It’s almost time for the Glee cast to sing their swan song. After six years and six seasons, the McKinley High New Directions are preparing their final numbers for the Fox musical hit’s series finale on Friday, March 20.
Stars Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, Chord Overstreet, Jenna Ushkowitz, and Darren Criss appeared on the Thursday, March 12 episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to talk about taping the emotional finale.
“We were watching Matt Morrison sing us all a song so we were very much in our own world experiencing this,” Criss, 28, said of the final scene they filmed. “And one take they pulled a fast one on us, they took Matt out of it and put basically the entire crew and production there looking at us.”
“It’s as if you take every family member and friend that you’ve ever loved and that you have to say goodbye to and put them all in front of you at once,” Ushkowitz, 28, said of the moment that caused them to cry so hard they had to yell “Cut!” on the set.
“We cried so hard that they actually cut,” Michele, 28, said. “We are loud criers, me and Jenna, it was like our vocal cords!”
And it wasn’t just saying goodbye to the current cast and crew that made the last day difficult. After the tragic loss of star Cory Monteith in July 2013, the stars of the Ryan Murphy show felt his presence their last day.
“There’s a moment in the last episode that we had [to honor Monteith], and then obviously when we wrapped we all took a moment,” Overstreet, 26, said.
Monteith was found dead at age 31 in his hotel room after overdosing on heroin and alcohol. At the time he had been dating costar Michele.
“He was there, though, we could feel him. He was there,” Colfer, 24, added.
