Gleeky

In a new interview with TV Guide, [Lea Michele] teased that her alter ego may be about to get a bit of a drastic makeover at the hands of Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, who will appear in a number of episodes in the fourth run. Chris Colfer also opened up about the new storyline and admitted that Rachel is crying out for a new look now that she is in the big city.

Lea agreed and went [on] to confirm that Berry will struggle with some of the non singing elements of her studies at NYADA. In particular, Rachel will find dance classes difficult and Michele revealed:

“Dance is not Rachel’s strong point, but as a freshman it’s a requirement class she has to take. It will put Rachel in a very vulnerable place, stuck with a teacher [played by Kate Hudson] who doesn’t make it easy for her.”

Colfer revealed that he will be working closely with Sex And The City star Parker, as his character Kurt “will find himself in an establishment where Sarah Jessica Parker is his manager of sorts, but not in a performance sense.”

Meanwhile, Finn will be heading in a whole new direction to his two crooning pals and it seems he will most likely be accepting a place in army bootcamp in season four.

Cory Monteith teased:

“Finn would have to be in very good shape and get incredibly fit, meaning I would have to be incredibly fit.”

He laughed:

“I’m doing extra stuff this summer – CrossFit and fewer Snickers bars.”

Reports of a mass exodus at the end of Glee‘s upcoming third season have apparently been greatly exaggerated.

On Sunday morning, Glee co-creator and exec producer Brad Falchuk told the standing room-only crowd attending the Fox megahit’s San Diego Comic-Con panel that Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Cory Monteith are not being let go from the show upon their characters’ May 2012 “graduation” and may very well be back for Season 4 — if not beyond.

“Here’s the exact thing: [Rachel, Kurt and Finn] are seniors, so they’re graduating,” Falchuk explained, “but because they’re graduating doesn’t mean they’re leaving the show. If you have Lea Michele under contract, you don’t say, ‘We’re gonna let you go.’” Plus, the EP pointed out, “A number of the original [cast members’ characters] are not graduating this year.”

Falchuk reiterated, “It was never our plan or our intention to let them go…. They are not done with the show after this season.”

The other, less positive piece of news coming out of the session — which was moderated by TVLine Editor-in-Chief Michael Ausiello — is that Chord Overstreet will not be back this fall — at all. According to Falchuk, Overstreet was offered a deal to return for 10 episodes with an eye towards becoming a series regular at midseason, but the 22-year-old actor declined.

Falchuck explained that Harry Shum Jr. (aka Mike) and Darren Criss (Blaine) successfully parlayed guest-starring turns into full-time promotions, and hoped to accomplish same for Overstreet. To that end, he said, “We did invite [Chord] back for a portion of the season … to see if being a regular was a possibility. But he declined the offer, which we were really disappointed by.”

Added Falchuk, “We wanted him back because we like Chord personally and had some good stories planned for him and with Mercedes. He decided he would have opportunities elsewhere that he would like to pursue, and we can’t force him to work, so we wished him well.”

TVLINE | Congrats! How does this nomination compare to last year’s?
There was almost more pressure this year because  I was nominated last year. Last year, everyone was kind of like, “What? That’s crazy that [he] was nominated.” So this year, I think a lot of people were expecting me to get nominated, but I was not one of them. I honestly didn’t think there was going to be room for me in the category [because the list of potential nominees] is so vast and a lot of my stuff is so dramatic [rather than comedic] on the show. So I didn’t think I was going to be included.

TVLINE | It has to be odd — bittersweet — to make the cut again when Lea and Matthew Morrison, who also received nods last year, did not.
It is. We all work extremely hard on our show, and I know how much Matt and Lea put into it every day, so I am disappointed to see that they didn’t get nominations.

TVLINE | Would “disappointed” also be a fair assessment of your reaction to being “graduated” off the show?
It’s definitely not my choice. But I completely understand that it works for the integrity of the show. One of the things that I love about Glee is, despite characters breaking into song in the middle of the hallway, it was very real to me. It always seemed like a very real high school environment. And I think by having some characters graduate, they’ll continue having that element.

TVLINE | And of course this doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Kurt Hummel, right? There could be a spinoff.
As of right now, it’s just rumors. I’m not attached or signed on for any spinoff. There hasn’t been anything official yet.