-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy Award-winning actor
you know best as Will Truman from NBC's "Will & Grace,"
which returns for its second revival season
this Thursday at 9:00 p.m.
Let's take a look.
-Grace, is Will here?
-I'll get him.
Hey. What's up?
-You are not going to believe this.
I just saw my boobs walking down Madison Avenue.
-That's why the little label on the pill bottle says
do not mix with alcohol.
-Please welcome back to the show Eric McCormack, everyone.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back. -Nice to be back.
-I have to say, that really speaks to the fact
that you work on a classic show.
With very little context, that was an extremely funny clip.
-Thank you. Well, yeah.
All you have to do is talk about Karen's boobs.
-Yeah, exactly.
-And everybody is paying attention.
-Well, last time you were here
you had just done a mini reunion.
Sort of small special "Will & Grace."
This is before the revival season.
-It was the only thing we were going to do.
We were going to do this 10-minute video
to encourage people to vote for Hillary.
Clearly that worked a treat. -Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
You struck out hard.
People still blame you guys for it. Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-I know. She's not speaking to us.
-Yeah.
-That's why she did Murphy's -- the Murphy show.
But then NBC saw it and said, "We've got to have this."
So the show became much more political than it ever was.
It was always very LGBTQ, very cultural show,
but it was never political, and so, now we --
we just did a show where Jack and Will go to Texas
and experience all of that homophobia.
Meanwhile, Karen tags along with us
to see the portion of the wall that she sponsored.
[ Laughter ]
So we get to do that.
-There you go. Yeah, exactly.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-Obviously people over the years lined up to be guest stars
for the show and in the revival,
I think people were, of course, excited to be part of it again.
Are there dream --
Would there be a dream guest for you to have on the show?
-I've been pitching that Will has a secret Canadian lover
for the entire -- and it would be revealed in the season finale
that it's Justin Trudeau.
-That would be great. [ Cheers and applause ]
-I think he'd be game. -He'd be great.
-I think he'd be game. -He'd be down for it.
You are Canadian yourself.
-Yes, I am.
-How do you feel the perception of Canada
has changed in the last couple of years?
-Oh, it's -- There was a time when, of course,
Canadians were just cute.
Aren't they cute?
-Yeah, yeah.
-With their snow and their funny way of talking.
And now it's kind of like, "You're from Canada?
Like, can we hang out?
We should be friends.
We should be best friends."
-But do you think -- do you think people here in the States
underestimate how easy it would be
to just pack up and live in Canada?
-Well, that was the thing.
Everybody was like, "Oh, if he gets in, I'm moving to Canada."
And I'm like,
"You know, it's kind of a hard reservation to get.
-Yeah. -Right?
Like, you can't just show up.
It's a country. [ Laughter ]
-You also -- You have another show, "Travelers,"
that you film in Vancouver. -Yes.
-It's interesting because at the same time in your career
you're doing "Will & Grace," which obviously,
is a comedy that you have some comfort with,
and another show that's incredibly dark
and very different.
Is it -- Is it easy to do both at the same time?
-Well, I come from rep theater where you do a comedy
in the afternoon and a tragedy at night.
So I was really lucky that Netflix was --
I was already doing the first season of "Travelers,"
which is a very dark sci-fi show.
Two seasons available right now. Go home and watch it on Netflix.
[ Cheers and applause ] Thank you.
But we just shot the third in the spring,
and I had four days to become gay again.
[ Laughter ]
It actually -- it doesn't take that long.
[ Laughter ]
Really, it's -- it's actually --
-You could turn it around even faster.
-It's about 10 minutes. -Okay, got you.
-Anybody can do it. -Oh, that's great.
-Which was amazing.
I literally had four days off,
and then we were back on that set.
So it's been a luxury year.
-Your son is 16. -He is.
-Is he excited --
is "Will & Grace" something that excites him?
Is he excited about your career?
Is he impressed with you? -[ Chuckles ]
Well, he -- When we went off the air the first time he was three.
-Right.
-So, gay sit-coms were not high on the priority list.
Though he loved "Spongebob Squarepants,"
which I think is pretty close.
-Pretty close, yeah. -It's pretty close.
-It's ballpark certainly.
-It's the "Frasier" of cartoons.
-Yeah. -I think.
[ Laughter ]
But now, he came to set the other day,
and I thought, "He's gonna love this.
Now he'll appreciate this,
with the cameras and Jim Burrows directing."
And I think we got a scene in,
and he was like, "I got homework to do, Dad."
And I'm like, "It's 4:30."
He said, "No, I got a lot.
I got a lot of, uh, chemistry, yeah, yeah."
-We were talking backstage.
He was only a few months old when we first met,
when you hosted "SNL."
-That's right. -Which is 16 years ago.
-Which you're about to do. -I'm about to do.
-Which is very exciting.
-Yeah. Not this week, but next week.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Yeah, that was --
-One of the problems -- looking back at photos of us.
This is one of the issues with me hosting is
I was mostly just the other guy in sketches.
Here I am. I am your lawyer in this sketch.
Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-I love that.
-I look like a very inexpensive lawyer.
[ Laughter ]
Who maybe just finished law school.
And in this -- I was in this sketch a lot.
There I am right there.
There's me, there's you, Maya, Dratch, Forte, Poehler.
I was in a lot of dinner parties in my time at "SNL."
-I think it was your first year, wasn't it?
-Yeah, it was first or second year, yeah.
Well, no, yeah, it would have been.
-You, Fred, and I think Will Forte.
-Yeah.
You very were kind to us then,
and it's always great to see you here.
Thank you so much for being back. I really appreciate it.