Darren Criss may be a star himself, but that doesn’t stop him from getting starstruck. At this week’s celebrity-filled Trevor Live benefit Criss said one of the coolest parts was “being backstage and rubbing elbows with people,” particularly some Little Monster shaped ones.
“Myself, Amy Adams and Rashida (Jones), a bunch of us were sitting like 12-year-old girls, because we knew Stefani Germanotta, Lady Gaga, was going to walk in,” Criss told Billboard.com at the ‘A Night of Firsts’ Miss Golden Globe announcement party in Hollywood Thursday night. “We all just kind of casually played it off like we weren’t waiting, but then we all said to each other, ‘we’re all waiting because Lady Gaga is coming in here, right?'”
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Criss didn’t actually get to speak with Mother Monster, but that didn’t put a damper on his evening.
“We just kind of gawked in silent wonderment,” he laughed. “She came in with her stilts and her crew of many, and we all had a really lovely moment together. It was like watching an eclipse.”
Gaga attended to accept the Trevor Hero Award for her work supporting gay youth, swooping in and out briefly and giving a moving speech to the crowd about The Trevor Project’s mission to eliminate bullying and prevent suicides for LGBTQ teens. Criss performed at the event for the second year, which he described as “a very sobering event, but also very celebratory.”
“I think we raised more than twice the amount that we did last year,” he said. “It’s such a wonderful thing to go to. I’m happy to know it wasn’t all for naught. We raised a lot of money and created a lot of awareness.”
In two weeks time Criss will wrap on “Glee” for the holidays and head to New York where he begins training for a three week run in “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway.