Glee reboot 2026: Where the original cast is now — and remembering those we lost along the way

It's time for a Kiki. Lock the doors, tight!

On October 21, 2026, Disney+ and Hulu gave Ryan Murphy’s Glee reboot a series order, more than eleven years after New Directions took their final bow on Fox. Gen Z Gleeks are thrilled, millennials are feeling it in their lower back, and many, are understandably nervous. Where would Glee fit into 2026?

The reboot: what we actually know (spoiler: not much)

• It’s real. Disney+ and Hulu greenlit it on October 21. 20th Television, which made the original, is producing. The official account announced it with the famous “L” hand gesture, because of course it did.

• The original band is back. Murphy is writing with co-creators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, the three who gave us seasons one and two. In September he told Entertainment Tonight he’d finished the script “an hour ago.” Very Rachel Berry of him.

• Why now? In July, Murphy told People the show had “come back around,” since so many young people now stream it. Translation: TikTok did this.

• The cast: Murphy says he has been in touch with about 10 original cast members and they’re all “very enthusiastic.” Who are they? He won’t say.

• Rachel Berry, obviously: Variety reports, citing sources, that Lea Michele is returning. Disney hasn’t confirmed it, but she recently said she’d “follow Ryan wherever he goes,” so nobody is shocked.

• Also raising their hands: Heather Morris announced that Brittany S. Pierce, lost in the sewers all these years, is “back for more #Glee.” Chord Overstreet posted “Reunited and it feels so good!” Harry Shum Jr. is in too.

• Playing hard to get: Chris Colfer says he’s “heard absolutely nothing.” He admits it would be hard to return without Naya Rivera, but joked that fans would come at him with “pitchforks and jazz hands” if he said no.

Where are they now? (Turns out the kids did alright)

The choir room that time forgot somehow produced Tony winners, a bestselling author and enough Broadway leads to staff a revival. Here’s what everyone’s been up to.

Lea Michele (Rachel Berry)
She finally played Fanny Brice in Funny Girl in 2022, a real-life Glee plotline. She then starred in Broadway’s Chess, which closed in June 2026. She’s married to Zandy Reich, has two kids, and is reportedly coming back as Rachel.

Darren Criss (Blaine Anderson)
He won the 2025 Tony for Maybe Happy Ending, on top of his Emmy and Golden Globe for American Crime Story. From Warbler to EGOT contender. He’s married to Mia Swier and has two kids.

Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel)
A Golden Globe winner who has since written more than 20 books, including The Land of Stories. Kurt would be proud. He’s still undecided about the reboot.

Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester)
She has two Emmys (Glee and Mrs. Maisel), hosts Weakest Link, and appeared in Only Murders in the Building. Still the scariest person in any room.

Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester)
He returned to Broadway in 2026 as Bobby Darin in Just in Time, his first Broadway role in about a decade. No raps reported.

Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones)
She won an Olivier Award for Dreamgirls in the West End, plus Dancing With the Stars and The Masked Singer. Still the best voice in the room.

Kevin McHale (Artie Abrams)
He co-hosts the rewatch podcast And That’s What You Really Missed and made his Broadway debut as Brad in Rocky Horror, which he dedicated to Cory.

Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang)
She’s a Tony-winning producer (Once on This Island), a podcast co-host and a mom of two. Tina finally got the spotlight.

Harry Shum Jr. (Mike Chang)
He’s on Grey’s Anatomy and was in Everything Everywhere All at Once. He also topped the scoreboard on the Dancing With the Stars season 35 premiere, because of course Mike Chang did.

Heather Morris (Brittany S. Pierce)
She won The Masked Dancer and danced Off-Broadway in 11 to Midnight. She says Brittany is back. Lord Tubbington, clear your calendar.

Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray)
She’s been doing film, directing and cabaret at New York’s Café Carlyle.

