"You and me are gonna be life long friends."

Their Story

Lea Michele, born and raised in New York City and Jonathan Groff, born and raised in Lanchaster, Pennsylvania were not two people who anyone could have imagined would connect right away. But that’s exactly what happened. Lea and Jonathan first met in December of 2005. Lea, having been workshopping the part of Wendla Bergman for the soon to be Tony Award winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening, since the age of 14, was at auditions to try to find her leading male co-star for the part of Melchior Gabor. Three guys were left in the running for the part of Melchior, one of them being Jonathan Groff.
Jonathan was cast as Melchior in Spring Awakening, where he would be playing the love interest to Lea’s Wendla. On stage, their chemistry was explosive and off-stage, the two connected right away. Backstage their nicknames for each other were “Mom” & “Dad” because they were like the parents of the rest of the cast. But while looking out for others, they always looked out for each other. Jonathan and Lea have been there for each other since the beginning. When the show moved from the Atlantic Theater Company to the Eugene O’Neil Theater on Broadway in December 2006, Lea had a hard decision to make. Pursue a role in Les Miserables as Eponine, or continue with Spring Awakening to Broadway. Being her unconditional love and support, Jonathan was there for Lea through all the tears in making the decision. Lea ultimately stayed with the Spring Awakening cast which went on to earn a Tony Award for Best Musical in 2007 where the cast also performed some of their hit numbers.
During a stage hand strike in 2007, Jonathan was given some time off to go shoot a pilot, Pretty/Handsome, for Nip/Tuck & Popular creator Ryan Murphy. While shooting in LA, Lea came out to visit Jonathan when she was first introduced to Ryan. He told Lea that if Pretty/Handsome was not picked up, he was going to write a show called Glee and had a perfect role in mind for her. He also told Jonathan that if the show Glee was successful, he would also write a part for him.
The pilot was not taken to series, but this still had a big impact on Lea and Jonathan’s future. They came back to NY and continued to perform in Spring Awakening. However, sad times were not far away. On May 18, 2008, Lea and Jonathan performed for the last time on Broadway, the roles of Wendla Bergman and Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening. Cast members had come and gone, but not being able to perform without the other, Lea and Jonathan made their final curtain call on the same night.
In 2009, Glee happened for Lea. So much happened so fast and Glee immediately took off as a hit show about a group of high school misfits just trying to find their voice and place in life. Lea plays the leading female role of Rachel Berry. An ambitious sophomore with a golden voice whose dreams are to perform on Broadway. Rachel is the lead singer of the McKinley High glee club New Directions.
Jonathan came out to visit Lea twice while she was shooting the first 13 episodes of season 1, before Ryan Murphy wrote him a character on the show. Just like a Spring Awakening flashback, Lea and Jonathan acted opposite each other as love interests on Glee. Jonathan was in a total of 7 episodes playing the character of Jesse St. James, a senior and the lead male singer of the rival glee club from Carmel High, Vocal Adrenaline.
Even without Spring Awakening, Jonathan and Lea maintained an incredibly close bond. Since meeting, they’ve seen every project the other has worked on and their families carry a New Years Eve tradition of spending the evening together. Jonathan has described them as “country mouse & city mouse” and both have declared the other their soulmate. They have a bond that runs deeper than friendship and transcends unconditional love.

• [About deciding between taking the role of Eponine in the Les Miserables revival or Wendla in Spring Awakening on Broadway] "The decision was so painful, and the only person who will know about it, truly, how hard it was, is Jonathan Groff, because he literally held my hand through the entire thing and there were numerous nights of walking home, just with me in tears, walking home from the Atlantic. We would walk from 20th Street all the way to 50th and just talk about it." ~ Lea
• "I love Jonathan Groff with all of my heart — he is my best friend in the entire world, and I couldn't imagine being here without him." ~ Lea
• "She’s very silly and she doesn’t take herself too seriously. She loves to laugh and to make jokes, and I’m telling you, I’ve never laughed harder than with her. She’s a trip. One day on set, we were seeing who could do a better impression of her cats. I think I won." ~ Jonathan
• [Lea talking about the song ‘Lucky’ by Jason Mraz] "So I heard this song and I called Jonathan and I was like ‘Oh, there’s this song and every time I listen to it, I think about you and it, you know, it reminds me of us and it just makes me so happy’ He was like ‘Oh, what’s the song?’ and I told him the name of the song and he goes ‘I love that song and I think about you every time I hear it!’ This is our theme song!" ~ Lea
• "I'm still waiting for Alanis Morrisette, and I know Jonathan Groff wants to meet Jennifer Garner. She's been a little busy with her daughter and doing Cyrano! If she comes, I think he will cry, if not have a heart attack. He is so obsessed with her it's disgusting [laughs]." ~ Lea
• "We were practicing a dance number together a couple of months ago with some lifts in it, some big crazy lifts in it. And we were both saying “I don’t know if I would be comfortable doing this with anyone else.” When you’re really comfortable with someone, you can really go outside of your comfort zone because you trust the other person so much" ~ Jonathan

