Eric McCormack

you were wasting your time. They wrote the part for Schwimmer and that was the end of That was the end of that dream. Hi, I'm Eric McCormack, and I I'm so embarrassed. Hello, Hello everybody, and welcome back to Off the Beat. I am, as always, your host, Brian Baumgartner, and you just heard from my guest today, the incredible

and incredibly funny looking Eric McCormack. You might know him from his tenure playing the groundbreaking Will Truman on Will and Grace, for which he earned an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Or maybe you know him from his time traveling show Travelers, or his crime drama perception.

Eric has well, he's done it all. And as they said during the dedication of his Walk of Fame star, he's a national treasure even though he's Canadian and it's it's hard to argue with that. No, Eric is he is indeed a treasure in the US and Canada all over the world. I have gotten to know him working on our new show The Other Black Girl down in Atlanta. I'm excited to dig into his life with all of you here, from his background as a theater actor to

his amazing friendship with Elton John. You're in for a treat today. I'm not gonna make you wait one moment longer. My new bestie and soon to be yours, Eric McCormack, Bubble and Squeak. I love Bubble and Squeak. Bubble and Squeaker cook at every month, left over from the night before. Well, well, well how are you? I mean, you know, I'm good?

How are you? I mean? My little crappy I gotta I gotta figure out how to the only place in my home that this kind of thing works, podcasting and all of that is in like crappy little office which I have not updated in years, and it's just messy and I feel like I'm the gimp when I'm down here, like I've been locked down here, and let me upstairs eventually. Well, I mean, I don't really want the visual image of you being a gimp in your office, but it's there now,

so sorry. Uh Well, first of all, Happy new Year, Happy new year to you, buddy. What a strange little little Am I going to see you again in the new year? I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I guess you know better than I what we can say to people. But Eric and I are working on a new show together out in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. I don't know, I will see I guess. Yeah. It's

a very I'm excited. It's based on a book called The Other Black Girl, and we're keeping the title, which of course is a white guy is always gonna be a very embarrassing title to what are you working on? What the other the Other Black Girl? It's it's a book, it's based on a book and award winning books. Um, but it's it's ays. It's a great ten episode half hour the three young women starring in a great uh, and Brian and I have some fun stuff to do, but we're not sure if Ryan's UH back in the

next couple of episodes. We're not sure. Yeah, we're not sure. We probably shouldn't say I don't. I always feel like I'm gonna get in trouble anytime before something is out to say anything. But I can officially say that I am working and have gotten to know you in Atlanta, which has been delightful. Indeed, we've had a couple of great dinners together. Yeah. Um, well, I want to I want to end there, but I want to go back now. As we have discussed, and as my research has confirmed,

you're originally from Canada. I asked. I'm a Toronto boy, and in fact, my family's Toronto for about four generations. And uh, my parents grew up in the east side of town, and I grew up in the suburbs and and didn't really make it out of there until I was almost thirty, and that was and just and that was to go west to Vancouver. I didn't really come to to l A until Yeah, I was about my thirties birthday. And you you were primarily doing theater early

on correct yeah, I was. I mean years later I would hear about actors that had started pre med or or may or maybe they just discovered acting in their twice like what. I've been acting since I was five years old. And you know, I wasn't the child's are or anything. I was just that was I knew from the age of about six that's what I was gonna do, and was in every school play and uh went to theater school in in Toronto and then left a little early to apprentice at a Shakespeare company. And so my

twenties were spent almost entirely in Canadian theater. Wait, but six years old, I understand you were inspired by mel Blanc, Yes for sure, who voiced all the Looney Tunes, Don Adams in Smart and Woody Allen. This is a collection. Yeah, I wasn't the big Woody Allen fan at six. That came a little bit later. But you know, another big one that only Canadians would really know, uh sort of.

The Canadian version of Mr Rogers was a wonderful character named Mr. Dress Up who was played by an actor named Ernie Coombs, and he literally had what he called a tickle trunk. Every morning, every kid would watch this show across Canada and he would costumes out of a trunk and become that character. I swear that is is my earliest influence. But then, yeah, Mel Blank is a

big one for me. I'm sure a lot of actors would say the same that when I realized because at the end of Loony Tunes were much bigger for my family than Disney. I would watch Loony Tunes every day and at the end of it, as you're watching those very speedy credits that go by, there would say voice characterization Mel Blank, and I thought, what the hell does that even mean? And then I discovered that it was one guy doing all of it, and I thought, well,

this is this is a living somehow. Well, but isn't that crazy, right, Like I go through that with my kids. It's a complicated thing, right to understand that this is done by a person, the animated voices. This is very complicated. I've done very little. I did one kids thing which was called Pound Puppies. It did three seasons of Pound Pupas. But by that point my kid was already twelve or something,

