Thursday, January 19, 2012

Glee Casts Rachel's Gay Dads

Glee has finally cast Rachel's gay dads, Hiram and LeRoy Berry, and they are to be played by Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stokes Mitchell.  They will appear and sing in the February 14th episode, titled "Heart."

http://www.tvline.com/2012/01/glee-season-3-rachels-dads-brian-stokes-mitchell-jeff-goldblum/

I think this is brilliant casting.  Jeff Goldblum is a great actor and he can also sing, having made his debut on Broadway and he is also a jazz musician.  He is probably best known for his role in The Fly, Independence Day, and Jurassic Park.

Brian Stokes Mitchell is a Broadway legend.  I saw him on Broadway in Ragtime (where he co-starred with a young Lea Michele) and Kiss Me Kate, and he was amazing.  He won a Tony for his role in Kiss Me Kate.  You can see how these two combine to raise Rachel to be the person she is.

By casting these two the producers are also nodding to the sight gag they had in the pilot, where Rachel stated that her dads did not know which one of them was her biological dad, but when they briefly showed a picture of her dads, one was black and one was white.  Ryan Murphy had apparently mentioned that the people in those pictures were not actors, plus back when they showed that picture, there was no plan of bringing Rachel's dads to the show, so clearly the casting has to be changed.  But they did cast one Jewish actor and one black actor, so they are following the spirit of that pilot picture.

Can't wait to see the episode!

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