“Will & Grace” star Eric McCormack appeared on Friday’s “Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon to promote his Broadway show, new British farce “The Cottage.” McCormack also talked about his podcast, “Just Jack & Will,” but he had to dance around getting too specific about the show he cohosts with “Will & Grace” costar Sean Hayes.
While unable to specifically talk about the show that the podcast talks about — “Will & Grace” — due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike against the Hollywood studios, he was able to discuss the podcast itself.
“It’s about a show that I’m not going to talk about, out of respect for the strike we’re on, but they’ve allowed us to talk about the podcast,” McCormack clarified. “And it’s so much fun to be back with my old buddy Sean.”
McCormack explained that Hayes had pitched him doing a podcast about the show during lunch together.
“I said, ‘Well, great, because I still watch it all the time. I can talk with tremendous fluency.’ And he said, ‘I’ve never… I’ve never watched it,’” McCormack said. “I’m rewatching, and he’s… he’s like someone with amnesia.”
McCormack joked, acting as if he was shaking Hayes, “We were gay best friends!”
Fallon praised McCormack and Hayes’ comic timing on the podcast.
The host said that the first time he met McCormack was when he was hosting “Saturday Night Live” and Fallon was still a cast member, 21 years ago.
The musical guest for McCormack’s show was Jay-Z and Beyoncé — McCormack quipped that his own musical knowledge “sort of died with Freddie Mercury.” He noted that he knew Beyoncé from Destiny’s Child, but did not know who Jay-Z was.
“I’m really, to this day, very embarrassed about it,” McCormack said.
Fallon and McCormack reminisced about doing a sketch together with Fallon as a radio DJ with a wacky voice.
The “Will & Grace” star also shared details about a group he’s part of called CADS, which stands for the Character Actors Dining Society — they started to eat together before COVID-19, then continued to share meals over Zoom. Other members include Jason Alexander, LeVar Burton, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, Richard Kind, Alfred Molina, Steven Weber and Noah Wyle.
When Fallon tried inviting himself to join, McCormack had to shoot him down, saying, “You’re not gonna — it’s a very tough ticket, very, very tough,” to laughs from the crowd.
McCormack also recalled how, while working on his Broadway comedy “The Cottage,” he contracted COVID-19 twice. During one of those missed performances, Pierce Brosnan was in the audience, which bummed him out.
“Somebody said, ‘If you ever run into Pierce, just tell him it was you. He won’t remember,’” McCormack joked.
Fellow CADS actor Jason Alexander also directed the play.
“The Cottage” runs through Oct. 29 and “Just Jack & Will” is available on all major podcast platforms.
