The final few seasons of Glee were almost very, very different.
In a new episode of Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz’ podcast And That’s What You REALLY Missed, Matthew Morrison, who played teacher Will Schuester on the beloved high school musical show, revealed that during production of season five, he asked to be written off the show.
“I actually was trying to get off the show,” he said. “In season 5, I asked to be off the show, ‘cause I was just like, I’m no longer being used in the way I wanted to.”
“No disrespect to the show,” he added. “We are at a high. I was like ‘Maybe if I get off the show, I could go do something else, go do a movie,’ and they agreed to let me off the show.”
However, Morrison’s plans changed after his co-star Cory Monteith tragically passed away in 2013 at the age of 31.
“Cory passed, and then they said they couldn’t do it. Because you can’t have the two main guys on the show [leave]. So yeah, it was an interesting time,” he said.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I get it,’” Morrison continued. “You know, trying to reconcile my own wants and selfish needs with the grief of losing an amazing friend, you know, there’s a lot of mixed emotions. But I’m a professional, I showed up, I did my job. And there was a good pay increase, so that worked too.”
Glee ran from 2009 to 2015, and the more we hear from actors on the show, the more it seems like it was a nightmare to film and be on.