After rewatching Glee in its entirety, Kevin McHale and Jenna Ushkowitz are sharing what it was like to see their late costars, Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera, on screen again.
While guesting on a recent episode of How Rude, Tanneritos! hosted by Full House stars Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber, McHale and Ushkowitz — who played Artie and Tina on Glee, respectively — agreed that rewatching Ryan Murphy’s musical dramedy series for their own And That’s What You REALLY Missed podcast was unexpectedly “healing and therapeutic” when it came to revisiting their friends’ performances. Monteith died from an overdose in 2013 in the middle of filming for season 4, while Rivera died seven years afterward in an accidental drowning.
“I just appreciate their talent more in addition to loving the humans that they were,” Ushkowitz said of the pair. “For Cory, especially, we had to mourn all of that in the show, while we were filming it, and move on without him in the show.”
“Some moments it’s hard, especially with the storylines or the songs they’re singing,” added McHale. “It really is a gift that we get to watch this, and we got so many moments of how great they are as people [that] shine through.”
The actor also explained that he and Ushkowitz had previously decided to rewatch Glee years ago on a different podcast called Showmance, but they scrapped the project after Rivera died at the age of 33 while on a boating trip with then-4-year-old son Josey. Shortly afterward, authorities concluded that the vocalist, who played Santana Lopez on Glee, likely used her last moments to get Josey safely back on their boat after taking a swim before she disappeared beneath the water.
Even before that happened, however, McHale said it was difficult to take in Monteith’s scenes as lovable jock-turned-show-choir-geek Finn Hudson. “It was hard for me to even watch Cory,” he recalled. “Up to that point, I couldn’t really listen to the songs he was singing on, but watching it really helped [us] get through it.”
“When Naya passed away, we were like, ‘We can’t do this anymore,’” McHale added. “We just ended the show.”
When it came time to revisit the idea of a Glee rewatch podcast, McHale noted that he and Ushkowitz decided that they wanted And That’s What You REALLY Missed — which premiered in September 2022 — to be a “celebration” of their friends’ lives and talents. The actress also noted that going back through the episodes allowed her to give their cast and crew more “grace” when it came to how “off the rails” the show’s plot went almost immediately after losing Monteith, to whom they paid tribute in a season 4 episode titled “The Quarterback.”
Listen to McHale and Ushkowitz’s full How Rude, Tanneritos! episode below.