Glee’s Mr Schue was ‘a crystal meth addict’ in first script, Ryan Murphy reveals
Matthew Morrison once asked to be written out of Glee. (FOX)
Ryan Murphy has revealed that the original script for Glee was much darker, and showed Mr Schuester as a drug addict.
Speaking to ex-Glee cast members Kevin McHale (Artie Abrams) and Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang) on their podcast And That’s What You REALLY Missed, Murphy recalled how he was given a script before he began developing the show.
“I went to the gym and I was in a towel and a guy went up and handed me a script and he said, ‘I had a feeling you were in show choir, am I right?’ And I was like ‘Yeah.'”
Murphy continued: “And he said, ‘My friend wrote this script and you should read it.'”
The script, written by co-creator Ian Brennan, contained a much darker tone.
“Mr Schue, I believe, was a crystal meth addict in Ian’s script,” Murphy said. “The NC-17 version of show choir with a weird protagonist who was unraveling.”
Mr Schuester (or Shchue) is the Spanish teacher and director of Glee‘s central show choir at McKinley High School, played by Matthew Morrison.
Murphy said that despite the original script tone, he thought it had the perfect show choir storyline. Murphy said that he asked Brennan to rework the script because he wanted the show to be more “pop-y” and “not dark”.
McHale added that Mr Schue was also going to inappropriately touch his students.
“I just need something optimistic,” the award-winning writer said.
Murphy also let slip for the first time that Will Schuester was not written for Morrison, but Justin Timberlake instead.
“When we were writing the pilot, I’ve never really talked about this, that pilot was written for Justin Timberlake. Mr Schue was written for Justin.”
It has recently been announced that a new docuseries will examine the tragedies and controversies surrounding Glee, which ran from 2009-2015.