so he wasn't aware of that particular work. But it is interesting once once in a Blue Moon guy's coming to me in the street with his little kid, and he's pointed at me and said, honey, that's Lucky. That's Lucky the dog. And yeah, the look on the face is like, now, that is definitely not lucky that. Now. Did you have a trunk that you would take costumes out of? Oh? Yeah, absolutely, I mean I just I said that my mother very early on. I'm just gonna of course, what it was filled with was my dad's

old shirts, you know, But that's okay. I made the hats my you know, and anybody that disposed to the hats was was mine. You're just like different versions of your dad, isn't that true? Though? Of all this king dad mowing the lawn, this is Dad. Yeah, this is Dad is a gangster m Yeah. That was a huge I mean I was that traditional kind of long kid. I had one best friend through my through my elementary years. But luckily he played along. I always thought he was

like fifty with me and this. It wasn't til years later when I was talking about the games we would play in, the crazy characters and the stories we'd create in the imagination, You'd be like, dude, that was you. I just I just trying to keep up with I don't know what the hell you were doing, because I was say and it was a lot of stealing things

from TV. You know. I'd watch mash or All in the Family with my dad, or some more serious stuff like crime solving stuff with my mom, and I would just the next day That's what I would act out all the time. So I think while so many actors were so influenced by SAVE films, my earliest influence is definitely all all television. How are your parents? Were they supportive? Yeah? You know the story I tell when I tried to

shorten at this time coach By. But basically, my father was a traditional suburban dad that gotten the bus every day and went to a job as a financial analyst for Shell Oil. And when I started to get deeply into the musicals I was doing and wearing my rainbow suspenders from God's Spell all the time, and he put up with it, did he? He said, let's go all you're very well done. Well done. I got into a college called Ryerson, which was the theater program there, and

they were supportive. That's about it until second year I found I was looking in my parents attic. I found a photo album of my father's years at Ryerson as an actor. He had that was his dream. And he graduated fifty two and then just stopped one day and didn't and just went back to school for accounting and never look back to the point where he never told me a wow. And I tried to pick his brain by this point as world of in the early eighties, and uh, he said, oh, well, you know, I wasn't.

I wasn't as serious as you are. And and but he clearly had just made a very kind of early fifties decision that there's you know, there's a there's food to be put on the table, and and your dreams are are not real, and you've got to look at reality. And so the fact that I've sort of got something um from him that he wouldn't even really admit to until years later he come to Will and Grace Tapings

and you'd get have a Martinian going. I taught him everything you knew, but he never met when you went, he never mentioned, oh I went there. We had a teacher in common, the late Jack McAllister, taught me speech, and he, thirty years earlier, had taught my father. And of course he never made the connections, and certainly I didn't, so yeah, so they were very very supportive and they got a great thrill out of it as the years went by, But that always hung. There is a great mystery.

They're they're both gone now and I just will never fully solve why not why you don't pursue that dream, but why you don't even mention it ever as your son is deep in the heart of it, I'll never know. Um, after you left Ryerson, you accepted a position at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. So were you you were doing the whole Shakespeare ensemble doing in various shows. Is that My theater school was very classical, so I was very prepared

for this and got an apprenticeship. And there are people that the Stratford Festival in Canada, just outside of Toronto is the biggest in North America, and it is. It's fantastic, and there are people that stay there their whole lives. And I ended up there for five seasons, which is nine months of the year, so it was five full years of my life, and in the winters I would go to other theaters in Canada to do whatever I get. Um that there was no television for the longest, longest time,

and uh, but I did. I ended up doing in that period of time about half the cannon, about seventeen of Shakespeare's place, and I was an apprentice and a lot of them I was just carrying a spear or understudy. But then I got a few good parts, and by the end of it, but it was eighty nine, I just sort of was starting to get the feeling that that's not my destiny. Okay, So let's talk about that for a second. Was was there, because you and I have talked about I started off in theater as well.

Was there a period of time where you thought, like you mentioned, many people were there, they were life or there. What did you think that was your path? Early you said, there's a moment you decided no. But yeah, I I was so such a theater geek at that point and making okay money as theater goes that all the the dreams that I had had as a kid of you know, watching television and the idea of being on a television show or anything that kind of went away. I wanted.

I wanted the respect and wanted the sort of the high flue life of being a poor theater actor. But I also started to realize that I had a This goes back to the Woody Allen reference. I my style was not intrinsically here Elizabethan I was. I was starting to get more and more sort of urban Jewish in my delivery. And the directors, literally John John Neville, who

who was directing a production of Three Sisters. At one point, I was playing Baron Tuzenbach, and he stopped me in the middle of a run and said, right, Eric, he's a Russian baron. Is not the Allen because I just hands with my pockets and I was trying to find the modern sort of and I couldn't stop it. And I played Demetrius the same way. And it's like I eventually let go for being to sitcomy eight years before Will embarras so interesting. I played two Zimbox. Did you really?

I love that part. It's a great love that role. It's a great part. The relationship with Arena beautiful. Yeah, did you? And he plays the piano in the first act? Did you play? No? I didn't, but they What I loved is that, because of the nature of the stage, they had to get rid of that piano quickly. How do you do that? So they had built a piano that looked like a baby grand from the audience. I mean, it was incredible, but you could lift it with one hand.

It was a complete fake with the thinnest plywood. But I because I spent my whole adolescence in my bedroom pretending to be Freddie Mercury, So I just the idea that I could sit there and recite my lines and talking to Arena and act like I'm playing this music. I just maybe so happy. So you have a moment where you're at Stratford and you start thinking that maybe you want to switch gears? Do you consider it at this moment? Because I did, By the way, spoiler alert,

I'll answer my own question before I ask it. Did you consider it changing careers? Well, at this point, I'm still basically Toronto based, and there really was there. There were some actors that got some Canadian series that didn't do a whole lot of theater at a lot of theater, actors that couldn't get in at the CBC. But for the most part, there was a lot of bleed over

because it was a limited acting pool. So it didn't seem like I had to fully change careers, but I was pretty aware that I had to change something, that whenever this sort of flamboyant theatricality that I enjoyed for years, something was going to change. And it wasn't landing much in Toronto. And then in ninety two, a couple of years later, I flew because somebody told me there was so much more television going on in Vancouver, Canadian and

a lot of American stuff. So I flew out there and slept on my friend's couch and and started auditioning. And the big lesson came when I auditioned for the original The X Files. They'd already started, they shot the pilot, they were starting to shoot episodes, and I was auditioning for a guest star for Chris Carter and I did my scene and he said, okay, just that, just one more time, just do less. So okay, I tried, did

it again. He said yeah, less, really okay, And now I'm I'm practically whispering and I'm trying not to move anything, and he said one more time, he said less, And I said, if I do less, I won't be doing anything at all. And he said, yeah, that's kind of what we're going for and I did. I simply couldn't understand until I saw, you know, the pilot, and I went, oh, okay, I gotta learn how to do that. I don't know how to not do things with my eyes and move

my hands. And it is so it is in a way to your question, it is a new kind of skill. It's a new career in a way. Yeah, you get your first break on street just this. Yes, Car Carl Weathers and I Carl Weathers and I solving crimes. But this is drama now, which I guess makes sense. I mean, you're doing lear, but my guess is not a ton of theatricality in that or in Lonesome Dove, which comes

shortly after that. Yeah, The Lonesome Lonesome Dove was the big change for me because I was doing like, like a lot of guys that were in Vancouver round that time, that one Jump Street time. It was a lot of young, good looking guys. We're all vying for the same parts, and a lot of the television was badly written. It

was no great that this was The Lonesome Dove. And ninety four was the spinoff of the miniseries, and it was to play this I hesitate to use the word macho, but this this sort of tough Confederate colonel with the accent, and I had my hair was kind of long at the time, and I grew a beard, and it was so not me. It was so the opposite of everything I've ever done. So getting it was pretty awesome, and it really in my brain, I thought, this is what

I will be. I didn't think that necessarily this show is going to make me famous, but I thought this is how I'll be perceived now in the business. Because I was thirty one, I'll be my thirties. I'll be right rides horses and shoots guns and and that's what I'll be until I'm a gay lawyer, I guess southern Southern Confederate soldier. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's exactly what I think of you. I know. So you're doing these dramas.

Is there a thought in your head about comedy, about wanting that or feeling that like that's where you should be or were you just auditioning and trying to get something? Yeah, I mean both both those things are true. Is definitely auditioning and trying to get something. And you know, to go back to the tickle trunk. I mean, whatever costume might pull out. It could be funny, but it could be serious. I loved I love playing in my backyard.

It was a kid. I'd play cops and I decided that they were divorced, so they were angry, and I always, you know, there was there was a dramatic side to me that also needed to be fed, and a lot of theater school was was that. But what was happening I was doing lonesome job. I was playing this incredibly

serious part. But when I'd go home, I'm watching Seinfeld and I'm watching Friends, and I'd grown up on Cheers, and It's like like there was a big part of me that was going kind damn it because I got Lonesome Dove, having only weeks earlier auditioned for Ross on Friends, I've done my first pilot season and nothing had come of it, and I Lonesome Dove was a result of a Canadian audition, so that I was very aware now of what was happening on television that I loved, which

was the great sort of SEETV stuff on our network. All right, well, wait, let's talk about Ross for a second. How far did you get in that process. I got to the studio and I had I guess it had to. They moved me up quickly to the studio level. I

didn't make it past that. Years later, when I was working with Jim Burrows on Will and Grace, he directed the first twelve episodes of Friends, and I said, you know, Jimmy, I don't know if I never got to meet you, but I got pretty far along there on the Friends casting and he said, oh, honey, were wasting your time. They wrote the park for schwim Mark and that was the end of that. At the end of that dream, talk to me about Will and Grace. Was this just

an audition? This was an opportunity? Did you know any of the players involved? I didn't know anybody. Tracy Lillian phild had cast it, and she had had tried to cast me in one or two other things, so she was definitely got me in the room. I was not a known fact at that time. I was reading Matthew Perry's book and it reminded me that in that sort of period through the nineties and pilot season, everybody sort of knew seemed to know everybody, and if you know,

if you didn't get this one. You're gonna get that one. And and I don't think I was in that pool. I wasn't aware of being at that pool. I was just down from Canada. I didn't know that many people. But if a casting director sees you and believes in you, they'll get you in. And that's that's what happened there. And I read this guy. I knew but because this by this point, it's nineties seven and it's and friends and mad about you, and they're all like gigantic shows

