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bowtiesnmusicals · 1 year

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Here is my recap of the Things Get a Little Harry with Harry Shum Jr. Episode of the podcast.

Today they have a very very special guest. Kevin said its a long one so lets get to it.

They have the one, the only, well actually the second because he is Harry Shum Jr but the one and only Mike Chang.

Kevin said get ready for some wisdom. Jenna said he is such a golden nugget of good thoughts. Kevin said what’s it like to smart. Jenna said I’ll never know. They have to combine their brains to make a barely whole brain.

Kevin said as the years have gone by one of the biggest voices of reason amongst all of them is Harry. He is low key about it. He is a calm and steady force. He said maybe as Harry has gotten older he just speaks his mind and is always right. He has always just had really profound, wise thoughts. Harry said for people that are listening he made that scrunch face kind of like what, where are you every single day of life when I am making completely wrong decisions and saying wrong things. He said he doesn’t know what to say to that. He said maybe because they are on a podcast and speaking more and so their ratio is going to be different.

Jenna said I don’t even know where to begin with you because he started with them. They had such a journey. Harry said we had quite a journey on a rocket ship. Jenna mentioned he has been multiple shows as a series regular. She congratulated him on getting on Grey’s Anatomy. She said she is so happy for Harry and he deserves everything. Also Grey’s was one of favorite shows back in the day. Harry said he thought about her when he got on because Jenna would obsess over the show. He said she would say she has to go. She would DVR it but wanted to watch it live. He said he got a lot of what the vibe of the show as from Jenna. She said your welcome. Harry said you did my homework for me. Jenna said she has to go back because she stopped watching a few years ago. She said she always comes back. It’s still so good ever time she comes back and she definitely watch the new class with Harry. She asked if he having a good time on the show. He said he is and it’s amazing that they brought on five new interns and taking good care and putting effort in getting to know them. He said being on a show that is going into its 20 season and still working at a high level and everyone is gracious and still trying to make it the best it can be. He said they have all been on projects where at a certain year it’s like alright lets get it done. Kevin joked what are you talking about. Jenna was laughing really hard at this point. Hurry said he feels very fortunate and it’s a constant reminder that you can constantly refresh yourself. It’s a really cool thing to be a part of.

Kevin said he remembers hanging out with Harry at Amber’s Masked Singer party and talking about how Harry told him that they were giving him actual medal classes. That he would go to USC and talk to real interns. Harry said they got to see surgery and talk to doctors and interns. He said it was incredibly helpful. He said the importance of the medical stuff, advancing it, and questioning it and also trying to look at it from completely different perspectives while also dealing with the relationship issues and why doctors marry other doctors. You don’t have time to look outside of work to find romance. Kevin said it crazy to have a show that after 20 seasons the show is still grounded and have people coming in with the resources like that. Harry said the medical director, Linda Klein, and she has been with the show since the very beginning. He said she is a beast and knows anyone and everyone in the medical field. He said it’s really amazing you can go to her saying you have an issue who should I go see no she will be like go to this person. Jenna said Kevin needs that. He said this has turned into a Grey’s recap podcast and he’s not mad at it. Jenna said that was her full intention was to only talk about Grey’s Anatomy.

Jenna asked how did being on shows like Glee and Shadowhunters helped him for where he is now. Harry said he things every project helps you in some way. He said he looks at the things he doesn’t get right while he is on the show. Failure is just a discovery of something that doesn’t work. He said to him every time you are on a show you are figuring out what wrong things you don’t want to do it again. He said instead of getting it right because when you get it right you don’t know if its right. A director might say yeah but you don’t know if that is the best thing you could have done. He said he has always wanted to be bicoastal and it was his dream. Going to Toronto to work on Shadowhunters but having family in LA, he was like oh this is rough. He understood what it felt like for someone to move from New York to LA and have all their family on the east coast. It’s hard. He said you get put in a different headspace because like in Shadowhunters he is playing a 400 year old warlock. It’s completely different then being on Glee. The biggest conundrum was does he take off the nail polish off or leave it on because he has to come back tomorrow and will have to have it put on all over again. He said he thought is this what women think about like do I take of my mascara, I am told to take it off because it’s gross. Jenna said a lot of people don’t. He said he had moments like why would I. It’s kind of like why take a shower you are just going to have to take it again. Kevin said the things you learn. Jenna said it’s a heavy mental load.

Jenna thought that he and Shelby had their daughter while he was working in Toronto. He said, no, not yet. Jenna said that would have added a whole mother level of madness. He said sometimes he gets two days off and feels like he hasn’t seen her in a week.

Jenna told Harry they were just watching Duets. They just recapped it and Jenna already forgot about the chicken feet. She said she has no memory.

