Ryan Murphy 'Devastated by Everything' That Happened with 'Glee'

Perhaps Ryan Murphy's greatest contribution to pop culture is just how GIF-able all of his shows are. There's a GIF for every emotion, every sentiment, every shady situation and in this place and time in our culture, a GIF says a thousand and one words. The Hollywood Reporter explores Murphy's connection with the zeitgeist in the magazine's October 23 issue, wherein Murphy speaks about the fall of the Roman Empire known as Glee, comparing it to that other Empire on Fox.

"I look at the Empire cast and everything that's going on with them, and I'm just like, 'Don't do it. Keep it together.' And I think they have in the way that we never did," Murphy told THR. "To this day, I'm devastated by everything that happened with that show."

But really, aren't we all? The first season of Glee was a watershed moment in television. After garbage like Viva Laughlin, which not even Hugh Jackman could save, someone had finally done a musical right on TV—not to mention the fact that it was fun and funny, at times poignant, and solidified Jane Lynch as a national treasure. 

Related | Power 50: Ryan Murphy

But—cue the E! True Hollywood Story music—the real drama went on behind the scenes:

I was there with them all day long, and then we'd finish work and we'd go out and have fun all night, and I guess in a weird, twisted way, I was trying to relive the childhood I never had. I thought they wanted a parent, and they didn't. They didn't want me to tell them what to f—ing do. They didn't want me to tell them how to treat each other or what the world was like at the end of the day. I wish I could go back and do that differently with a lot of those actors.

Meanwhile, that sounds like a door opening fir a Glee revival ten years down the road, but no sooner. We all still need time to mourn what was.

Here are 10 other things we learned from Ryan Murphy's THR interview:

He's still "very close" with Lea Michele, Chord Overstreet and Darren Criss.

15-year-old Ryan Murphy will steal your boyfriend:

"I would walk down the hallway in high school and be called 'fag,' but I'd never let it stop me. I'd make a joke about it or I'd make it my goal to befriend those people, and then I'd end up sleeping with their boyfriends."

15-year-old Ryan Murphy was also dating a 22-year-old named Drew. That came to an end, however, when Murphy's mother found some of Drew's love letters in a drawer.

Scream Queens will "likely" have four survivors this season, who will play the same characters in a "new venue."

Murphy's role models are Tom Ford and Baz Luhrmann, he dreams of working with Nicole Kidman and the first time he was starstruck was by Meryl Fucking Streep.

Murphy produced the "Transparent before Transparent,"Pretty/Handsome, a pilot about a married gynecologist seeking a gender confirmation surgery that FX ultimately passed on. 

He dated Dreamgirls director Bill Condon for much of his 20s.

Murphy's dad believed in warm late-night chats with his son:

"He'd make me sit at the kitchen table while he smoked with the timer on and he'd say the same thing over and over to me: 'I don't see myself in you, and I want you to tell me why that is.'"

Orange is the New Black could've been a Ryan Murphy production, but he "just could never figure out how to do it."

Murphy and Gaga are "creative soul mates" and are discussing a potential role on the sixth season of American Horror Story.

Les Fabian Brathwaite—still believin'.

Ryan Murphy 'Devastated by Everything' That Happened with Glee

Ryan Murphy 'Devastated by Everything' That Happened with Glee