Mark Salling steams up love scenes, feeds the children

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Mark Salling has a lot on his plate, including juggling his on-screen ‘Glee’ love interests and helping to feed young Americans.

As this week brings Thanksgiving, the Ministry enjoyed a chat with Salling about his ongoing effort to address hunger -- and perhaps feed our appetite for insider info on the fictional cougar connection with Idina Menzel’s character on his Ryan Murphy-run show.

‘Idina’s amazing,’ Salling said. ‘I got to see her at the Greek [Theatre] recently.’

And did he perchance run into Menzel’s husband, actor Taye Diggs?

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘that was awkward.’ Beat. Smile. ‘No, he’s a really nice guy.’

Fine, no significant others beating down his door on behalf of Menzel, nor prior scripted loves Dianna Agron and Lea Michele. But how does Mark, the actor, handle those moments on set?

‘I really give myself over to the writers in that situation. I mean, there are kids who are hungry,’ he said, putting things in perspective. ‘I just have to do a few fun scenes with some great actors.’

Back to those hungry kids. Mark has been promoting a UPC-label drive in conjunction with Feeding America and ConAgra Foods, who are working to generate 5 million meals nationwide for children in grades K through 12 over the next year.

‘On ‘Glee,’ we root for the underdog, and given this age bracket and such a solvable crisis, I’d say this falls in line with that,’ Salling said.

Learn more about the program here, and catch ‘Glee’ Tuesdays on Fox.

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-- Matt Donnelly
twitter.com/MattDonnelly