Cory Monteith's Finn Hudson was the kind boy in the glee club, listening harder than he sang. Across four seasons he made a jock likeable without making him a fool, and did more with a reaction than most leads manage with a solo.
Fi1m perspective
Watch Cory Monteith when he is not the one singing. In Glee (2009) he stands slightly behind the others, shoulders a little forward, and reacts. Somebody else has the note and he looks pleased for them, or puzzled, or worried, and the scene belongs to whoever has the note. It is a generous way to act, and it is not how most young leads on American television chose to work. When his own turn came he sang like a boy who had been dared to, and the character was built on exactly that: Finn Hudson, the quarterback who joins the glee club, is kind first and confident a long way second.
He came to it sideways. From 2004 he took small parts out of Vancouver, in Stargate Atlantis, Smallville and Supernatural, a recurring role on Kyle XY and a stop in Final Destination 3 (2006). He had no singing or dancing training, and his audition tape for Glee was him drumming on Tupperware and then singing a power ballad. The voice was judged weak at the time, and it was never the point. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan needed a jock who could be laughed at without being sneered at, and the slight hesitation in everything Monteith did made the laughter affectionate.
We came to the pilot expecting to be irritated by 'Don't Stop Believin'', and for four minutes we were not, and a good part of that was Monteith looking faintly astonished to be there at all. The song is too big for them, and he is the one who lets us see it. Next to Lea Michele, whose Rachel Berry has decided to be famous, his Finn is a boy who has decided nothing and is trying to keep up, and the pairing works because he never competes with her. He is, as we said at the time, the easiest person on screen to like.
The writing did not always return the favour. Finn was often handed the joke of not understanding something, and Monteith said so himself: "Finn started off as the stereotypical dumb jock but as the show has gone on, Finn's not dumb anymore, really, he's just a little naïve." The darker episodes, in the second season especially, showed he could carry more than sweetness, and the programme mostly declined to ask. Away from the club he had supporting parts in Monte Carlo (2011) and Sisters & Brothers (2011), which we have not reviewed. He played Finn through the fourth season, and died on 13 July 2013, aged 31.
So the record is four seasons of one part, on a programme that, as we said, forgot which parts of itself were the good ones. He was one of the good ones. Watch the first season, and watch him listen.
Biography
Cory Allan Michael Monteith was a Canadian actor and musician. He was born on 11 May 1982 in Calgary, Alberta, and died on 13 July 2013 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Monteith made his acting debut in the television series Stargate Atlantis (2004) and appeared in other series including Smallville (2005), Supernatural (2005) and Final Destination 3 (2006). He was best known for portraying Finn Hudson in the Fox series Glee (2009–2013). His film roles included Monte Carlo (2011) and Sisters & Brothers (2011).
