-Our first guest tonight is a four-time Emmy Award
and Golden Globe-winning actor
you know from "The Big Bang Theory."
He stars in the film adaptation of "The Boys in the Band,"
which is streaming on Netflix now.
Let's take a look.
-Hey, what made you stop, the analysts?
-Oh, they certainly had a lot to do with it.
Mainly, I just didn't think I could get through
another morning-after ick attack.
-Morning-after what? -Icks.
Anxiety. Guilt.
Unfathomable guilt.
The split second your eyes pop open and you say, "Oh, my God.
What did I do last night?"
-Mm. Tell me about it.
-Yeah, and then that struggle to survive
till lunch, where you have a double Bloody Mary,
that is if you've waited till lunch.
And then you're half pissed again and useless
for the rest of the afternoon.
So you hang on till cocktail time.
And, by then, you're ready for whatever the night holds,
which hopefully is another party.
-Please welcome back to the show our friend Jim Parsons.
How are you, Jim? -Hello, Seth.
I'm great. How are you?
-A lot has happened since we last saw each other.
And we were supposed to see each other remotely in August,
but you had a storm knocked out --
not just yours, but a lot of people's Wi-Fi,
so it's great to finally make it work.
-It is so nice.
And to have power restored.
What a wonderful world.
-Yes, I would imagine missing out of my show is sort of
one of the lower things as far as having no power at all.
-Well, I mean, I'm fascinated by this 8:30 live show
that hasn't happened yet.
I mean, you could have to take this entire episode
off the air depending on what happens.
-That's true. -30 days of October surprises.
-So just know this is very -- what we're doing right now,
we're holding on by a thread.
This might never see television. -Yes.
When can you get plexiglass so that you can have guests back?
-Well, we're gonna have -- So Amber Ruffin, who is a writer
on our show, is going to be a guest right after you
because she's already in the building
and she gets tested like I get tested.
But she's going to sit on the far end of the couch.
So it will look -- -Oh, that'll be fun.
-It'll look -- if people -- [ Laughter ]
I think if people see a still,
it will look very passive-aggressive.
-Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt, yes.
-So, Jim, you actually --
you had COVID all the way back in March.
Hopefully fully recovered. How was the experience?
-It was frightening.
I mean, here's what I say.
I feel like we probably must have had a mildish case.
You know, we had the fever
and the chest pressure and things like that.
But I would say at least 50% of my "pain"
was just the anxiety and the fear, partly --
I would still feel that way now to be honest.
But it was in March.
And here in New York, it was not -- it was not pretty.
I went to bed every night wondering -- "I hope --
I hope we don't have to make an emergency call."
You know what's crazy?
I shaved every single day that I was sick.
And partly it was because I felt better
when I was clean-shaven.
And partly it was because -- this is so morbid.
I thought, "If I have to get rushed to the hospital,
I want to look like I'm trying."
-[ Laughs ] -"I want to --
I want to enthuse people to come to me and help me, please."
-Right. You think they'd be okay --
like, basically, if they saw a little peach fuzz,
they'd be like "He's already given up."
-"He quit.
He's thrown in the towel."
That's so morbid.
So I don't mean to make a joke about that but that was my life.
So I think it's free rein for me.
-Did you pick up -- Once you sort of bounced back
and made it through these last six months,
did you pick up any hobbies?
Did you use the time?
-I painted for a while.
I was doing, like, creative fiction writing
and stuff for a while, and I enjoyed all of that.
And I have grown tired of all of that.
-[ Laughs ]
-Apparently, I'm just an actor.
And I miss that pretty desperately.
And I would like to be in a room with people
and pretend to be other people and fake kiss and fight
and things like that.
-Well, hopefully you'll get to do that again soon.
I want to ask about both of your projects on Netflix right now.
The first, "The Boys in the Band."
So, this is a very unique experience you got to have,
which is this is a Broadway show you did in 2018.
And not only are you doing it again, on screen,
it's with the exact same group of people.
