Lea Michele breaks away from her high school glee club character to tackle a more adult role in New Year's Eve, which marks her first feature film. Michele plays a back up singer who gets trapped in an elevator with Ashton Kutcher and almost misses her big chance at becoming part of Jensen's (played by Jon Bon Jovi) touring group.
At the LA press day for the New Line Cinema/Warner Bros Pictures release, Michele said it was "awesome" to work with Kutcher on the 2011 romantic comedy. "He's hilarious, and I got punk'd a couple times. He's also really smart and would like talk about everything going on in the world, which I had absolutely no idea half the stuff he was talking about so I would go home and Google everything and try to brush up on everything that's going on in our world to come in the next day and try to have a conversation," said Michele, laughing. "But he’s great. He made me feel really comfortable."
Just how did Kutcher punk his co-star? "He opened the door with the towel on. He was supposed to have all of his clothes and opened with a towel, right? He did that," revealed Michele. "It was a good punk."
After playing a teenager obsessed with making it huge in the music industry in Glee, 25 year old Michele says she wasn't necessarily looking for a film role that would include singing. "I didn't really intend on doing a film where I sang. I sing so much on my show that I sort of felt like, you know, maybe I would start looking into things that didn't involve me singing. But when I read the script, these songs were already in there. They didn't add them for me, and I just felt that it was such a perfect part for me to play for my first film, just to really transition from Glee into something. So I thought it was great."
"I had so much fun. I got to be a backup singer for Bon Jovi, which was awesome. And, you know, I think that from now on I might start to try to look into other things without singing, just to maybe give my voice a little bit of a break. But when something as perfect as this comes along where it just makes sense and it fits, then it's sort of a no-brainer."
As the title suggests, New Year's Eve weaves together stories that take place on New Year's Eve. For her own New Year's Eve, Michele plans on doing what she always does. "I do the same thing every year for New Year's. I've done it for the past seven years now. I'm from New York. I did the Times Square thing once and I'll never do it again. But New Yorkers have this special spot in Central Park where they do a 5K run the minute the clock strikes 12. I ran once. Again, I'll never do that again. But it's awesome to watch these people run, and it's such a great environment and place to be. And so that's where I'll be and where I have been for the past like seven years."
Michele will next be heard but not seen as the voice of Dorothy in the animated musical, Dorothy of Oz.* * * * * *
New Year's Eve hits theaters on December 9, 2011.
