‘Glee’ Almost Starred Justin Timberlake as Mr. Shue. It Explains A Lot.
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Have you or someone you love been victimized by Glee‘s bombastic (and often wildly inappropriate) choir teacher Mr. Shue? Well, according to Glee showrunner Ryan Murphy, the Mr. Shue most people know (and didn’t love) wasn’t supposed to be played by actor Matthew Morrison. During an interview on And That’s What You REALLY Missed, a Glee podcast hosted by former cast members Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz, Murphy said that the role was originally intended for pop star Justin Timberlake. Yep, you read that right.
Talk of casting was brought up in a larger conversation surrounding the origins of the hit Fox television series. Murphy, who co-created the show and served as showrunner and executive producer, told McHale and Ushkowitz that the show was originally conceived as a much darker film written by Ian Brennan. According to Murphy, he had been trying to think of a way to make the musical format work on television when he was approached by a friend of Brennan’s at the gym and given a copy of the script. “Like serendipity, I went to the gym, and I was in a towel, and a guy went up and handed me a script, and he said, ‘I had a feeling you were in show choir, am I right?’ And I was like ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘My friend wrote this script and you should read it,’ ” Murphey recalled
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Murphy said while some aspects of Glee — like its show choir setting — remained the same, the script included several key details that were ultimately the cutting room floor. In the original conception, Mr. Shue was an unraveling crystal meth addict and was the main protagonist of an NC-17 version of show choir. By the time Murphy was done with the script, it was a Glee pilot written with Timberlake as the lead.
Murphy didn’t elaborate on what prevented Timberlake from taking on the role, as the rest of his interview will air on the podcast’s next episode. But he did call the casting process “wonderous” and “amazing” and said that while other established actors were considered, the creators were mostly focused on using newcomers. “Let’s make stars,” he said on the podcast, describing his feelings on casting. “There’s so much talent out there. Let’s find people.”
A Fox offering that consistently pushed the boundaries of what was bearable and permissible on cable television, Glee defined the careers of its main characters, elevating some to stardom and Murphy to television writing fame. The gay showrunner, who went on to make The Politician, American Horror Story, The Watcher, and more, has made a career for himself on shock value and used Glee‘s success to launch a veritable empire of tv programming — all trying to capture the sheer bravado, shock, and camp factor that Glee brought to every episode.
“Glee was never a show about a campus choir,” Rolling Stone said at the show’s finale in 2015. “It was never a teen melodrama where the competitions mattered in spite of how specifically folks explained or agonized over the rules. It was never about high school, really. Even when characters sobbed their way through two graduation ceremonies, the end of all that never really mattered. Instead, Ryan Murphy’s weekly musical revue was a story about the great lengths people go in order to be anybody’s somebody, be it a spouse or a star.”
The news comes as fans of the Fox craze have begun to look back on the show and its historic effect on pop culture. And apparently, old stans of the show aren’t the only ones ready to reminisce. A recurring joke about Rachel Berry, a Glee character played by Lea Michele, has revived a mired Broadway musical Funny Girl by making Michele its star (a reality ripped straight from a Glee plotline). And in October, Discovery announced it would be releasing a three-part documentary about the show, with never-before-heard facts, interviews with cast members, and above all else: drama.
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