-Welcome back. -Thank you.
I'm so happy to have you here.
And, by the way, it's lovely to have you in another show
that takes place in New York City.
Excellent accent work there. -[ New York accent] Thanks.
-Yeah, it was great.
But you actually got to be in Scotland.
You were there this morning?
Did you wake up in Scotland?
-Yesterday morning, I woke up in Scotland.
I was there, 'cause it was Mother's Day in Sc--
'Cause we have Mother's Day on a different day from you.
-Really?
-You're panicking that you missed it.
-Yeah, I would've. I definitely would've.
-Yeah, we have Mother's Day on Sundays.
I saw my mom, and I was at a wedding, a lovely wedding.
And my friends got married at St Andrews on Saturday.
And before that, I was filming a bit,
and it was also my mum's 80th birthday last month.
-Oh, fantastic.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Was she -- She must have just been delighted, I'm assuming,
to have you home for her birthday.
-Yeah. It was good.
And actually all of my family who are alive were there.
-I do want you to know
that we wouldn't have thought otherwise.
I wouldn't have followed up with,
"Even the dead ones, Alan?"
-Even the dead ones.
We have old Scottish traditions, but that's not one of them.
-So, you get to play a retired CIA operative.
-Yes.
-...who gets recruited by the NYPD...
-Yes.
-...because a serial killer is using your book.
-My book which I've written, uh-huh.
And I'm also sort of a
fuddy-duddy professor at Penn State.
-Okay. -There's a lot going on.
-There's a lot going on. -And also I'm a homosexual.
-Yeah, which is very exciting.
I don't want to just roll by that.
Because it's not the most --
It's not what your character's about.
-No. See, that's what I think is great about it, Seth,
is that it's like --
The fourth or fifth thing of the characteristics
of this person is that he's gay and married
in a happy, you know, solid marriage.
And actually what I think is really amazing
is that most of the times,
especially on network TV, when someone is gay,
when there's a gay character, it's like they're gay, gay, gay!
And it's all about their sexuality,
and usually in a negative way.
So the fact that this has a character
whose gayness is way down the list of things
that are most important about him is a positive thing.
And also the fact that when you do see
sort of his same-sex life, it's in a really positive way.
And that's two things I don't think
are represented enough in this country.
-Well, it's fantastic. And I didn't realize --
[ Cheers and applause ]
The first -- It's the first time.
-It's the first time on a network drama that a gay --
there's been a TV drama
with a gay character in the leading role.
-That's amazing. -It's shocking.
-Perfect. [ Cheers and applause ]
You -- Obviously, this is a show about the police.
You're a CIA operative. So you have a gun.
-I do have a gun, yes, which has been --
It's sort of, uh -- Well, I mean --
I have mixed feelings about that because I'm very --
I play sort of a cop person and a CIA person.
So obviously he has a gun. It's part of the story.
But obviously -- And especially in the current atmosphere,
I have -- it's difficult for me to kind of marry that.
But, you know, I think it's really hard
for people in this country who are so used to gun violence
just being an everyday occurrence
and sort of almost an
unacceptable part of your culture.
From where I'm from, there was never any idea
of people owning guns.
So it's been difficult for me, but I have it.
But, you know, I'm quite --
I don't really ever shoot anyone,
but the only thing I've ever -- [ Laughter ]
In the show, I mean. The only time -- [ Laughs ]
The only time I've ever shot anything
is I shot a glass of poisoned iced tea
out of Whoopi Goldberg's hand.
-Oh, wow. -Thereby saving her life.
And, also, I'm really bad 'cause there's always those
lovely cop adviser guys and gun adviser people
who show you how to grip it and everything.
And I -- I'm, like, the lead in the show,
so I guess they don't really say to me,
"Uh, that was rubbish."
But I realized after the first couple of times
that my co-star Bojana, she's quite small.
And the first time we come in and go, "Police," or whatever,
I realized that she was taller than me,
and it's because my stance for doing the gun, I go like this.
Like sort of --
Like Broadway, Bob Fosse kind of thing.
She's so much taller than me
'cause my legs are so wide apart.
And someone said, "Why do you do that?"
I go, "I don't know. I didn't realize I was doing it."
Maybe just to be balanced, you know?
But that's -- So I'm kind of a --
I've got a sort of slight Broadway flair to my...
[ Laughs ] As you should.
-Yeah.