Sean Hayes and Eric McCormack.Photo: Sean Hayes/Instagram
Nearly two decades after the original show’s finale,Will & GraceactorsEric McCormackandSean Hayesare still close friends — but that wasn’t always the case.
McCormack, who played Will Truman on the acclaimed NBC sitcom, exclusively opened up to PEOPLE about how he and Hayes, who won an Emmy for portraying Jack McFarland, returned to their friendship.
“We finished the show so many years ago. We didn’t keep in touch that much,” McCormack, 60, said at Monday’s The Impact of Will & Grace: 25 Years Later event at The Paley Center for Media in New York City. “We found each other again just before COVID, and now we’ve been closer pals ever since then.”
Sean Hayes and Eric McCormack.Sean Hayes/Instagram
Hayes, 52, announced in anInstagrampost last week that he and McCormack were starting a podcast together calledJust Jack & Will. “It’s aWill & Gracerewatch podcast forSmartLessMedia,” he wrote of the series, which is slated to premiere later this month.
McCormack told PEOPLE the podcast was cooked up “at a lunch that we were having."
“We started to talk about what would we do if we did a podcast,” he recalled. “And I said, ‘We could rewatch the show?’”
The Emmy winner — who also trades Hollywood war stories pal Steven Weber for theirEating Out with Eric & Stevepodcast — revealed that Hayes admitted he wasn’t much of a viewer ofWill & Graceduring its runs (first from 1998 to 2006, then in arevivalfrom 2017 to 2020).
According to McCormack, Hayes “said, ‘Yeah, I’d have to watch it [for] the first time. ‘Cause I’ve never really watched it.’ He said, ‘That’s the show.’”
Megan Mullally, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing and Sean Hayes.Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank
Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank
“It’s basically, it’s Sean and I watching the show, but really watching the minutiae … rediscovering who we were, the choices we made,” he explained. “You shoot 24 episodes, sometimes in a season, you’re not stopping to think. You’re not stopping to breathe.”
Now with the benefit of time and hindsight, McCormack is finding rewatching his younger self intriguing.
Eric McCormack.Vivien Killilea/Getty
When it first debuted,Will & Gracewas considered groundbreaking for its portrayal of LGBTQIA+ characters. McCormack revealed to PEOPLE that one episode, in which Jack joins Will at the gym,was so controversialthat it never reaired.
“[Jack] was being particularly gay,” McCormack said. “And [Will] called him the F-word. And they didn’t repeat that episode. That’s the one episode that’s never ever been ever aired again.”
“But there was such truth to it,” he added. “And [it’s] the only episode where we lost sponsors. So we did take that issue on. But that issue, particularly, was within the gay community. There are levels and there were feelings, and we dared to sort of show them.”
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Will & Graceis available to stream in its entirety on Prime Video.
source: people.com
