Kate Hudson Opens up About ‘Very Dramatic’ Experience on ‘Glee’ Set

Kate Hudson is opening up about her time on Glee. In a recent episode of Hudson’s Sibling Revelry podcast, she and her brother Oliver Hudson had the chance to sit down with actor Jenna Ushkowitz, who played Tina Cohen-Chang on the show, and discussed the set, which Hudson called “dramatic.” 

Hudson, 45, played Rachel Berry’s (Lea Michele) no-nonsense dance instructor, Cassandra July, in five episodes of season 4 of the Fox series. “It was a very dramatic set,” Hudson says. “Well, you know, when you’ve got all of those personalities and all that talent and all that youth, and a lot of hormones … it’s youthful, and young.” 

Filming and touring together helped create that experience, Ushkowitz said. “We were all very close,” the Glee alum shared. “And yes, we had our squabbles, but we really were a family, and it was easier to get along than it wasn’t. And as dramatic as it was, there’s so many moving parts of our show and so many cast members and so many personalities.” 

Hudson agreed. “I think it was because you all were so close and the show was so huge. So you’re all this young little family, and of course inside of it you’re gonna have all the stuff that comes with it.”

As an entertainment industry veteran of over two decades, Hudson commented that there was an abundance of talent in that room, as well as young people advocating for themselves, which created “some fun drama.” Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale, who played Artie Abrams on Glee, have their own podcast called And That’s What You Really Missed. In it, they talk about their time at William McKinley High School during the show’s run.

According to Ushkowitz, working on the podcast has been a rewarding experience. “It’s strange and cathartic and therapeutic at the same time,” she says. “There’s enough time and space away from it that I feel like I’m watching it from a fan’s perspective instead of all that baggage that came with the show.” 

A podcast episode from December 2023 revealed McHale started rumors about Michele, 37, and castmate Cory Monteith (who played Finn Hudson) dating before they admitted it. “Ratings had started to dip a little,” McHale explained during an episode when he and Ushkowitz discussed shooting the Christmas episode for Season 3. “We had enjoyed two very solid years of success and really great ratings, and it was the first time they had started to go down in a significant way.”

According to McHale, Michele was up for staging her romance with Monteith. “I was like, ‘I’m sitting across the room. What if I pretend to take a picture of Jenna and in the background, the very edge of frame, are Cory and Lea being a little extra snuggly?’” he said. “I said, ‘I’ll put it up and wait a little bit for people to notice, and then I’ll delete it, like I did something wrong.’ Because the intention was we were gonna get rumors started that Cory and Lea are dating, and people will watch the show.”

After the incident, Michele informed McHale that she and Monteith were actually dating. They two had been together since late 2011 until Monteith died at age 31 of an accidental overdose in July 2013.