Lea Michele reveals she once showed Spring Awakening co-star Jonathan Groff her ‘whole vagina’

Lea Michele has revealed she once showed Jonathan Groff her “whole vagina” while they were performing in Broadway’s Spring Awakening 15 years ago.

Michele’s comments feature in the forthcoming HBO documentary Spring Awakening: Those You Know, in which the cast of the 2006 coming-of-age musical reunite to stage a 15th anniversary concert.

The film explores the cultural legacy of Steven Sater’s play, which premiered in New York amid scepticism but became an unlikely hit.

The Tony-winning musical included several intimate scenes between Michele, 19 at the time, and Groffman, who was 21, as their characters laid bare their bodies, traumas, and desires onstage – under director Michael Mayer’s expert guidance.

In the documentary, Michele says she and Groff were “intertwined” and “became very close” while playing Spring Awakening’s protagonists, angsty, ill-fated lovers Wendla Bergmann and Melchior Gabor.

“At one point, I literally showed him my whole vagina,” Michele reveals in the documentary.

“I can confirm that,” Groff adds, explaining that working on Spring Awakening helped him understand his own sexual identity as well.

Michele continues: “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…

“But I’ve never seen Jonathan naked. I’ve never seen his penis.”

During the documentary, Groff recalls being extremely worried playing Melchior while being a closeted gay man.

“The first thing I felt was, ‘They’re going to know I’m gay. F***,’” he says, adding, “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.’”

In an interview with People, published on Monday (25 April), Michele said she was grateful Groff and she 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” with each other.

The two reunited for Ryan Murphy’s 2009 high school comedy-drama Glee, in which Michele was cast as lead Rachel Berry, while Groff played recurring character Jesse St Janes.

Releasing on 3 May, Spring Awakening will be available to stream on HBO Max in the US.