
Lea Michele … oh, honey, what will we ever do with you?! You’re one of the biggest pains I’ve ever heard of, every time you open your mouth I feel like eviscerating something, and to top it all off, you can barely dress yourself. I have to tell you, girl, it’s getting old. I can’t just keep on talking about you over and over because you keep on giving the same diva spiel everywhere you go.
Ok, ok, I will, but just this once!
On plastic surgery: “Have I been asked to change anything? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. When I was 15, my mother and I went to meet a manager who said, ‘You have to get a nose job in order for me to work with you,’” Michele tells us. “My mother would say to me, ‘Barbra Streisand never got a nose job. You’re not getting a nose job.’ And this was before I really even knew who Barbra was. I just knew that she was, like, the messiah for girls like me.”
On being a diva: At a Time magazine party, when a photographer asked who she was, she reportedly replied, “Sarah Palin”—a remark that was taken to be a snotty “Don’t you know who I am?” “I was being silly,” Michele says. “But anyway, that’s a huge thing I learned…. Not everybody knows you and has the same sense of humor. At the same time, if I couldn’t be myself, I’d lose my mind. I came from the theater world, where the word ‘diva’ was awesome,” she continues. “But it’s different in Los Angeles.”
On her weight loss: Michele became the subject of eating-disorder rumors when she suddenly looked very thin during the summer of 2010. Not so, she says—the weight loss was due to a surgery she had because of an infection in her jaw. “I’m half Italian,” says the actress. “I can eat some bitches under the table.”
On that sexy Terry Richardson photo shoot: “People were really offended by this, being that we play high-school students,” she says. “But we’re not high-school students! Cory is almost 30, and Dianna and I are 25. But there was such controversy. I do try to keep in mind that there are a lot of young viewers watching our show. But it’s a delicate balance, continuing to be who you are but also remembering you’re in a certain position. But would I do the shoot again? Absolutely.”
On Gwyneth Paltrow: “I don’t know what people are smoking, because this woman is one of the most talented, beautiful, smart but laid-back, cool people I’ve worked with,” Michele says. “That’s what I hate about this business. Before I met her, I was intimidated because of her image. But she’s the greatest.”
Ugh. That’s really all I have to say. Oh, that, and being a diva is definitely not considered “awesome” in the theatre world. Also, how terrifying is the thought of Lea Michele/Gwyneth Paltrow team-up and does anyone else find it extremely telling that Lea calls Gwyneth one of the coolest people she’s ever worked with?