Seinfeld of course, so I knew. With the pond, I was trying to swim in and I knew a good script when I saw it, and it was a great pilot script, and I just I went in. I was my hair was quite long, and I was wearing this odd sweater. I looked back down and going was I thinking? But but I went in and I just did this one scene. It was on a park bench with with Grace, and I don't think that scene never made it to

the show. But I did that one scene. And Max much Nick, was the the gay one of the two that created the show, just jumped out of his seat and said, okay, just so you know, you never have to be more gay than that, and I went, okay, okay, that's good, that's good, right, thank you. I don't know, because even they were trying to find that balance of you know, because they knew that they could with Jack, they could go crazy, but the will what is that balance?

And so I was just gay enough. But but that was one of I'm pretty sure six auditions. And what was weird is that I kind of felt like I had it in that room. I just I could see it in Max and David's eyes. But of course there's all these other levels, there's all these other people to please. And then it was a strange, little weird period of time was this, which is before Christmas, a period of time over Christmas where I had this other opportunity in

Canada and I just wasn't sure. And I kind of said to them, I'm going to pull myself out of this for a while. And Max called me at my home in Vancouver. It says, Max, Muchnick, what are you doing? He said what I said, I'm just not sure. There's a whole lot of all these scripts to to sort of consider. It's pilot season. He said, if you pass on this, you were making the biggest mistake of your life.

And he was right, and I came back and I woke up one morning in Vancouver, January second third, and I just turned to my wife and I said, I think I've made a terrible mistake, and she said, yeah, maybe, so I called. Un Luckily they hadn't cast it yet, so but it turned out later that all four of us had some version of that story that all four of us, unbeknownst to us, it was kind of our part too, and we all kind of almost blew it.

What were they waiting? What were they waiting on? What do you mean in terms of well, like like you you were all sitting like over Christmas. They just they wouldn't pull the trigger, and they they they weren't necessarily gonna pull the trigger before Christmas because it was afterwards that you'd go to network. And then I hadn't met Burrowsie, I didn't even know Jimmy was directing. I don't think I would have dropped out of now, but it was

just very early in the process. It was one of those scripts that got considered early, an auditioned for early because they knew But as an actor, you by that point you've been trained to think, well, you know, let's get to late February suddenly, I mean demand, which is just a dumb, dumb game to play. But at the same time, not every television show was great, and you're thinking, you know, what if I sign up for the for

this one and then e Er comes up. But I mean, looking back, honestly, between you and I, you were talking with drama and comedy, like, I don't think I could have done e Er and been happy. It was genius And know while he's become a good friend, but I know that from my destination was was going to be sitcom. I just I just know it was. The show is a huge success. How early did you realize what it was going to be for the LBG t Q community.

I mean, obviously there had been Ellen, there had been a few other shows, but you know, completely centering on same sex relationships. Will and Grace definitely the first and most prominent of those shows. At what point did you realize that what you were doing was significant? In another way, it's an interesting question because you think the answer would be, oh, we knew. We didn't know at all, because that's not

what the writers were trying to do. They were trying to write a funny show, but and they've been encouraged. Their initial pilot scripts, Will and Grace were like the fifth and sixth characters in a kind of friends like otherwise straight show, and it was or Little Field at was running NBC that said, I've seen that before, dude, what about these two characters? And then of course they went on to Craig Jack and Karen, who were even crazier. So it's there was never a political agenda. It was

almost the opposite. At first, it was like, how do we do this? How do we make these two men as gay as they are and not apologize for it and not hide behind things. Some of the advertising early on was a little soft soap, was a little sort of friendship is the most important thing in life. But by the end of the first season, when we had been unapologetically out in every episode, there's very few episodes that didn't have a number of bantery situations, which particularly

between Jack and Will. But even into the second third, fourth season, when Glad was was supporting us, we still weren't. It didn't occur to us that we might be having an effect. We had the approval of the gay community, didn't occur to us that we were having an effect beyond that. It really didn't. And it really almost was almost in years later. It was almost when the show was off the air, because we got to a point where I want to say, season six, I had I

got married. We'll got married to Tay Diggs. I mean, I was not only having um that wasn't marriage at the time. What was that domestic partner? Domestic partnership. We had a domestic partnership in my apartment. Paul and Oates performed in partner that's our marriage digs. And then you know that I kissed that, I kissed the groom. You know, so I'm I'm kissing a black man, a white man

kissing a black men on television. And there was almost zero hoop love because at that point we've been so Will and Grace for so long that it's almost like us getting any sort of credit for doing something socially important had come and gone. We were just that silly show that had so many guest stars all the time.

