Two new outtakes of Cory from his Parade photoshoot.

Duet: Finn & Rachel > CORY MONTEITH > PHOTOSHOOTS > 2011 > 002

The nominations for the Teen Choice Awards have been announced and Cory & Glee have made the cut!

Choice Music: Group
Black Eyed Peas
Far East Movement
“Glee” Cast
Selena Gomez & The Scene
The Script

Choice TV Show: Comedy
The Big Bang Theory
Glee
iCarly
Modern Family
Wizards of Waverly Place

Choice TV Actor: Comedy
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Steve Carell, The Office
John Krasinski, The Office
Cory Monteith, Glee
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory

Congrats to Cory and the entire cast of Glee on their nominations! To vote go here.

While in England Cory made a visit to Foyer Centre in London to meet with young people that are supported by the facility.

During a break from rehearsals for the show’s live tour, Canadian actor Cory Monteith visited a hostel in west London, the Foyer.

He told its residents of his turbulent teenage years, during which he changed schools 12 times and battled drug problems. At one point he was homeless.

“I moved to Vancouver because I wanted to act,” he said.

“I had nothing more than a plastic bag full of T-shirts and slept on my drama teacher’s floor and friends’ floors.

“This is a personal issue for me. I’ve been at risk and living in a marginalised situation and my passion is to give something back.

“That sounds so hokey, but it’s a shame to be in a situation and not raise awareness for the greater good.”

Through his role as an ambassador for the Virgin Unite foundation he works with three homeless charities – Foyer Federation, The Albert Kennedy Trust and Depaul UK.

He says he hopes to inspire young people not to be limited by their circumstances.

“If you focus on what you want and you persevere, chances are you’ll succeed,” he said.

“That’s what I’ve found. It may not be in acting, but business, finance, the arts. It’s all about focus and being inspired.”

It is estimated there are 75,000 homeless young people in the UK. Some live on the streets, with others in temporary accommodation, bed and breakfasts, and hostels.

Monteith said: “It is an all-pervading social problem, not just here in the UK, but worldwide and in my home country Canada and the USA.

“It is something that is truly unacceptable in this day and age and in the First World for people to overlook the problem of youth homelessness.”

(source)

Here is more from Cory’s interview with Parade Magazine.

“I’m not Finn Hudson,” Cory Monteith says of his beloved Glee character. “But a lot of people think I am.”

That fans buy the 29-year-old Canadian as an all-American high school student is a tribute to the actor’s talent—though the show’s hairstylists deserve a little credit as well. “They hide the gray,” Monteith says with a laugh, digging into a plate of lasagna at a favorite restaurant in the Hollywood Hills. “I’m not a full-on silver fox, but I’m gettin’ on!”

Unlike the dim-witted Finn, who seems most confident expressing himself through song, Monteith is articulate and self-aware, displaying the focus that, in two short years, has propelled him from little-known actor to breakout TV star. He’s set his sights on big-screen success, too: His new film—the romantic comedy Monte Carlo, starring Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester—opens July 1.

Monteith’s future didn’t always seem so promising. In fact, his own teen years were such a minefield that he was lucky to make it to age 20. Opening up about his troubled past as he never has -before, Monteith wants to deliver a message for anyone struggling as he once did: “There is a way out. You never know what’s in store for you.”

The actor grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, feeling like an outsider. “I didn’t have any definition of self,” he says. After his parents divorced when he was 7, he saw less of his father, who was in the military. He began having difficulties in school. “I never fit in, so I started pretending I was other people. I’d find people I thought were cool and dress how they dressed, talk how they talked, do whatever they were into.” By 13, Monteith—once a promising student who at age 5 could read at a fourth-grade level—was skipping school to get drunk and smoke pot. He eventually dropped out.

His mother, an interior decorator, told him to return to school and stop the rebellious behavior—or find a new home. The tough love worked, but only for brief -periods. “I’d go back for two weeks so I didn’t have to find a friend’s house where I could crash,” says Monteith, who estimates that by age 16, when he quit for good, he’d attended 12 different schools, including alternative programs for troubled teens. “I burned a lot of bridges. I was out of control.”

By then, so were the drugs. “Anything and everything, as much as possible,” he says, when asked to elaborate. “I had a serious problem.”

Afraid that he “could die,” his mother and a group of friends staged an intervention when he was 19. “That’s when I first went to rehab. I did the stint but then went back to doing exactly what I left off doing.”

Monteith might have continued down that path if not for what he calls “the crystallizing event.” He pauses to find the right words. “I stole a significant amount of money from a family member,” he continues quietly. “I knew I was going to get caught, but I was so desperateI didn’t care. It was a cry for help. I was confronted and I said, ‘Yeah, it was me.’ It was the first honorable, truthful thing that had come out of my mouth in years.”

He was given an ultimatum: He had to get clean, or the family member would report him to the police and press charges. Although it wasn’t the first time Monteith had taken something that didn’t belong to him (“A lot of things went missing when I was around; I had high overhead to take care of”), up until that point he had avoided prosecution. He thought of other kids his age—the former classmates who’d gone off to college, as well as the fast crowd he’d long considered his close friends, some of whom were in jail or, worse, dead. “I was done fighting myself,” he recalls of his turning point. “I finally said, ‘I’m gonna start looking at my life and figure out why I’m doing this.’”

