For the first time since Cory Monteith's death in July, the Canadian actor's on- and off-screen girlfriend Lea Michele spoke about her loss in an interview with Australia's TV Week on Tuesday.
The 27-year-old actress described the Oct. 10 tribute episode to Monteith's character, Finn Hudson, as "perfect."
"I feel like, for me personally, I've lost two people: Cory and Finn," Michele said. "We had a beautiful memorial for Cory in the auditorium and some of the cast members sang and people spoke about him. It only felt right that we would do the same thing for Finn, so I felt it was very therapeutic."
Lea Michele says she was "lucky" to have had Cory Monteith in her life.
Asked if she ever considered quitting the show, Lea responds, "Everyone is asking: 'Is it hard to do this? Is it hard to be back at work?', but the truth is it's no harder at work than it is in life so we might as well all be together as a family supporting each other to get through this together."
Fox uploaded a 30-second promo of the farewell episode called, 'The Quarterback,' for his character Finn Hudson, it features Lea Michele singing "Make You Feel My Love" as the rest of the cast mournfully bids farewell to Finn.
Rachel Berry, played by Lea Michele, weeps into the arms of drama teacher Will Schuester.
"I've never seen a crew that you can't continue shooting because they've left the room sobbing. It was very hard. I struggled even working on it because what you're seeing is what they felt not just about Finn but Cory. It's amazing performances across the board and everybody went into it with a lot of love," Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy told reporters. "What I loved about it is when you write something like that, there's no right way to do it."
On October 2, the British Columbia Coroners Service confirmed that Monteith's death in a Vancouver hotel room in July was accidental. He "died of mixed drug toxicity, involving intravenous heroin use combined with the ingestion of alcohol," the coroners service said in a statement.
Monteith's Finn Hudson was edited out of the first two episodes of Glee's fifth season. The "Farewell to Finn" episode will air on Fox Thursday, October 10 at 9 p.m. ET.