And it wasn't until later like in it was after Joe Biden was on Meet the Press ten years ago and they were talking about marriage equality, and he said he said, I think will Engrace did more for to push that agenda and spread that word than in any other And we all called each other and what did did you just hear that? Because we hadn't even then, even six years after the show was off the air,

I thought of ourselves that way. It was only around that time that a lot of young people, and as gay marriage became law, young people or couples that have been together for thirty years started to approach all of us in the street and say that made a big difference in my life. Incredible. You talked about the parade of guest stars that you had. You and I talked about it at dinner. You guys basically just anointed Emmy

winners year after year. Leslie Jordan's obviously was more than just a guest star, was a significant recurring character on the show. How was it like working with with Leslie and and all these other stars? Well, I mean, yeah, Leslie was one of a few that was wasn't even just recurring. They became a fabric of the show. We always looked forward to that because the writers knew how to had a right for someone like Leslie from the moment he he appeared well, well, well I think that's

how you began broadcast today. Well, we um he was always just Joy and and and some of our other tim bag lades that the guys that would come back. It was always nice to have that that family because you got on your show. You guys had such a big family to start with episode. Yeah, that's right. I never thought about that. Actually, I don't think we talked

about that. Really was really just the four of you. Yeah, I mean, and of course there'd be and that people that my parents sudden I had great parents and Grace had great parents. But we we got to a point with with guest stars because people loved to come on the show, and the word got out there it's a it's a fun week, we should go on will and great that we would go to. We begged the writers by season four be like, can we just have one?

Just one was just the U And once in a while we'd have that and it was and it was great fun because it felt like a little play. But most of the time it was an event because we'd say goodbye to Matt Damon and Michael Douglas would come on the show, and so it was this other thing. And sometimes depending on the person. If it was somethenly like Madonna, it's like who's who's servicing who here? Like, I mean, the whole week became about Madonna's here suppost? Well,

what stories are we telling? What are the characters doing? Can't change everything from from Madonna's schedule, but it did become that after a while. Well, it's funny and I never thought about this, but in some ways, there was a period of time there where it was almost like SNL. Right, it was like there would there would be an ad for who was you know, Will Ferrell's guest hosting SNL, and then yeah, Matt Damon is on, will agree, Yeah, And it went from like why, oh my god, this

look at this one special? But you know, and suddenly, well it was one episode. We had John Clice, uh, Gina Davis and somebody else. I mean, it was like three in the same episode. It's incredible. Yeah. And meanwhile, we were in a lot of ways with the opposite. We're a paper company in Scranton. Why would Matt Damon show up? Exactly it's distracting to a degree on Will and Grace, but it would be more distracting and scranting. You know. I mean, you'd be very aware of it.

So maybe that was the logic. I know, because you guys all were so real and there were so many of you being so real for so long that that's a that's a different fabric. You don't want to necessarily funk with um. Talk to me a little bit about the decision for you guys to be done. Was this

your decision, the cast decision? Now it was It was mutual in that nearing the end of season seven, we were all we were all making that sort of mistake that happens where you you just think there's so much else, I'm sort of done with this, I've done this, I've done this, let's move on. Let's move on. I say mistake because the you know, we could have the writers wanted to do we all wanted to do it. But at the same time, we didn't want to go out badly.

We didn't want the numbers to start to drop below a certain thing, and we didn't want to repeat ourselves. So there was a decision made that season eight was our last. And so I liked that in retrospect because we went out with our heads high, and but it was also once it was done there was definitely a period of tie. Can't speak for the others, I know for myself it was it was a few years before I realized that I was searching and I wasn't. I

wasn't going to do the Matt Blanc Joey thing. I was going to dive into another sitcom and and in fact I found started to find dramas after that, But it still took me a couple of years, a little theater, a little this to sort of get not just Will, but the whole experience, though, is it's you're spoiled, rotten spoil. I lived close to the stage. We worked twenty two hours a week. It was a pretty great life that

we all eventually took for granted. I think you received four Emmy nominations, one win as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Will and Grace. What do you value more that or being named one of People Magazine's fifty most Beautiful People. I mean, it is neck and neck, my friend, it is. It is a toss up. Um, talk to me about the talker. Talk to me about um. By the way, I didn't mention double double boil in

trouble yet. Talk to me about that Emmy win. I mean, to win that award and to receive that that validation

from the Academy. What was that for you? It was really huge for mean, you know, the for one thing, the only knowledge I had of that particular award, not the Emmy in general, but that specific award, is that that's what on Adams one and famously got so drunk with Don Riggles that he fell on the wings, the pointy pointy wings of the Emmy and made himself bleed like a vampire, which I don't know if it's apocryphal.

