Lea Michele Still Interested in Funny Girl, but Maybe Not Any More Musical Movies

New Year's Eve star tells us about the Broadway show, talks Glee and says why she’ll be looking for roles where she doesn’t have to sing

We were shocked (shocked!) when the Broadway rival of Funny Girl decided to go ahead without shoo-in Lea Michele.

L.M. has proven she has the pipes to belt out "My Man" (among other Funny tunes originally sung by Barbra Streisand); plus, she certainly has the star power to relaunch the über-expensive show.

And she may still have a chance now that the plans for L.A. and New York shows have been scrapped for the time being.

So when we met up with Ms. Michele at the junket for her latest film, New Year's Eve, we asked Lea whether she'd be interested in taking on the project if they approached her:

"Of course!" Lea, who was all smiles throughout the press conference, told us. "I would do that show for an empty room by myself!"

Hopefully that won't be the case, seeing as we know thousands of people who'd pay big bucks to see it. Now we just need the Broadway peeps to rethink their sitch and find an opening in Lea's Glee schedule to make it happen. Easy, right?!

And as for her taking her singing talents from the boob tube to the big screen (she plays a backup singer to Bon Jovi in the movie), Lea tells us it was not intentional:

"I didn't really intend on doing a film where I sang," she 'fessed when we asked her if she'd intentionally picked another role that allowed her to show off her voice. "I sing so much on my show that I sort of felt like maybe I would start looking into things that didn't involve me singing, but when I read the script, the songs were already in there—they didn't add them for me."

Which, BTW, writer Katherine Fugate admitted was kinda not true, as she is a huge Gleek herself and wrote the part specifically for Lea and her killer voice. A sentiment director Garry Marshall echoed when he said he wanted a "fellow Bronx girl" to sing the final song in the movie (which wasn't originally supposed to be Lea's).

"I just felt that it was such a perfect part for me to play for my first film," Lea told us. "To really transition from Glee...And from now on I might start to try to look into other things without singing to give my voice a little break."

And that's totally fine with us...just after the Funny Girl stint.