Lea Michele Reveals How She Prepares For Her Role On ABC’s ‘The Mayor’

Lea Michele is researching a lot about politics as part of her preparation for her new role on ABC’s upcoming comedy series, “The Mayor.”

In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Michele said that she’s having “fun” doing “a lot of political research” for her role as Valentina Barella on the Jeremy Bronson-created sitcom. The show follows the story of hip hop artist Courtney Rose (Brandon Micheal Hall), who runs for mayor to promote his mixtape and actually ends up being elected. “I’ve played very driven characters before, [but my character’s] love and passion for politics is sort of new for me. So I’ve been brushing up on a lot of my legal jargon,” she explained.

In the official trailer for the series, Michele’s Valentina is introduced as the campaign manager for Courtney’s mayoral-race rival, Ed Gunt. In a TV interview, Valentina calls Courtney’s mayoral campaign a stunt, saying that “voters won’t fall for that … not in America.”

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But when Courtney wins the mayoral race, Valentina reaches out to him and offers her help. “Let me help you. I know what needs to get done, and I know how to do it,” Valentina tells Courtney as they shake hands in the preview clip.

“The Mayor’s” Valentina is Michele’s first series-regular role outside of the Ryan Murphy universe. But the “Glee” and “Scream Queens” alum told Entertainment Tonight that she would “of course” love to star in another Murphy production in the future. “But I’m really excited I’m going to be on a new show, and I love my boys on the show,” she said. “I’ve been working with girls the past couple of years, but I love my ‘Scream Queens,’ and I obviously love Ryan Murphy. So I will come back whenever he will have me.”

In addition to Michele and Hall, “The Mayor” also stars Yvette Nicole Brown as Courtney’s mom, Dina Rose, as well as Bernard David Jones and Marcel Spears as Courtney’s friends, Jermaine Leforge and T.K. Carter.

“The Mayor” will air every Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. EDT in the fall.