I don't want to know. I love it, um, but it meant a lot to me because I always felt like I was on the outside coming in because I was Canadian. I think possibly you know, I was coming from another country, coming from from the theater. I didn't have a lot of friends in l A when I even when I got the job, I was still I really didn't know anybody. So it felt like approval for the actual work. And it was for an episode that I was really proud of. It was for the sort

of flashback to when Will comes out to Grace. It was beautifully written episode by Jeff Greenstein, and I just thought, if it was ever I'm ever going to get this is. If there is ever a reality, it'll be this one. It was just not. It was nice for that, in that one moment to know that I was what's the word we use all the time now, seen, you know, I felt seen, like, yes, we see you, you can do this. And so it's it's it sits on my piano. I it doesn't matter to me. And you know the people,

you know, people's most beautiful. I've got framed over my bed, so they're they're really I don't. I have it framed over my son's bed, just to remind me, to remind him, yes, to drive him forward. You talk about your piano. You told me an amazing story. I have to bring him. Before you went to Ryerson Theater School, you went to Sir John A. McDonald Collegiate Institute UM with a few other notable people, Mike Myers being one. Mikeae was there.

David Furnish. David Furnish, Yes, David Furnish and I were in a theater class together ten eleventh and twelfth grade and part of a real little clak of of UM. Three guys and my and my friend Helga and we did Godspell and Pippen and the Fantastics together, and eventually

he moved. We kept in touch a little bit, then he moved to London, we lost touch, and when we finally sort of reconnected again, I was just starting to date my wife and he was just starting to date Elton John uh like mid nineties, and then shortly thereafter

Will and Grace happened and they were the first. Elton and David were the first people, I think in the UK to see it because it didn't exist there yet, and I'd sent him a bunch of videotapes of season one, which they quite enjoyed, which led eventually to Elton being

on the show. Um, my favorite story that I'll tell to lie Dies is just that Elton asked me to host an event for Yamaha, and Yamaha's payment to me they paid me in piano, so I was given a maybe grand piano that sits in the senator in the living room to this day. And shortly thereafter and we've only ever seen David and Elton in the world at a restaurant and David called us that he was in town, and Janet and my wife stand and said, well, tell David to come home for He said, well, why don't

you just come over and see the house. He said, sure, We'll be over at eight and I said, Janet, he said we he said we, did not say I. He said we. So sure enough, Elton and David came over for dinner. My son was six months old at the time, and I eventually just said, Elton, you know you're gonna have to christen the piano. Without a second thought, got up, walked into the living room, sat down at the piano,

looked up at me. He's wearing a sweatshirt, like a vlor sweat outfit, and he said, what was you like me to play? And I thought, this is it. This is my chance, is my chance to show him that I'm serious here. I know my ship. I'm not gonna say rocket I'm not gonna say Rocket band like some schmucks. So I I said, okay, I've seen that movie Toom Goodbye Yellow Bick Road, and he looked up at me and said, oh, fuck off, I don't remember that song. And remember the moment, Feeling incensed as a fan, I

was like, you don't remember that. You're supposed to know every song you wrote it. You wrote it. So he didn't play that song. But I tell that story and my act occasionally and do and then I do. I've seen that movie to which people don't remember, which is a great song. What did he play? He played, Actually, he played another obscure song for me because my son was there as a beautiful song called the Greatest Discovery.

It's about a little boy waking up and hearing all this commotion and realizing that he has a brand new baby brother, and it's it's I feel like it's it's an impossible song to hear in that cry at the end, it's just so. It's Bernie Tuppas greatest lyrics, I think, and I do that. I've seen that one occasionally too. But he sang that song at the piano. And then the next day I saw my neighbor Thomas, and he

was aware we had this new piano. We didn't know each other that well at the time, but he's seeing the piano right when he said, I couldn't help. But over here last night, you're you're getting pretty good. Thank you. Uh um. You mentioned after Well and Grace you had some time and you started exploring other things. One of those being Travelers the show playing Traveler four UM and you also produced and you directed and episode for that show.

How was How was that for you? Travelers was a real There's been a couple that had come before where I did a show for a year called Trust Me with Tom Kavanaugh, and then I did a show for three years called Perception where I played a neuroscience professor and I had produced on that one too, and eventually directed one episode and and so it was a very much a learning curve slowly through that through the early

tens that what we call them UM. So by the time there was two thousand fifteen came along to the top of sixteen that I got this offer, and being a producer was included H. Brad Wright, who created the show, which it was just really really wanted to make me a part of it, to be a partner with me and bring me along. And I learned a lot from the directors in that show. So then I finally got to direct a few episodes of it. It was fantastic.

It was fantastic, and I I've come to associate directing with directing everyone that you you know that knowing the crew, did you direct some offices I can't remember you did, yeah, and it's I mean, what was your experience? For me? It was so comfortable, even though it was new and it was a sci fi show not in exactly my area, but I knew everybody and I knew they would have my back. That's exactly right, Yes, I knew I could.

