and a wife,
and I'm doing it, and I really feel
like this is the perfect time in my life
to be doing this show. And it's so different, too.
Like, when we did it on "Glee," we were performing it
in a studio, which was fun.
But now, like, getting to do it on a stage with the audience
and getting to just have that, it's so incredible.
It's such a dream come true. -And one of the things
about this role, obviously, is, Barbra Streisand played it,
originated it. It does seem as though
a blessing from her would be important
to someone like you taking it on.
And you have officially heard from Barbra Streisand.
-Oh, my gosh. I did. I finally heard from Barbra.
I got to work the other day,
and my dresser, Alyssa, who I love so much,
had this, like, gold envelope.
It was like -- I don't know --
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,"
like, getting invited. I would think it would arrive
on, like, doves, like a special carrier.
-Heavy? Was there a weight to it?
-No, it was light as a feather. -Oh, right.
[ Laughter ]
And it just -- And she was there,
and she was like, "I have this for you."
And I just knew, and I was like, "Is it from Barbra?"
And she said it was. And it was very sweet,
and she wrote me this beautiful letter.
But one thing she said in it that I just was so --
She was like, "It's really wonderful
when your dreams come true, isn't it?"
And I just fell to my knees and I called Ryan Murphy, my mom,
Jonathan Groff, and Michael Mayer.
Like, these are the people who need to know.
But it was great. And then I got a little nervous
because I was like, "Wait a second.
How do I not know that this is not fake?"
-Yeah. -That some person is just,
you know, playing the worst prank on me in the entire world.
-You would have to be a sociopath to write
that "dreams come true" line as a prank.
The prank is really -- -No, but it did.
For a second there, I was like, "Wait a minute."
And then I knew that my co-star, Ramin,
had gotten a letter from her when the show first opened,
because he knows her. He's performed with her before.
So I snuck into his room, found his copy of his letter,
and then just made sure that the writing was the same.
And it was. So that was all I needed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
He was like, "Were you in my room?"
I was like, "Yes." [ Laughs ]
-You were throwing things out of drawers?
-Everything was just completely...
-He's like, "Either I've been robbed
or Lea Michele came in here to verify handwriting."
-Exactly. That's what it was. I don't know why
that wasn't the first thing that he thought of.
-You -- I think that the stress of taking on a show like this,
even though you know you can sing the songs,
is exponentially worse
because you had to teach yourself how to tap.
-Luckily, I didn't teach myself. They had people.
-Yeah, that's true. -Could you imagine?
I was like, "Lea, here we go." -You watched YouTube.
-Exactly. [ Laughter ]
They were like, "This is a really important part.
We really want to make sure that you can do this,"
because it is such a special part in the show
that, you know, I get to do so much as Fanny.
And then, close to the end of Act 2,
it's like, "And now we're gonna tap for you."
And I just went in, like, super confident.
I was like, "I got this."
You know, like, "I'm just going to totally
learn how to do this, like nothing.
I've never tapped in my life."
I'm like, "I've had a kid. I birthed a child, I can tap."
And then I went in, and within like five minutes,
I think our amazing tap choreographer
saw the blood just, like, drain from my face,
and I just, like, knew it. I was like, "I can't do this."
And I had to like go into the mirror in the bathroom
and have a conversation with myself.
But I learned it, I figured it out,
and now I get to tap on Broadway every night.
-That's great. I love it. -Which is amazing, yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-I bet everybody has that moment.
I think they're like, "If you want to --
We have a talking-to-yourself mirror in the back."
-Oh, yeah, I do it a lot. I do it a lot. [ Laughs ]
-22 costume changes in the show. -Yeah.
-That is -- -Seven --
There's like five or six wigs,
something like seven wig changes,
And yeah. -I know you're working
with the absolute best professionals in the world
when you're doing those kind of quick changes.
-Yeah. -Any close calls, so far?
-Some close calls. Some close calls.
I do one change that's behind a scrim on the stage,
and one of our amazing actresses in the show is there with me,
and she's helping me to change, Effie.
And the scrim just quickly teetered really quick.
We, like, looked at each other, and I was like, "Wouldn't that
just be great if it just completely fell down?
Ramin is there singing. I'm there half naked."
But I'm like, "You know what? If any show, this is, like,
the perfect show where Fanny would think of some, like,
hilarious line to say, and everyone would laugh.
And we would make it -- we'd make it work.
-I think everyone who was there would not complain.
[ Laughter ]
What about, have you -- You know, a show like this,
obviously, you're gonna have people who show up
that you met over the course of your career
or maybe people who you've seen over the course of their career.
Have you seen any recognizable faces in the crowd?
-It's funny, though, 'cause everyone --
some people that I know that come to the show,
they're like, "Do you want to know like if I'm there?"
Or they'll be like, I didn't want to tell you I was there."
I'm like, "No, I love it."
I love, you know, Ryan Murphy, who's my dear friend --
he's come to see the show now three times.
And every time he comes, I, like, give him a little thing.
I think it's great.
But Nicole Kidman was there the other night,
and I saw her, and I, like, froze.
And I was like -- 'Cause no one's wearing masks,
and you can see everyone now.
So I got nervous for, like, a second,
and then I was like, "Okay."
But it's so great 'cause it's super interactive.
And coming from having -- my last Broadway show,
"Spring Awakening," was
very serious, intense subject matter.
But this is, like, we get to have so much fun every night.
It's something new and different and fun.
-I am also so excited --
and I think everybody else here, as well --
that you're going to do a song for us tonight.
-I am! [ Laughs ] [ Cheers and applause ]
-Also the cast album is available for --
-Yes, the cast album! -So, I can't believe
I'm gonna send you off to get ready for a Broadway show
even though you have the night off.
Thank you so much for being here.
You guys, that's Lea Michele. "Funny Girl" is playing now
at the August Wilson Theatre in New York.
We'll be right back with Janelle James.