Lea Michele has more in common with her Glee character than she is "willing to admit".

The actress plays ambitious Rachel Berry in the popular US TV show. Rachel is a straight-laced high school student who is determined to get what she wants, and Lea can identify with her passion.

"I think we share more characteristics with our on-screen roles than we are willing to admit sometimes. I am a big Streisand fan, I come from Broadway and I love performing on stage, very similar to Rachel," Lea told British newspaper The Independent. "But not only that, I understand her drive. If you watch the show, and the last two episodes of Season Two, she says, 'I'm going to New York and I'm going to be a performer.' And I was and am very much like that. Very just driven and on the path of knowing what I wanted to be."

Lea, 25, has a strong musical theatre background. She was thrilled when one episode of Glee took the cast to New York City's Broadway district.

Some scenes were filmed on the stage of Wicked and Lea admits she got carried away with the moment.

"We were crazy kleptomaniacs running around thinking what can we steal," she laughed. "We couldn't because everything was massive or chained down, they probably knew that we were coming.

"I found a broom and I was riding around and they couldn't get the broom out of my hand.