Lea Michele: 'Glee' cast is my family

Lea Michele can belt out a show tune with the best of them and can deliver a line just as well, but one thing that isn’t an act is her friendship with her “Glee” co-stars.

“I don’t have family in L.A.” the 24-year-old actress told Glamour magazine for their October issue. “They are my family, honestly...I love my cast.”

Michele added that the cast mate who surprised her the most is Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes Jones on the Fox series.

“We’re both big personalities, and you definitely would think we’d bump heads. But she has taught me more about myself than anyone," the "Glee" star said. "She inspires me, she protects me, she makes me laugh, she tells me not to take myself so seriously. She’s my Mama Amber.”

But when she’s not bonding with her cast, Michele has another special person to spend time with: Her boyfriend, Theo Stockman.

“He lets me be who I am,” she said, even when that means staying in on date night, which for Michele ideally includes a “Scary movie, pizza, being at home [and] maybe having a great bottle of wine.”

Read more of Michele’s interview at Glamour.com and in the October issue, on newsstands September 7.