Chord Overstreet (Sam Evans)
He has a double-platinum single, “Hold On,” plus roles in Acapulco and Falling for Christmas. He’s dropping big hints about a return.

Alex Newell (Unique Adams)
They won the 2023 Tony for Shucked, becoming one of the first two non-binary performers to win one, and later played Mama Morton in Chicago. Unique was right all along.

Honouring those we lost

A Glee reunion will always have empty seats. Cory Monteith and Naya Rivera were two of the show’s brightest stars, and the cast has spent years asking fans to remember them as people, not plot twists.

Cory Monteith (1982–2013) — Finn Hudson

Cory was Finn: the lovable, goofy quarterback who couldn’t dance but sang his heart out, and Rachel’s great love. He and Lea Michele were also together in real life. He died on July 13, 2013, at 31, in a Vancouver hotel room, from an accidental overdose, just before season five.

The show said goodbye in “The Quarterback,” an episode that never explained how Finn died, so it could just be about grief. A decade later, Michele wrote that losing him still felt like yesterday and a lifetime ago. This year, Kevin McHale dedicated his Broadway debut as Brad in Rocky Horror to Cory, “his forever Brad.”

Naya Rivera (1987–2020) — Santana Lopez

Naya made Santana the queen of the one-liner,also wrote the memoir Sorry Not Sorry and starred in Step Up: High Water.

In July 2020 she drowned at Lake Piru in California during a boat trip with her four-year-old son, Josey. Investigators believe she used the last of her strength to get him safely back onto the boat. She was found on July 13, 2020, seven years to the day after Cory died. She was 33. Josey, now 11, was reported this August to have landed his first film role, alongside his dad, Ryan Dorsey.

She’s the reason Colfer hesitates about the reboot. Doing Glee without Naya, he said, would be “really hard.”

Why we’re all so torn: Glee’s highest highs and lowest lows

Here’s the problem. Glee was a groundbreaking, joyful hit. It was also a gloriously chaotic mess that has aged like milk in places, often in the same episode.

The highs

• It made the losers the heroes. Misfits, nerds, a wheelchair user and kids who never fit in were all at the centre of a primetime network show. Colfer says many viewers saw themselves on TV for the first time.

• It was a hit factory. The cast put more than 200 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, and the show sold over 50 million songs and 13 million albums. It made show choir cool, which nothing has managed before or since.

• Season one was lightning in a bottle. Sharp satire, real underdog energy, and Sue Sylvester delivering insults like a TED Talk.

• It could absolutely wreck you. “The Quarterback.” Kurt and his dad. Pass the tissues.

• It launched careers. Two Tony winners, an Emmy winner and a bestselling author all came out of one choir room. Mr. Schue, take a bow.

The lows

• Some moments haven’t aged well. Like many shows from its era, Glee has scenes and jokes that feel out of step today. Looking back, some characters deserved fuller, richer storylines than they got.

• The storytelling could be uneven. Characters sometimes shifted from week to week, and some storylines were left unfinished. The later seasons found it hard to recapture the magic of the original cast.

• Difficult conversations behind the scenes. In 2020, some former cast members spoke openly about hard experiences on set. Lea Michele listened, apologised and said she was committed to growing. Fans have responded to her return in different ways, and each view comes from a place of care for the show and the people in it.

• Remembering with respect. Online “curse” theories have sometimes turned real loss into gossip. The cast has gently asked fans to remember their friends with love instead.

What the reboot has to get right

The new Glee will be judged less on its setlist and more on how it handles its baggage. Three things to watch:

The empty chairs. Finn and Santana were the show’s heart. Honouring Cory and Naya with love, not exploitation, will set the tone for everything else.

Who gets the spotlight. If Lea Michele leads, the show needs to prove it has listened to the cast members who spoke out, and give its characters of colour actual storylines this time.

Can Glee exist in 2026? The original was fearless, unhinged and completely of its moment. The trick is keeping the heart and the joy while leaving the worst jokes back in 2009.