'Glee' Actress Reveals She Was A Nervous Wreck Around Lea Michele: 'Don't Even Look In Her Direction'

Actress Lindsay Pearce recently opened up about how star-struck and intimidated she was of Lea Michele while filming a scene on "Glee." 

The star completed "The Glee Project" in 2011 and became a runner-up along with Alex Newell. The show's winners at the time included Damian McGinty Jnr and Samuel Larsen.

The spinoff was set up so that upcoming stars could compete to get a spot on the main hit drama "Glee." However, in a recent interview, Pearce said that despite interacting with the cast members during the spinoff, she still became anxious while working with them on the actual set.

Read on for more details.

Ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Fox hit drama series, "Glee," Pearce shared that she was nervous around the show's main star, Lea Michelle, and was afraid to star alongside her in her two-episode stint. Pearce played the sophomore Harmony in the show, while Michele played Rachel Berry.

"I remember when Lea came in, and I was like, 'Don't talk to her. Don't even look in her direction. Leave her alone,'" Pearce told Insider. "Because she's the star of the show." On the other hand, she got on well with the rest of her co-stars, including Chris Colfer, who played the role of Kurt Hummel, and the show creator, Ryan Murphy.

"Chris was like, 'Did you win?' I was like, 'I didn't!'" she recalled. "He was really sweet."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCd72kiy8TE

The star joined the show in 2011, and while she only starred in two episodes, she impressed critics so much that they thought of her as the "best new character ever." While speaking in retrospect, Pearce was glad that she did excellently with her role in "Glee."

"I've seen clips of those performances throughout the years, and I marvel at how on fire I was, how locked in I was," Pearce said. "I can't believe that, at 20, I was so confident. The Glee Project trained me well to do Glee well, and I was always really proud of what I could put out in those two episodes."

She also shared that she had a mashup of "Anything You Can Do" and used two days to learn the tap dance moves from "Glee" choreographer Zach Woodlee. However, she was grateful that the editors cut away her feet for most of the episode.

Following her stint with the hit drama musical, she went on to feature on Broadway, playing a major character in "Wicked." She later joined "Mean Girls" this year to play the famous Janis Sarkisian. In an interview with Click On Detroit, she shared how she felt performing on the "Mean Girls" cast she initially watched as a child.

"Their energy is just unbelievable; they were so welcoming. They had to say goodbye to the original Janis on the tour who created the role on the road with them," she began.

"I can only imagine how affecting that would be to say goodbye to someone you've been working with for two and a half years. So coming in and treating me as if I'd always been there was extremely gracious, compassionate, and considerate. It's a very special place to work a thousand times over."

Michele played the role of Rachel Berry in "Glee" until the end of the musical series in 2015. She bagged several nominations for this role, including a Golden Globe and an Emmy awards nomination.

The "Scream Queens" actress is now set to replace Beanie Feldstein in Broadway's "Funny Girl." At the time of the announcement, she took to her Instagram to share the news.

"Playing Fanny Brice on Broadway has been a lifelong dream of mine, and doing so for the last few months has been a great joy and true honor. Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated," she shared with her followers. 

"I'm incredibly honored to join this amazing cast and production and return to the stage playing Fanny Brice on Broadway. See you on September 6th."