• "Words can’t properly describe it. It’s been a blast. You get to sing and dance with your best friend. And not only do you get to work with your best friend, with sort of all the fun and good times and ease that that involves, but I also get to work with a peer who is an artist that I completely respect and admire. When you are an actor, or a musician or an athlete or whatever, you want to be challenged and work with people that push you and that inspire you, and Lea happens to be one of those artists for me that I have always really admired and really been inspired by and I’ve always been sort of made better by. And so it’s sort of two fold, because I love her so much as an actress and a singer and a performer, and then I also love her so much as a human being and as a person, so it’s been really incredible to get to work with her again. And we have that history together, so there’s an ease in our working relationship that comes with years of knowing each other and knowing each other’s work." ~ Jonathan
• "Our friends call us mom and dad. Sometimes I’m on the phone with Jonathan and I’m like: “Dad, I miss you so much. I can’t wait that you’re going to come over tonight and sleep in bed with me, and I can hold you all night long.” The people that are next to me look at me all weird. This one time, Jonathan got out of a cab and dropped me off at home, and I was like, “ ‘Bye, dad, I love you.” And he [the driver] goes, “That’s your dad?" ~ Lea
• "Our families have spent New Year’s eve together for the last three years - it has become a bit of a tradition. We normally start off with a big party at Lea’s house, and then we put on our big coats and go to Central Park and do the run-up to midnight there." ~ Jonathan
• "We make sure that we connect before the show every day and run some lines, and talk about how we're doing that day because of all we go through on stage together and I think that she's incredible. She's got the voice of an angel and she's so passionate about what she does and she's so wonderful in the show. If one of us is feeling tired, then we raise the other one up. We have a great working relationship. It's a lot to go through, and especially if you didn't like someone...it would be such a challenge...so we're lucky." ~ Jonathan

• [hoot of laughter] "I love that you think that. Everybody—the fans at the stage door, people in our lives—everyone tells us that we should be dating, but Lea has a boyfriend. I don't even know how to describe our relationship, because it's not just colleagues and it's not just best friends. We're certainly not dating by any means, but we care about each other a whole heck of a lot, and we share something really special onstage and off. It's like no other relationship I've ever had." ~ Jonathan
• "I grew up never having had close friends because I was working all the time. All the girls, growing up, everyone had their best friends. And I never, ever had that. And Jonathan is really and truly my first and only best friend. And I couldn’t have picked a better person." ~ Lea
• "Yeah. I had worked with two other Melchiors in the workshop process, and the minute I met Jonathan at the final audition for the Atlantic production, I felt an instant connection. But never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that we would be as close as we are. He's more than my best friend, he's my soul mate, and I thank Spring Awakening for bringing him into my life." ~ Lea
• "We sit in our dressing rooms after the show, and we're like, "I'm not ready to go home, let's lie down!" And we're sitting there on the floor saying, "Do you think Ashley Brown and Gavin Lee do this?" [Laughs.] We honestly can't get enough of each other. I think what we do onstage forced a connection, and I don't know what any future Wendla and Melchiors are going to do if they don't love, love, love each other. It's so intimate. I think we got lucky. Everyone in this cast got lucky."

"We left on the same night. There would have been no way
I could have ever done the show without Jonathan."

The Soundtrack

Backstage at Spring Awakening with Jonathan Groff
Broadway in Bryant Park Hosted by Jonathan Groff
DC Gleek Tour
Glee Gets Romantic
Guilty Ones (live)
Hello (Glee Live at Gibson Universal Ampitheater, 5.21.10): 1, 2
Hello (Glee Live at Radio City, 5.30.10.)
I'll Be Home for Christmas (Joe's Pub)
Interview with Jonathan Groff on Deathtrap and Glee
Jonathan Glee Interview: Meet Jesse
Jonathan Groff Interview with Seth Rudetsky
Jonathan Groff playing with Lea Michelle's Doll
Lea and Jon leaving SAG Awards
Lea Michele 'GLEEful' About Working With Kristin Chenoweth
Once Upon A Dream (Feinstein's Cabaret Concert)
Not While I'm Around (True Colors Cabaret)
Spring Awakening Backstage (Last show)
Spring Awakening Cast Easter Bonnet
Spring Awakening Cast on Modern Love
Spring Awakening Curtain Call (5.18.08): 1, 2
Spring Awakening Interview
Spring Awakening Last Speech
Spring Awakening Last Stage door
Spring Awakening Round Table
Spring Awakening to Glee with Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff
"The [title of show] Show" (Episode 6)
The Word of Your Body (True Colors Cabaret)
Tony Awards 2010: 1, 2, 3, 4