Archive

Naya Rivera, Heather Morris and Lea Michele talk tour, that on-stage kiss and “The Real L Word”

When I got to the Fox TCA Party at Gladstone’s in Malibu on Friday, I knew I had to make a beeline for the Glee girls because they wouldn’t be sticking around long. They had a huge press day Saturday for the premiere of the Glee Live 3-D film, and would be needing to get their beauty sleep in preparation.

The first woman I spotted was Naya Rivera, who was definitely at the top of my list. She had a line of reporters waiting to talk to her, and her publicist warned us all that she wasn’t sticking around long. Thankfully she loves AfterEllen.com, and chanted “We’re number one!” regarding Naya’s reign as the AfterEllen.com Hot 100 queen this year. I waited patiently, admiring Naya’s red pumps and casual demeanor as she answered questions from a handful of others before I had my chance.

So here’s what she knows about the new season: Close to nothing. “I have no idea!” she said. “I literally have no idea!” Regarding Santana getting a love interest or coming out to her family: “I hope so! Those are things they could explore, so we’ll see!”

What she does know from the first episode, however, is that Santana is definitely graduating this year. Naya said she has an idea of how Santana spent her summer vacation.

“I think she literally was racking her brain about this whole senior year thing and was stressed about how she’s going to come back,” Naya said. “She’s a very pre-planning person, so she probably spent the summer plotting.”

Naya herself spent the summer on stage with her castmates, of course, and I had to ask about the kiss she shared with Heather Morris during the Dublin date.

“It was the last show and everybody had that ‘balls to the wall’ fun attitude and, you know, the fans love it. Give them what they want,” Naya said. “I was just like ‘Hey’ and I asked Chris and Darrin and everybody, I said ‘Would you guys mind if I like came out for a second and gave her a little mouse kiss?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, sure let’s do it!’ It just ended up being a fun thing.”

A very fun thing, indeed. Naya doesn’t have any particular songs she’d want to sing with Heather this year, as she’s still happy with their performance of the Britney Spears/Madonna duet last year.

“Well ‘Me Against the Music’ was fantastic,” she said. “I don’t think I can [outdo that] so I guess we did it!”

And those of you waiting patiently for Naya to release her solo debut can rest assured she is already hard at work on it.

“I’ve started working with different people. I’ve done a couple songs,” she said. “It’s an exploration process, just trying to figure out what it is. So it’s not so much doing the album, it’s like ‘let’s see what we’re doing!'”

What a tease! (We love it.) I told her she looked gorgeous as always, and later spotted her chatting with castmates Harry Shum Jr. and Ashley Fink.

Next on my list was Heather Morris, of course, and she was sitting with a plate of food on her lap as she entertained questions from a journalist. The publicist motioned that I could sit down and wait my turn, so I did. I told Heather I’d make it quick as she obviously wanted to eat her dinner, and it looked so good I was ready to go inside and make myself a plate.

I got right down to business: “Heather, the lesbians love you.”

“I love lesbians!” she said. But flattery was getting nowhere, because she, too, said she “literally doesn’t know anything” about the upcoming season. “I’m not going to lie!” she said. (That’s Whitney’s signature line. Has she been watching The Real L Word with castmate Lea Michele?)

Besides doing some more dancing this year, Heather wants the Cheerios to make a return.

“They should come back. They are entertainment! They are necessary,” she said. “It’s like variety shows when they have half-time entertainment with dancers, that’s almost what they’re like!”

Heather said she loves dancing and going on tour, but she’s not sure what artist she’d want to hit the road with again, should she ever have the free time to do so.

“I don’t know. My mind changes constantly,” she said. “I go through do different phases, like I’d love to go back on tour, but I think it’d have to be a different type of experience. But we might be going back on tour, we’ll see.”

I wanted to find out how she felt about the kiss with Naya while on the Glee tour, so she told me in her own words.

“We just thought it was our last show, and we were excited backstage getting ready,” Heather said. “The whole show was a mess anyways, so right before we went on [Naya] said ‘I think I’m going to come on stage” and I was like ‘Yes, do it, please please!’ So she was like, ‘Do you mind if I kiss you on stage?’ And I was like ‘Let’s do it! Let’s go for it!’ Everybody of course was like ‘Yeah!’ Most of those skits are improv anyway, we get into it and so we wanted to do something fun.”

So what song would Heather want Brittany and Santana to sing together this year? She has a very specific idea.

“I said ‘Daydreamer’ by Adele in the last couple of interviews we were doing,” Heather said. “I think her and I both semi-love the idea, so I keep saying it in interviews because maybe they’ll hear it and go – well I want her to sing it, but if I can sing it too, because it’s a lower octave, it would be nice to do it.”

I could see that – if you change all the “he’s” to “she’s” and sing it lovingly into each other’s eyes. Approved!

I ventured inside and spotted Lea wearing a sequined dress and circled by reporters. Her publicist told me to jump in, as Lea was leaving, like, five minutes ago. I got into the huddle as Lea was explaining what she knows about Rachel’s storyline this season.

“I know I’m going to have some great stuff with Darren Criss,” she said. “I know I’m going to be in the school musical, I can’t say what it is though. So for me, I know some little things. I’m really excited about them. I think the Rachel and Finn thing will be kind of a mature storyline between the two of them. Less of on and off breakups and more of an honest thing – she wants to go to New York, she wants to leave this small town.”

Someone asked about guest stars, and she said she loved Gwyneth Paltrow, later referring to her as “GP,” but she wouldn’t pick a favorite. Then I asked my super hard-hitting question: “How do you feel about your lesbian fans? We all thought it was hilarious you Tweeted about your love of The Real L Word.”

“OK, listen to me,” Lea said. “It’s become a little bit of an obsession. Do you guys watch that show? it’s a little raunchy, I will tell you. I don’t let my boyfriend watch it with me. The other day he sat on the couch and tried to watch it with me and I was like ‘You have to go into the office.’ He’s like, ‘What, I can’t watch this with you?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not. This is my guilty pleasure. I love it!’ So it’s like a serious thing in our household right now. I love that show. I absolutely adore it. They’re all stunning. Where are all these women? Where do they come from? I don’t understand. Out of nowhere.”

“West Hollywood,” I informed her.

“West Hollywood? Jesus!”

But she adores her lesbian fans, telling me, “Baby, I’m from New York. That’s all I gotta say about that. Before I say something my publicist gets upset about! [Laughs]”

Publicists, ruiners of fun.

Unfortunately, Lea had to leave and Dianna Agron wasn’t at the event, so my job there was done.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button