(Photo: Carin Baer/Courtesy of Fox)

Matthew Morrison was crooning nightly in Lincoln Center’s revival of South Pacific when he landed the role of Will Schuester, the cute motivational high-school music director in Glee. The Tony-nominated actor had been trying to transition from theater to TV for years, and all it took finally was buying a ukulele. “I learned how to play ‘Over the Rainbow’ for the audition,” he says. As one of the senior cast members, the 30-year-old says his dynamic with his younger co-stars is kind of like a student-teacher relationship. “They all look up to me, and I can kind of tell them what to do,” he says, including “telling them to shut up and go to work—they’re always having fun and being loud.”

Related:

• Archive: “Guides”
• Articles by Emma Rosenblum
• Table of Contents: Aug 31, 2009 issue of New York | Subscribe!