Managing Editor
Continuing with his publicity for the sequel to his New York Times Bestseller, The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, Glee’s Chris Colfer appeared on today’s The Queen Latifah Show (October 28). He not only discussed The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns, but he also talked about the end of Glee, writing in general, and his criticism of Latifah’s movie version of musical, Chicago.
While it was not wholly surprising when Ryan Murphy confirmed that season 6 would be the end of Glee, it was still saddening to know that this little ray of weekly sunshine would no longer be in our lives on a weekly basis. However, after six seasons of the show and a number of extracurricular projects the cast have been working on, they seem to feel that the timing is right to move on. Colfer agrees wholeheartedly with this, “I think we’re good. I think we’ve known for a while that would probably be the final season for it. The show’s just done so much for so many people that I think it’s okay to conclude. I think it’s good.”
He acknowledged that it is his first real job in the industry, and he couldn’t have been gifted with a better vehicle to showcase his talents nor the opportunity to do so many wild and interesting things. “Especially after the character and the thing’s that I’ve gotten to do on the show, I feel very, very fulfilled. It’s been a very fulfilling experience.”
Like the characters on the show, a number of fans have grown up alongside them. Each week we’ve been able to watch them grow and flourish into the amazing people they are now, filled with confidence and ready to take on the big wide world beyond the auditorium and choir room of McKinley High. Colfer feels that as the characters are moving on, now is the time for the show to end. “Yeah of course [it’s the right time]. I got to grow up with the characters, and you got to see them grow up.”
Luckily we don’t have to say goodbye just yet. There’s still more than a season and a half left for us to enjoy the music and shenanigans from Lima and New York City.
Onto Colfer’s other love – writing, in particular his children’s book series, The Land of Stories. While The Enchantress Returns continues to sell well, also debuting as a New York Times bestseller, he recently signed a three-book deal with Little, Brown for another two sequels and a picture book. Colfer confirmed he’s started work on the third book. However, that all depends on if his cat, Brian, ever lets him get to his laptop as seen in his Instagram post from October 26 captioned “Writing a book is difficult. Especially when your cat won’t stop napping on your keyboard. #TLOS3”.
Colfer delved into the oft-told story of how he came to write the books, but revealed a little more about just how harsh a critic his grandmother was: “My grandmother was my editor. Every day I would write a new chapter that would be about a page and a half or so and I’d turn it into her and she’d spell and grammar check it for me. If she liked it she kept it and added it to her stash, but if she didn’t she’d throw it in the trash. She’d tell me, ‘Christopher you can do better.’ … And she was right.”
Not only would the story end in the trash if she didn’t like it, but Colfer told Queen Latifah how she would actually throw it into the trash right in front of him. Talk about being well prepared for a life in the creative arts. The harsh criticism has paid off though as can be seen from his “crazy” book signings in the US and Europe, with Colfer sharing some photos from the events quipping, “Children’s literature is real rough these days”.
Colfer explained his dedication to his little sister, Hannah, and how it’s really because of her that the books are in existence. He explained that growing up with a special needs sibling is often hard on the other sibling and that he thought up the series to “escape it all”. As he grew older, he wanted to put this escapism into print so that “in case other kids in the world had that same situation they could escape too and so that’s why they’re here.”
Colfer obviously learnt a lot from his grandmother’s critiquing as Queen Latifah took him to task over some comments he made about her production of Chicago when it first came out in 2002. He was quick to defend himself though, saying, “I was in Chicago in my community theatre right when the movie came out, and we had such an amazing experience, the show was so fantastic, that we were like there’s no way anything could top our community theatre production of Chicago.”
He went on to explain that they decided to go and check out the film, and had to admit that “we were just blown away. You did good. You did good.”
Check out the full interview below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1IsCBBCCKI
The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns is available now. You can next see Colfer on Glee when it returns next Thursday, November 7, at 9pm EST on Fox.
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