Jenna asks Harry to remind everyone how he was brought into Glee. He said he remembers the day he walked onto set having a letterman’s jacket and not knowing what he was about to embark on. He did the fitting and he knew he was going to work for a week. He remembers walking around set and seeing Cory and Mark standing outside of the choir room. He said he doesn’t think he even got called into rehearsal. He got called on to set when they were about to shoot a scene. He met Cory and Mark and then walked into the room. He greeted Kevin and they kind new each other through Kevin’s NLT days. They had lot of mutual friends. He knew Dianna because she had auditioned with his wife Shelby. He had never met Zach but he knew of him. He said everyone was so nice and happy. Kevin said oh good. Harry said I don’t know what you said behind my back. Kevin said no one has ever said anything bad about Harry ever. Harry also mentioned Heather. He said he remember that it felt like this is special and it would be nice to stay here a little longer but you know how these things could end up where you con’t get asked back but luckily he kept getting asked back over and over.

Kevin mentioned how Heather had talked about her evolution of thinking about the show or herself and the production and how she came from the dancing world where it was like shut up, keep your head down and work really hard as opposed to at some point advocating for yourself in certain situations. He asked if Harry felt like coming from that side of it that where he didn’t know if would come back every week as opposed to the regulars as an actor and that perspective is very different. How does that affect you mentally? Harry said there is a beauty that now he has accepted and enjoys that he doesn’t know what will happen next even though he does have short term goals and even big goals. He said as a 20 year old that is very very hard. He said if you talk to a lot of dancers like Heather that is pretty much how you function. You are job to job unless you go on tour and even that only lasts for a certain amount of time before having to start all over again. He said the idea of putting your head down and having a fear of getting fired. Just don’t get fired, that is the worst thing you could do. He said for him he learned to just quit before you get fired so they don’t fire you so you are dodging the bullet. Kevin said don’t overstay your welcome. Harry said sometimes you are self sabotaging yourself. You just keep digging yourself a hole. He said it was always nice to open a script and see that you have a line. Sometimes there wasn’t and he would be like cool and he would just make up something in the background. He said it was a journey and there is so much technique behind him and luckily he did extra work back in the day and got a little taste of that and this was sort of amplified on Glee. Kevin said it has been nice watching season 2 and each episode Harry had more and more and more. He said the scene in the library where Mike and Tina yell at each other. Not only does Harry get to speak but he gets to yell and show emotion. Unfortunately it’s all dim sum related for episodes which is a whole other thing. Jenna said it is a whole other thing and let’s talk about it.

Jenna said she was curious about Harry’s feelings as he has stepped of the Glee train for many years now like looking back. What were some of his sentiments, if he feels like sharing, about a lot of their comedy being about Asian. She said she knows everyone was getting made fun of their own things but theirs was very race forward. She is curious what his reflections are on that in the time we are in now. Harry said as he has grown older and being more reflective and looking back at a time where it was difficult to talk about those things with people that are writing those things. He said now he has learned to think about it first and then feel is this worthy to take someone’s time to talk about it and most of the time it is and most of the time you can do your own thing to spin it the way that doesn’t feel that way because not everything needs a conversation. It’s given him more confidence to speak on something where its like if you are going to make a joke just make it funny and creative and if it’s not then don’t do it. He said there is a sense of truth and you can appreciate someone that spent a lot of time writing something that is well thought out, understood, and comes from a place of complete understanding as opposed to I am just going to make fun of this thing. He said he tries to look at it from the other side because we sometimes get into our own feelings and being like I am offended by this thing or that thing. He has learned to not do that. He said he hates to say this because it is so cliche but it was a different time where you could only do so much. Either you to choose to do it or you chose to not be a part of it. He says that is a very hard thing. He said he remembers James Hong coming on to the Glee set and he came up to Harry and said hey this show is really popular. He pulled out his card that had his headshot and said hey if you ever need anyone that looks like give me a call or hand it to whoever. Harry said he never got to tell him that story but he did get to hang out with him at the Oscars. Harry said to see what he’s seen and to compare it to what they experienced on the show you can see that progression. Harry saw that progression. They got to do things that weren’t completely about they looked like and he takes that as a victory. He said you look at the generation now and they don’t have to do that anymore. They don’t have to choose between that and if they do they have a lot more power to speak up on. He said he likes to their contributions of sticking in their and doing it, even if it wasn’t what everyone agrees is the best way to do it, they stuck out there and put an example out of what not to do again and to what to do make it better or do better. He said he thinks that is just wonderful. At the time he didn’t feel that way but now he does. He mentioned it was a beautiful thing to see Ke Huy Quan when an Oscar especially after everything he went through in the 80s. He said out of all the shows he has worked on Glee was the hardest and no one will ever understand what they hav been through and what they have done. He said it will go down in history as one of the craziest shows to ever exist. Jenna said you heard it from Harry, the man who continues to work. She’s said it really was such a wild ride.

