They’re very close.
While Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff were co-starring in Broadway’s sexually charged “Spring Awakening” musical 15 years ago, the actress showed the curious and then-closeted actor her genitals.
“Jonathan and I became so close. We were so intertwined,” Michele, 35, says in the forthcoming HBO documentary, “Spring Awakening: Those You’ve Known,” according to Entertainment Weekly.
“At one point, I literally showed him my whole vagina,” she explains, prompting Groff, 37, to add, “I can confirm that.”
Michele goes on, “He was like, ‘I’ve never seen a woman’s vagina before. Would you show me?’ And I was like, ‘Sure.’ And I took a desk lamp … and showed him. That’s how close we are.”
The anatomy lesson, however, was not reciprocated.
“I’ve never seen Jonathan naked. I’ve never seen his penis,” she notes in the film, which debuts May 3.
“He was like, ‘I’ve never seen a woman’s vagina before. Would you show me?’ And I was like, ‘Sure,'” recalls Michele.HBOIn the 2006 coming-of-age musical, Michele, then 19, and Groff, then 21, played angsty and ill-fated teenagers who were learning about their bodies and sexualities both onstage and in real life.
“We made out so hard in this play. We would have like sweat, and snot was coming out of my nostrils, and saliva, and tongues, and mouths,” says Groff, who was admittedly still figuring out his own sexual orientation at the time, before coming out as gay.
“Lea and I were given this material where we had to fall in love. But the first thing I felt was, ‘They’re going to know I’m gay. F–k. I never had sex with a girl. I’m in the closet. I’m just going to pretend that I know what I’m doing.'”
At the time, Groff was “in the closet” and had “never had sex with a girl.”HBOThe play called for the pair to engage in one particularly intimate sex scene, which they feel would have been difficult to do had they not established intimacy offstage.
“I’m so grateful that we connected in the way that we did so that we were then able to go on the stage and then have that level of trust,” Michele told People. “If we didn’t, I think it would’ve been really impossible and just so challenging to have to tackle that material every night with someone that you don’t feel that safety and trust with.”
She and Groff became even closer when they both landed roles on the hit series, “Glee.”
In fact, if he ever decides he wants a baby, Michele — who welcomed son Ever with husband Zandy Reich in August 2020 — has already offered to be his surrogate.
