'Glee' actor says Cory Monteith gave him life advice on set and always took 'new guys under his wing'
- After winning "The Glee Project," Samuel Larson and Damian McGinty joined the cast of "Glee."
- They both said Cory Monteith, who played Finn, immediately made them feel welcome on set.
When Samuel Larsen joined the "Glee" cast in 2012 at the height of the show's fame, costar Cory Monteith immediately made him feel welcome.
Speaking with Insider ahead of the 10th anniversary of the end of "The Glee Project," Larsen said Monteith, who played leading man Finn Hudson on "Glee," was "always incredibly good at taking the new guys under his wing."
"He was the main guy — the original main guy," Larsen said. "He was very good at escorting you in and being like, 'You are a TV star now. Welcome. You are safe with me.'"
Larsen won his role of Joe Hart through season one of "The Glee Project" and said he and Monteith would bond while smoking cigarettes outside, often talking about the lifestyle change of starring on a hit television show.
"He was just letting me know what he was doing and where he went wrong or where he went right," he said.
"Even stupid things like, 'Hey, if you're gonna go buy nice sunglasses, buy three of them, 'cause you're probably gonna lose some of them,'" Larsen continued. "Or talking about what his journey was when he first started 'Glee,' coming from Canada and getting picked up for a series regular on a show."
He added while many other cast members were more focused and business-like, there was "something kind of goofy" about the late actor.
"Cory could kinda laugh at his situation a bit more," he said. "He was like, 'Guys, this is ridiculous, what we're doing.' It was very much like, 'Dude, don't think about the million people that are gonna see it. We're just in the choir room joking around together.'"
Monteith died in 2013 of a toxic combination of heroin and alcohol. The show honored the actor on the third episode of season five, "The Quarterback," in which his character unexpectedly died off-screen.
Another 'Glee' actor said Monteith made him feel '10-feet-tall' after his first day
"The Glee Project" season-one cowinner Damian McGinty hadn't acted on a show before, so he told Insider he was nervous when he walked onto the "Glee" set.
But McGinty said he appreciated how Monteith supported him with a simple tweet he still remembers today.
At the end of McGinty's first day, Monteith tweeted, "great scene tonight with @damianmcginty ... season three is lookin gooooood..... :)"
"I just remembered seeing that, and it was such a small thing for someone like him to do, but, in that moment, it made me feel 10-feet tall," he said. "I was like, 'Thank you. You have no idea what you've just done for me by doing that.'"
McGinty played Irish exchange student Rory Flanagan, who shared a lot of on-screen time with Monteith's character. McGinty said his scenes with the late actor "mean more now" than they normally would.