Lea Michele's “Glee” Costars Recall Her 'Strength' on Set After Cory Monteith's Death: 'Heartbreaking on So Many Levels'

“What a strange time for her,” Jenna Ushkowitz said of Michele

Glee alumni Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz are looking back at the “strength” costar Lea Michele showed while filming the show’s first episode following Cory Monteith’s shocking death in 2013.

As McHale and Ushkowitz noted on the latest episode of their rewatch podcast And That’s What You Really Missed, the 31-year-old Monteith’s death in July 2013 delayed the start of production on Glee’s fifth season. When the cast and crew reconvened that August to begin filming the first of two Beatles-centric episodes, they “were all very much in the early stages of grieving,” according to McHale, 36.

“And then we're back in the same places that we had spent so much time with Cory,” McHale recalled. “Like, instinct kicked in, and we were just sort of on autopilot because we could sort of be on autopilot by this point.”

Related: Cory Monteith Honored by Lea Michele on the 10th Anniversary of His Death: 'Miss You Every Day'

Rewatching the season 5 opener, “Love, Love, Love,” for the podcast, the hosts were particularly impressed by Michele’s performance. The actress had been dating Monteith for more than a year at the time of his death.

“I do not know how she did any of this,” McHale said. “She's still the main character in this show and is very much, like, the main character in this episode.”

Ushkowitz, 38, added that she was “shocked” by the strength it took for Michele to show up and “power through” her scenes in the wake of the tragedy.

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McHale described Michele’s performance of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” in the episode as “heartbreaking on so many levels.”

Both hosts recalled the show’s cast and crew “circling the wagons” and allowing each other to experience whatever emotions came up during filming.

“There was a mutual understanding, like, if anybody was in a mood on a certain day, everything was fine. Everything was allowed. Everything was acceptable. And it was just sort of like, ‘Do what you have to do to get through,’ ” McHale said.

At the same time, McHale noted that Michele’s New York-set storyline meant that she wasn’t sharing scenes with many of her long-time castmates.

“In this episode, there are a lot of people, like background actors, a lot of guest stars,” he explained. “There's a lot of people that were not close to us. And it obviously was a very big deal publicly when Cory passed away. And the amount of media attention that Lea had gotten through that was unbelievable in, like, a sort of, like, horrible way.”

Related: Cory Monteith's Glee Costars Admit Drug Overdose Plot Still Hits 'Too Close to Home' 10 Years After His Death

“I just couldn't stop thinking about, like, the amount of energy it probably took to sort of, like, show up and protect yourself from probably people, like, staring at you wondering ‘How is she doing?’ And, there's so many scenes like that in this episode,” McHale continued.

Ushkowitz perhaps summed it up best: “What a strange time for her.”

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