Idina Menzel Has One Regret About Playing Lea Michele’s Mom On Glee

Idina Menzel has played several iconic characters in her career, originating Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway and voicing Elsa in Frozen, but she has one regret about another memorable role: Lea Michele’s mom on Glee. In a recent interview with Stellar Magazine’s Something to Talk About podcast, the actor admitted that her role on Glee “wasn’t great” for her ego.

In the show’s first season, Menzel portrayed Shelby Corcoran, the coach of New Directions’ rival show choir Vocal Adrenaline who was later revealed to be Rachel Berry’s long-lost mother. However, when she accepted the part, she had just become a mom herself. “I had my son Walker, and then three months later, I got the call,” she explained. At the time, she was still breastfeeding and “couldn’t fit into any of the costumes,” but her main concern was playing the mother of an older teenager when she just had a newborn in real life.

However, she still took the role because she feared becoming a mother would limit her work opportunities in the future. “You’re worried you’re not going to work again, and then people hire you to be someone’s mother when you probably should be their older sister,” she said. “It just wasn’t great for the ego.”

Thankfully, Menzel doesn’t regret her role entirely, quipping that she “sucked it up and sucked myself into my clothes” because she was “excited to work with [creator] Ryan Murphy and be a part of that hit show.” She went on to reprise her character sporadically over the next three seasons, with some unexpected plot twists being thrown her way.

Menzel previously opened up about starring on Glee in 2021, revealing her favorite moment to film in InStyle’s Badass Questionnaire — with some added sarcasm for good measure. “The scene that was the most memorable was probably singing ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ with Lea Michele,” she said. “She was 26, and I probably should’ve been her older sister. But I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about that.”