Kevin said you’ve been a part of so many special and groundbreaking projects. He has worked on Everything Every Where All At Once and Crazy Rich Asian. Kevin those are culture changing projects. Glee was it’s own weird phenomenon. He asked if Harry feels like going through all those things gives him he capacity to be a part of something special. Kevin said he didn’t want to say being something special. Harry said I guess that was a line. Kevin said to watch someone like Harry who is so nice and works so hard and deserves all of that. Each of these things comes with their own unique responsibilities. He asked if Harry had felt that on each project. Harry said he always tries to think how did I get here, what did I do. He said he thinks it has very little do with him. He said the people he has gotten to come in contact with throughout all of these interesting projects is what really influences him taking those different steps. He said he genuinely loves Kevin and Jenna. He said they always made him feel like part of the group. He said he remembers that feeling. He said both of them did that for him but even a lot of people at the studio, it brought the best out of people but there were parts where it brought the worst out of people. He said the best was making him feel like was meant to be be there at events where he felt like he wasn’t supposed to be there, like award shows. He said he tries to remember to give back to those that were like him when he started. He said he believes you attract a certain energy and giving off that certain energy. He said Everything Everywhere felt like the penultimate that comes with age and comes with experience and comes wit going through the fire and know that this is an experience like no other and hoping that others get to experience hat feeling camaraderie and film making at its highest level. You get to do what you want to and not worry what people are going to think. He thinks in a lot of ways Glee did that as well. It took a lot of chances and sometimes it didn’t work but a lot of the time it did. He said he likes going to different spaces and adapting. He said some sets are very rigid and set in their ways. He said he likes seeing what else you put that make it a little more, as Kevin said, special. Jenna said she does think it is the energy he gives and she hates saying it but he was a team player. She said he worked hard and was a voice of reason and tried to find the best and appreciation and gratitude in what they were doing. That sometimes they needed to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. She said she agrees that at times Glee brought out the best of them but also at times brought out the worst as well. She said there are sides of her it brought out that she never wants to see again. She said it was really hard at times and you couldn’t speak up and you couldn’t do things that others got away with. She said having friends and comrades to dig through the trenches with was priceless.

Harry said there were moments they would get off work and hang and talk for hours and hours. Those are the moments he savors. He said he has been taking a lot of hot showers and cold showers. He said it makes him think about the lowest of lows and highest of highs. That spectrum that you see the edge of what you can feel and handle. Anything in between seems easy. He said that is the greatest gift. He said he can just see some people break when they hear they have a two hour rehearsal and Harry is like that is nothing after what he has been through. He said they didn’t know where they were at half the time. They would be bouncing around from shooting scenes, recording songs, rehearsing dance numbers, and doing promo stuff. Harry said it is the bootcamp that couldn’t exist today. Kevin said he remembers thinking that if Harry started to lose it, it was like watching your dad cry for the first time. He was like oh no. He knew if Harry broke or was mad then it was bad. Harry said he remembered watching them because they had more to do. He said it would anger him they weren’t given a space to decompress. He said that is where he broke a couple of times. It was just wrong.

Jenna said Glee prepped her for motherhood because motherhood is the ultimate multitasking. She is like this is nothing compared to Glee. Glee was like wrangling 12 children and personalities at one time. She said Emma has a big personality.

Jenna said they have a lot of Mike and Tina memories. They had to kiss a lot on the show. Eric Stoltz told them had to make out the whole time in the background while Rachel is singing Jar of Hearts. She said she doesn’t know how all the cameras got them no matter where they were. She said Lea did that song so many times, like 8 times. She said she remembers one time their lips wee touching and they were laughing the whole time. She said jokingly I hate you Eric. Harry said he forgot about that. Harry said Eric is an intense dude when it comes to getting shots that he wants. He wore a suit and was old school with no sides on set. Harry was like he has to give an Emmy award winning kiss, eight times for three minutes each. Kevins said we may not have lines but we are going to kiss. Jenna said Eric had them on the roller coaster at six flags and made them kiss on it. Apparently Eric loved it and they were like really Eric, again. Harry said it is really awkward to do it over and over again and then try to make it interesting. Harry and Jenna would eat the worst shit they could think of to make it more interesting.