I could for me to screw up, the episode could still be great because of the other people involved and that they would support me in whatever way, and then if it was especially good, then that would only serve.

It was like I couldn't fail per se. And because the style of I mean, most shows have a style that you can't be here too much from the the office style, which I don't remember everyone anyone doing before that constant, the constant motion of the camera just going to the one person and so they can give a quick look to the camera going away. It was so unique and so its own thing that I imagine that that that deciding what the camera work is going to be is the joke you know, you you know where

was with the sitcom. You have to make sure the camera's pointed in the right way, but it's it's more in the editing that you make sure you have the joke, but in your show, the joke was often what the camera was doing and who it was landing on. That's right, And and to what degree were people aware that they were being filmed yet at any given moment? Was it a spy? Was it not? Was the camera there? Or how much are you interacting with that camera? Are they

on your team? Are you hiding from it? You know, all of those. Yeah, so it happens much more outside of the editing room in that in that regard, yeah, Yeah, The Travelers really was when I hoped would go a little longer. Three seasons still on Netflix, Still something I recommend people check out. Yeah, around this time you say you wanted it to go a little longer. Around this time you start having discussions with Max and the folks at Will and Grace about coming back. Were you surprised

about this? Was this something that had been discussed? No, I mean, first of all, the word reboot was pretty new to the lexicon at that point, and we had to be finished in two thousands six, I mean eleven years. Yeah, it was over. Yeah, what changed it? I do love this story is that Max had sent the entire set complete with all the set dressing to Emerson College, his alma mater, and it was set up there for ten years in the library as the thing that people would

look at. And eventually they needed space, and they happened to be in two thousands sixteen, the spring of sixteen that they called it. Look, we're gonna spend ten years. Can you take your setback? And as opposed to this being like an oh ship, what am I gonna do with this? He flew setback on his own time, had it set up secretly in the basement one of the basements of the studios at Radford, and called us and said, would you do a little would you come back into

a little video? Um basically, I mean it was called just get out of the Vote, but really it was for Hillary. It was for trying to stave off everything that happened. And we all said, god, sure, okay. They wrote this very funny little ten minute YouTube script and the amazing thing we came back together and somehow, like none of us had changed that much, we kind of

pulled it off. We looked like slightly older versions of how we finished and it worked so well, this little ten and a bit that we just dropped on the internet. That NBC called us and said, let's talk about this. So miraculously it happened at all, but particularly for me, it happened in tandem with Travelers, and I had two years to this, seventeen and eighteen where I was doing both shows in two different countries, and it was fantastic. I was never been happier. Wow. Do you feel like

the characters changed. The intent was that the fee all of the show, the look of the show would not change. That it would be like, oh my god, Will and Grace hasn't gone anywhere, but that we the writers would write to our age, you know, whether it be needing classes or not understanding the young people. And so I think it was it was a mix of both. For me, what I had to get my head around it was we we finished in two thousand and six with the

idea that I was married and Grace was married. And they came up with this notion in the very first scene of the of the new episode back where that was all just a dream, kind of like what's his name in the shower on Dallas Um And I'm just glad they did because it wouldn't have been the show if we just were trying to tell Will and Grace plus children, it wouldn't have. So I like that we

were that the story we were telling. Now is there freaking fifty and still single, And that was a different demographic to talk to because there's a lot of people out there single a fifty or forced or whatever, so that it's it was nice to just show what that is. You're not just running around like sex in the city and everyone's thirty two. It's um, now we have a higher states. Were you proud of it? I was proud of the reboot. First of all, every department head came back, everybody.

That's incredible. It really was. So there was definitely a feeling of this is ours we have. This isn't commerce. This is hopefully the converse down the road for people, but right now this is us taking ownership of our thing and not somebody else rebooting it down the road. So yeah, there was a lot of pride in that.

It felt to me like a chapter of a novel, like's I guess when I when a sequel comes along or something and you think that movie doesn't need a sequel, that movie is fine just as it is, and then you love the sequel. You Yeah, that's pretty good. I mean, I I'm glad we had a chance to be them again, even if it was just for a few years. Yeah, you and Sean have a new podcast coming out, just Jack and Will rewatch podcast with Will and Grace. Have you guys started recording those yet? Not yet? Not yet.

I've been, um, I've actually been doing a podcast that is about to launch with Stephen Webber where we're talking. We're just actors eating and talking, and I would love to have you on that. Yeah, so we'll just have each other just podcast with each other for the rest of you. Nobody ever has to hire it, but Deshan.