What was that transition like?
-It was -- It was really nice,
but it was really intense in a wonderful way.
I had never done anything like that.
And I -- It's funny doing press for it.
It's just been released and everything.
So we keep talking about it like we're doing now.
And it kind of is occuring to me in layers, like,
that was a really kind of profound experience
to spend so much time with those people and these characters.
And you know, it's -- it's got --
there's humor in the piece, but it's a pretty heavy piece.
So it's not -- it's not exactly light fare
to be living with that long.
And I don't know. I really -- I really enjoyed it.
And I feel --
I feel even more now like that's something
that'll probably never happen in my life again.
I mean, it would --
that's a lot of things that have to come together.
So I don't know. I'm glad it happened.
It was neat.
-You moved here to New York
'cause for those who don't know, the original show took place --
and it takes place still in the Upper East Side
in New York in 1968.
You moved to New York in 2001.
Same time I moved to New York.
I think it was a really fascinating time to live
in New York City considering what happened that year.
Did you have -- What were your memories of that time like?
-Oh, it was -- I thought it was so much fun.
I mean, I just -- I've always loved New York.
I'm a very -- I can be a very anxious person in general.
Even when I visited before I moved,
I knew immediately there was something about the effort
it takes to get through New York that for me makes me happier.
It makes me more relaxed, just the fight to get through a day.
I don't know.
It was lots of cabs and lots of late drinking
but you didn't have to drive yourself home.
And, you know, I look back, and the weirdest thing to me --
this sounds so stupid to remember.
But, like, the way I would just fall asleep
at somebody else's place, that would not happen anymore.
But back then it was like, "That's fine."
That makes me feel dirty just to say out loud now.
You know what I mean?
-Yeah, it was --
I mean, because it was before not just COVID
but I feel like then, in the late 2000s,
there was a whole bed bugs issue.
-That's right.
-There were like two or three news stories about bed bugs
on local New York news that are still the most
terrifying thing I've ever seen.
Like when they zoomed in tight on what a bed bug looked like.
-Yes, you don't want that. -I really thought --
Yeah, it was not a good scene at all.
You also -- other coast, you're in Ryan Murphy's "Hollywood."
-Yes. -And this is --
You're actually playing, because there are
a lot of fictional characters in this show,
but Harry Wilson was a real person.
Did you know much about him?
-No, I didn't know anything, which was kind of cool
because he was pretty villainous and lecherous in some ways.
Not every way.
We exaggerated to a certain degree, but he has some stories.
And I feel like especially in this day and age,
I would have -- I don't know.
I think I would have kind of had a lot more judgment about him.
And instead, it was just -- I kind of discovered as we went.
There was this amazing biography about him called
"The man Who Discovered -- Who Invented Rock Hudson."
And I don't know. It just -- It really placed his whole life
from being young and dying destitute.
And it was a great time.
It really was.
-You were nominated for an Emmy.
And, of course, you've been to the real thing before.
How was your experience as a virtual nominee?
-In a weird way, like any other Zoom meeting,
except that I put on a tux.
It was so bizarre.
I mean, you've -- hell, you hosted.
But I mean, to get that gussied up and you're getting ready
and you're looking in the mirror.
And then, this time, though, you don't walk to a car.
You don't go anywhere. You just go to your living room.
And then you kind of eat and drink
and kind of wander around when you're not on.
And then the category happens and they announce a winner
and you listen to the speech, and, literally, it was like,
"And 'leave meeting,'" and then you were done with the Emmys.
[ Laughter ]
-I mean, I -- That sounds like the dream.
I mean, to be a -- -Well, it kind of is.
It mean, it kind of -- Once the category was over,
you always just want to go.
Some people like to party more than I do.
But anyway, I frequently am just like,
"Oh, can we just be home now?"
And we were.
Magic.
-Well, that's wonderful.
Congratulations on both shows.
And thank you so much. It's always so great to see you, Jim.
-It's so good to see you too, Seth.
Good job. -Thank you very much.