Monteith left Victoria and moved in with a family friend in the small industrial city of -Nanaimo. It was there, living in a double-wide trailer, that he began the painstaking process of rebuilding his life. He quit using, got a job as a roofer, and surrounded himself with other sober people. Among them was Andrew McIlroy, a Vancouver-based acting coach who came to Nanaimo on the weekends to teach. “I understood where he’d come from,” says McIlroy, “and I thought, ‘If this fish slips back into the sea, we may never see him again. Keep him busy.’”

McIlroy offered him free classes in exchange for tidying up around the acting studio and running errands. Then one day he put Monteith in front of the camera to do a scene about a guy contemplating suicide and realized acting could provide more than just a distraction for the young man. “Cory was working from some very dark truths,” says McIlroy. “I remember going, ‘Okay, this is something you can reasonably think of doing as a career.’”

It was a life-altering moment for Monteith, the first time he’d felt the satisfaction of “working hard and being good at something.” Though acting was still a way to pretend to be other people, it built up his confidence instead of tearing it down.

A few months after moving to Nanaimo, Monteith tossed his scant belongings into a garbage bag and relocated to Vancouver to begin auditioning for roles. Again, McIlroy—the father figure Monteith had long yearned for—provided crucial support, letting the young actor crash at his place and introducing him to agent Elena Kirschner. “A lot of people get into acting because they want to be famous,” says Kirschner, who still guides Monteith’s career. “But it’s never been about that for Cory. He consistently worked hard and absorbed like a sponge. And he’s never stopped.”

That work ethic would eventually land him guest spots on shows like Supernatural and, in 2009, his costarring role on Glee, despite his lack of vocal training. While the production schedule for the Fox hit is grueling—even during the summer, thanks to the Glee Live! concert tour—Monteith, who also plays drums for the fledgling Cali-rock band Bonnie Dune, isn’t complaining. He knows how fortunate he is. “What’s exciting to me now,” says the actor, who is single and lives with roommates in a rental house, “is seeing where this all goes.”

Along with the career success have come personal victories. This spring, Monteith received a high school diploma from one of the alternative schools he attended in Victoria—“based,” he says, “on abilities demonstrated in the workplace.” And in November 2009, he got together with his father for the first time in 17 years. “We’d spoken maybe three or four times [during that period],” Monteith says, “and he reached out to me on Facebook. I couldn’t shut the door, so I got on a plane. He greeted me at the airport, and [he and Monteith’s stepmother] were so happy they were almost crying. It was a good time. At some point, you realize your parents are human. They make the best decisions they can with the options available to them.”

The perspective he has gained is part of the reason he has chosen to speak out now about his extraordinary journey. “I don’t want kids to think it’s okay to drop out of school and get high, and they’ll be famous actors, too,” says Monteith, who works with a group called Virgin Unite that helps at-risk youth. “I’m lucky on so many counts—I’m lucky to be alive.

“But for those people who might give up: Get real about what you want and go after it. If I can, anyone can.”

Added three brand new stills for Cory in his new film Monte Carlo …. the film hits theaters on July 1st.

Duet: Finn & Rachel > CORY MONTEITH > FILMS > Monte Carlo > Production Stills

I have added an outtake from the photoshoot that Cory recently did for Parade Magazine.

Duet: Finn & Rachel > CORY MONTEITH > PHOTOSHOOTS > 2011 > 002

I found some great pics from last year’s Glee Live Tour stop in New York City! There are pics of the cast in their pajamas from the Mattress number, in their Gaga attire, and more!

Duet: Finn & Rachel > GLEE > SEASON ONE > GLEE LIVE TOUR > 05.28 – New York City

MSNBC shares a great article that highlights some more of Cory’s interview with Parade Magazine … Cory will be on the cover of the issue that is available this Sunday.

As a teen, he drank, smoked pot, stole money, dropped out of school

Cory Monteith plays doe-eyed jock-with-a-heart Finn Hudson on FOX’s hit series, “Glee,” but the Canadian actor says his teenage life was nothing like that of his character.

“I’m lucky on so many counts — I’m lucky to be alive,” Cory, 29, told Parade magazine in an interview for their June 26 issue.

The handsome actor, who revealed he regularly cut class in favor of drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, quit high school for good at age 16, after attending a number of schools and an alternative program for troubled teens.

“I burned a lot of bridges. I was out of control,” he told the mag, before adding that his drug use included “anything and everything, as much as possible.”

Cory’s mother and friends were terrified by the small screen star’s destructive path. Fearing his habits would cost him his life, the group staged an intervention for Cory when he was 19 years old.

He “did the stint,” but soon returned to his old ways. Cory’s actions finally caught up with him after he stole “a significant amount of money” from a member of his family.

“I knew I was going to get caught, but I was so desperate I didn’t care,” he told the mag. “It was a cry for help. I was confronted and I said, ‘Yeah, it was me.’ It was the first honorable, truthful thing that had come out of my mouth in years.”

The family member he stole from gave the actor two choices: sober up, or the theft would be reported to the police and charges would be pressed. Cory opted to stop “fighting” himself, and set out to get clean.

After relocating to a small Canadian town (Nanaimo) to live with a family friend, he quit using drugs and became a roofer. Cory dabbled in acting, and after performing a scene about a suicidal man, finally felt a sense of pride from “working had and being good at something.”

“I don’t want kids to think it’s okay to drop out of school and get high, and they’ll be famous actors, too,” Cory explained of why he chose to speak out about his troubled past. “But for those people who might give up: Get real about what you want and go after it. If I can, anyone can.”

Be sure to pick up your copy to read the entire interview!