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"So, even after duetting up a storm with Damian, Matheus Fernandes used up all his chances and got sent home from The Glee Project this weekend. Matheus recently chatted to journalists about his time on the show, so read on to find out whether he&amp;#039;s made up with Alex, what it was like taking his clothes off for Ryan Murphy, and what he&amp;#039;s planning to do next... Did you learn anything surprising during your time on the show? &amp;quot;I was surprised to learn that I have a lot of guts! Like with Ryan Murphy wanting me to embrace sex appeal and the whole, &amp;#039;Please take your shirt off&amp;#039; sort of thing, I was kind of surprised to see that.&amp;quot; Do you think Ryan&amp;#039;s advice to get sexier got in your way on the show? &amp;quot;I did feel uncomfortable with it, but I don&amp;#039;t know. That&amp;#039;s the kind of character that he envisioned for me if I ever made it into the show, and with me always dreaming of being on Glee and music and performing and whatnot, I guess whatever he wants I&amp;#039;ll try to impersonate that character. It was a little bit nervewracking for me. I wasn&amp;#039;t forced into doing it, I guess, but at the same time I did what he wanted.&amp;quot; What was it like taking your clothes off while you were singing for Ryan? &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t even know! Ryan, he was the one that asked me to take my shirt off. That didn&amp;#039;t make it into the edit but he was the one that told me to do that. So I was really nervous, but at the same time he&amp;#039;s the creator of Glee so if he envisioned that sort of character for me then... I was there in a competition, because I wanted to be on Glee, so it was like, &amp;#039;OK, I&amp;#039;ve got to do it&amp;#039;. It was scary. It was scary but I pulled through it and I tried my best not to break down there. I pulled through it and I got on.&amp;quot; What was the most important thing you learned? &amp;quot;One thing I always appreciated about Glee was that it embraced everybody&amp;#039;s uniqueness in a positive light. I&amp;#039;m kind of thankful to Ryan Murphy, because when I came in the competition I was positive about everything but I still lacked some confidence and he knows and that&amp;#039;s what he was trying to get out of me. I got out of my little shell in a way. Performing has always been my dream so I think this is a great experience for that and for keeping me pushing forward.&amp;quot; How did it feel when Damian came to your defence after the last-chance performance? &amp;quot;Damian is like my little big brother. Defending me like that, I really appreciated it. I just, I didn&amp;#039;t like being put on the spot when Ryan was wanting to know which people had been doing it. They cut it right to the chase with the editing, but actually it took me a long time to tell him that and I was kind of pressured a little bit to tell him. He&amp;#039;s the creator of Glee and he knows what&amp;#039;s going on in the house so I knew I had to be fully honest with him.&amp;quot; Did you make up with Alex? &amp;quot;Yeah, yeah we made up. We definitely did make up. I love Alex, I love all of the contestants. It was kind of pressure, it was really intense in the competition and stuff, and I guess sometimes that makes the worst in us come out a little bit. It was an intense week. I don&amp;#039;t have anything against him - I&amp;#039;m not saying I was right either. After we watched the episode we texted each other, we talked about it. We&amp;#039;re fine and we&amp;#039;re cool now.&amp;quot; Did you expect to be the one going home? &amp;quot;You know, I wasn&amp;#039;t sure, but I had to prepare myself. It&amp;#039;s that point in the competition where they do have to eliminate somebody. I have been so close to many things before - &amp;#039;Oh, you&amp;#039;re kind of there but kind of not&amp;#039; - so it felt like I had the carpet pulled from under me, but it&amp;#039;s part of it. This whole industry, I learnt that you fall but you pick yourself back up and you have to keep going. I&amp;#039;ve said before I&amp;#039;ve had many nos, I&amp;#039;ve had many, &amp;#039;Oh you&amp;#039;re too weird to do it, you&amp;#039;re too different&amp;#039; or whatever, but I finally got really far into something I think might open up some opportunities. I hope so.&amp;quot; Have you worked on your problems with shutting down when people start judging you? &amp;quot;I have, definitely. As far as shutting down, he was talking about vulnerability-wise. For me, the whole thing with my height, usually back in the day I used to not talk about it. But now the way I feel comfortable about it is talking about it and joking about it. I think that&amp;#039;s a good outlet for people dealing with whatever they feel insecure about.&amp;quot; Would you do anything differently if you could go back and do it again? &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s actually a tough question because I&amp;#039;m the kind of person that believes that everything sort of happens for a reason, the way that it&amp;#039;s meant to. I believe in God and He always has a path laid out in front of you. If this was not my path that He wanted, then I think that nothing should be changed. I think it happened probably the way that it was supposed to happen.&amp;quot; What performing experience had you had before The Glee Project? &amp;quot;I just performed at, like, choir, just with a group. I used to sing on a lot of YouTube videos and I built up a little fanbase there, but nothing ever professional. I never went to do gigs like lots of the contestants have done and I wasn&amp;#039;t part of any bands or anything like that. It&amp;#039;s completely brand new to me.&amp;quot; Was your high school experience similar to Glee? &amp;quot;Yeah, it was. I mean, that&amp;#039;s one of the reasons why I related so much to Glee to begin with, because those kids use music as an outlet for them. I&amp;#039;ve always been judged by people at high school - &amp;#039;Look at that kid, he&amp;#039;s so weird, he&amp;#039;s so different&amp;#039; - and whenever they&amp;#039;d see that I wanted to become an actor or singer they wouldn&amp;#039;t really believe me. Just seeing Glee and seeing those kids go through the same stuff, that inspired me and that&amp;#039;s why I wanted to participate in this project.&amp;quot; Do you have someone you want to win? &amp;quot;I do! I got really close with all of them but some of the people I became really fond of were Damian, Sam, Hannah. But I love all of them, though.&amp;quot; What&amp;#039;s next for you? &amp;quot;I definitely want to keep going with music - I love music, I love performing. I want to be able to inspire people and touch people and show people it doesn&amp;#039;t matter if you&amp;#039;re different or not, you can still follow your dreams, you can still keep going, you can still pursue what you love despite other people trying to perhaps bring you down.&amp;quot; The Glee Project airs on Sundays at 9/8c on Oxygen in the US and on Wednesdays at 8pm on Sky1 in the UK. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/the-glee-project/interviews/a330485/the-glee-project-5th-eliminee-qa/>