Jenna pointed out Kevin and Harry got to do some fun stuff. Jenna said Scream is one of the best numbers hands down. Kevin said it was such a fun day. Harry said it was a fun day and Kevin got to get out of the wheelchair and really just tear it up. He said it was really fun to shoot with Alfonso. They couldn’t see him, he just left them to do their own thing. Kevin said they were running back and forth to see what the others were doing. Kevin said they got to pitch what they wanted for the Michael episodes. Harry and Kevin put together a whole presentation. Kevin said to get invited into their writers space was so weird. Kevin said he had been talking with Harry because Teenage Dream had done so well because it was a bit different. They realized the songs that did really well were the ones that were different but they didn’t want to Michael songs to sound like kidz bop So they plotted to get them to let the cast to pitch songs for the Michael songs. Harry and Kevin had a whole plot line. They wanted The Way You Make Me Feel. Harry said he thinks Scream was floating around but they would’ve dare ask for that .Kevin said they would never dream of asking for something with such a big budget. Harry thinks the tempo of the song changed several times. Kevin said that was the most dancing he had ever danced and their was no one to hide behind. He said he felt like he was screwed. Kevin said one of the best things about Harry is that he commits. He said you just watch Harry go full out and were pulled into it. Jenna said you just show up. Kevin said we got to do some crazy things. Jenna said her favorites were the guys numbers when they didn’t know what was going on and hey got to sit back and cheer for them. Jenna said she forgot the storyline that Mike taking on the lead and then his parents wouldn’t let him do it. Harry said it always funny how everything is so fluid but then a song doesn’t get cleared and everything changes.

Jenna asked the question she always does at the end of these episodes. She asked what is the feeling that Glee left you with t hen versus now? Is it the same, has it evolved? Harry turned the question back on Jenna and Kevin. He said the craziest thing was seeing a 12 or 13 saying that Glee was her favorite show. He said he doesn’t know how he feels about that. Kevin said like you weren’t born when the show started. He said at the Oscars some younger actors came up to him and said they loved him Glee and he was like you are eight years old. He said they left a certain stamp on that time period. They contributed to popular culture and music. It’s neat to see that carried over into another generation that can enjoy this thing. He said the show at is core is about expressing joy. He said he feels like that is resonating with younger generation. He feels like its cool to be part of something that he doesn’t know if it will ever exist again. He said he’s definitely gotten people calling him trying to do the same thing. He said the fact that you don’t know what you are doing you are probably going to do things no one else is going to do. He asked if they have had that same kind of experience. Kevin said it’s the exact same. It’s been crazy. It’s strange. It feels nice. It’ not something you think about while doing the show. He said that is part of what incentivized them to do this podcast. He said it nice to feel like they were a part of something that was culturally significant and speaks to people that want to experience joy and see joy in people like themselves on screen. Jenna said it’s the bigger picture. The effect and stamp they left. She said she wishes in hindsight that she was able to see it the way they see now even just a little more because it would given her a bit of perspective. She said she wishes that she could have thought about ht bigger picture more. She said had she known what she knows now she would have handled things differently. Harry said isn’t that always the thing. Kevin said it is so interesting to hear how Harry thought he was such an asshole during Glee. He said we are always in our own heads and have different perspectives. He said sure did Harry have some moments where he was worn out and didn’t handle some things correctly, sure everyone does those things. He said on the whole Harry’s perspective was really good. When you are working 14, 15, 16 hour days no matter how good your perspective is you are going to be worn out. Harry said sometimes you have to think if it is you being an asshole to yourself or other people. Kevin said oh damn. Harry said he was probably an asshole to himself. He said it takes time to repair that. Jenna said that is fair and very profound. Harry joked saying we would be gods if we went back to high school. Kevin said don’t tempt Ryan and then said Harry is unavailable. Jenna said they would make Harry available. She said is nice to look back and go oh yeah it was really great, we did have really good times, and treasure those moments. That is why still stay in touch and love each other. She said the appreciation for it could have been more and they could have led with that but here we are. Harry said it is the intervals that it happens in and you don’t have time to appreciate it because it’s already on to the next. He said that also speaks to society now. Kevin said you have to spend so much mental power to make sure you are present and appreciative in addition to the opportunity. Sometimes you don’t have the capacity to be aware and conscious of that all the time.

Harry said I love you guys. Jenna said it’s so good to see you. She also they could talk for hours. She said it is so good to see your friends succeed. Kevin said you are the best of us. Harry thanked them for always reaching out. He said he wants to see their faces in real life soon. Jenna said to say hi to your awesome wife. They basically set up having dinner together.

Jenna said Harry is deserving of everything. Kevin said it gave him goosebumps. He couldn’t be prouder. He then thanked Harry for joining them.

#and that’s what you really missed #atwyrm #jenna ushkowitz #kevin mchale #harry shum jr #glee #podcast

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