I I'm excided that Sean came to me and said, look this any referenced the office ladies, you know, your your pals just looking at episodes and remembering, and it's just such a there's such a market in it now. You know, it's sort of in our day. There was a show while it was on the air, would have reruns, you know during the summer. That's kind of gone. I don't I don't know who watches this show again the

same time. But the idea that shows are being discovered your show friends really really reads ever by a whole different generation because of streaming, has just created a whole different thirst for for talking about them and referencing them. And so what I discovered I had lunch with Sean then ongoing, and I confess that if it's on, I'm gonna watch it. It's gonna watch our show. And he said, yeah,

I never have. He said, I've never seen any of the episodes except for maybe the first time they aired twenty years ago. I said, you were joking, Well, then that's the show. The show is you seeing the show really for the first time through new eyes and me knowing it too too. Well, Well, first of all, that's awesome. I don't know if you did this when back in the day. Again, I don't. This doesn't happen anymore with streaming.

But there were the DVDs. Yeah, and we used to get called in the summer when the DVD when they were because they were looking for basically, they didn't want the DVD to say this is episodes one through six. They wanted bonus material away, and so then we would do some you know, basically commentary while the episode was

happening on that Here's what I always found. It was a mess because they would get like eight people and everybody would be talking over each other and it would last twenty one at minutes and then it would be done. And I don't think anybody learned anything, but this really gives an opportunity to talk about what was going on behind the scene. So good for you. Yeah, I think I think it'll be fun. And also, I just my favorite thing is bloopers. I've been following off the office

bloopers on Instagram and at least twice a day. There's something that just because you guys would break each other up, yes, so much, So I don't I don't love bloopers that are just people forgetting their lines. I like when people remember their lines and it's they're so funny that the other promotion just can't keep a straight place. And that was your show was so often well yeah, well basically it was a secret, hidden competition to try to get the other person to laugh. Did you guys have that

or were you more restrained and well behaved? Because there was there was not so much because Jimmy brows like, we would shoot the whole thing in front of one live audience and that better not be over four hours or were it's gonna so you you you messed around a little, for sure, and we do have some great bloopers,

but you couldn't make it go on and on. Whereas I sensed with you guys that I like, I saw him in a day where um, Steve was he clearly done his sheet, said what he had to say, but he just kept going and no one was gonna yell cut just to see who was going to break And it was so much fun. Fun. It was so much fun because he would often break himself up, which, really, sure, that's the greatest. Where do you think Will and Gray

stands in that line of great musty TV shows? I mean, that's such a stupid question, right, what does that mean? It's only stupid that it's not for me to decide, but it's it's um for me. I think that's unlike Friends, it was not an instant hit. It didn't burst out of Monday Nights at nine thirty and change the world. It's it was a slow burn and I feel like you know, you see these days, I know it's like this past year there was a top one dst Important

Shows of all time thing. We didn't make it, but you know, a show from last year. Maybe it's like, well, sure and we'll we'll see, we'll see. It's a test of time thing. I don't know. I think that the that's uh, not every episode, but there are certain episodes of Willing Grace that will stand among the best stuff for a long time. That's that's my feal. Well, you

didn't say it, but I'll say it. I talked to you about the Emmy before and yeah, you know, there's certain things you're supposed to say, and it's just an award and it's a really about the work or blah blah blah. But here's the thing to me that's really cool about yours is, yeah, you mentioned that will head quirks and finding those idiosyncrasies as season two, et cetera went along. But I think one of the hardest things in comedy is to be that character that may haam

happens around right. It's like, and on your show there were certainly two and a half swirling tornadoes that were happening around you at all times. But what that means is you have to be you have to steer the ship and it only is funny in relation to everybody else, and you stayed so you were just so strong staying in the middle of those hurricanes, tornadoes or whatever that your work was just so at I've always admired your work and appreciated you and uh and and you're role

on that show, So congratulations on all the success. I'm very excited to see your new show, The Other Black Girl, our new show, you your other news show. Well, I'm excited to see it. I um, it'll be very interesting. The tone again, without giving anything away, the tone is very different, but I'm used to that, so we'll see how it goes. But it's been such a pleasure to work with you and to get to know you too, and and uh and just great yaks on this. Thank you.

How many of these you've done, and how many people are listening? Well, thank you. I want to sit down with you and Stephen Webber soon. What is the name of that podcast at this point, we're calling it because because it's about it's about dining, we call it Eating Out with American Stephen Eating Out. I'm gonna let that sit. Um. So, but we've done about ten You've got some great people on and we just wanted we just love mixing and matching actors and actresses and and this, it's a lot

of this. It's just I love. I'll never get tired of hearing the stories of people in in high school, college, whatever, it was bad stories that the worst, the worst experience you ever had, the actors that were terrible to you, never retforded. Thank you so much. I will see you in Hotlanta. Okay, brother, very soon, Thank you, my friend. Bye ry Eric, thank you so much for stopping by today.

It's been so great getting to know you. I'm glad that the cats finally out of the bag with the other black girl coming to a theater set near you very soon. It's been awesome working with you. I look forward to our next meal. Listeners, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Off the Beat next week. Well, we've got another new friend of mine coming on. Let's just say she has some political power. Until then, have

a fantastic week. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan, Papa Zachary and our intern is Sammy Cats. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and Only Creed Brandon M