THR: Which of the characters that you write are most like you?
Murphy: The New Normal is sort of based on my life, so [actor] Andrew Rannells is clearly me, and we have him say things that I say. But I feel like people love Andrew much more than they love me, so he's helping my rep there. [Glee's] Rachel [Lea Michele] and Kurt [Chris Colfer] are very clearly based on me, and Jessica Lange this year on American Horror Story is very much in my childhood obsession with Catholicism and trying to be without sin and failing and my journey through that. By the end of a season, I've always learned something about myself.
THR: Are you aware of how much of you is in the writing while you're in process?
Murphy: What I like to do is to figure myself out through those characters. Like, why did I do that? Or, what was I trying to do there? It's cathartic, and I like to sort of give myself sometimes happy endings that I wish I had had. Like with Kurt's dad on Glee. My father died last year, and I had always wanted that relationship. Now I look at my father, and I feel like I've got to forgive him for some stuff.
THR: How much more of Glee is left in you?
Murphy: I've really wanted it to go on, and I wanted to populate it with new people. We did that this season, and thankfully those kids have popped. It's re-energized the show, and I think the actors are all much happier because nobody is having to work eight days a week and kill themselves. It used to be a very tumultuous set; now it's like kids in the candy store. So I feel like we finally figured out how to make it work, and I think we could get another four years from this show.
THR: You've been criticized for having these shows that come out big and strike a chord and then, a few seasons in, plummet back to earth when backlash takes over. Fair?
Murphy: To be honest, when I first heard it, I was like, "Wow." I didn't agree, but what I realized is that they have to write a narrative for you. I care about the marketing and the publicity, and I work really hard on the launch of those shows, and because of that I feel like they've come out in a very big way and make a lot of noise. There's never a slow build; it either works or it doesn't. When you get that much oxygen thrown at you, the oxygen eventually leaves the room. But I don't like to defend my work. Let people make their own judgments. It's not up to me to decide what people say, and I don't read it anymore.
THR: Between Twitter and the web, that can't be easy.
Murphy: On season three of Glee, it got too personal. It felt like an attack, and I was like: "Well, wait, you loved me before and I'm the same person. What happened? I'm still trying." You feel like a 4-year-old, and then you get pouty and you're just a bitch. It's not good.
THR: How would your writers describe you as a boss?
Murphy: As a showrunner, you can never be a maybe. When I do movies, there is a lot of "maybe" and "let's investigate that." But for TV, it has to be yes or no. I'm very black and white about what I like or don't like, and I've always been that way. I've always been sort of "I love it" or "I hate it," and I think as a result I've always been a polarizing person. You either love me or you hate me. There's not a lot of "Hmmm."
THR: What don't people know about you?
Murphy: I'm a softy. There was this turning point for me -- and not in a good way -- when I did The Glee Project. When I started, I was like, "OK, I'm going to go from being an artist to a Simon Cowell personality." That was my role, and I was really nervous about it. I loved the show, but it was sort of soul-robbing, and I think that people thought that I was that person, the Darth Vader of musical theater. To this day, I look back on episodes, and it kills me that I had to cut those kids. I sort of wish I had done that show and not been in it.
source: Hollywood Reporter
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