Listen: Russell Tovey Talks 'AHS: NYC,' Coming Out & Sex Scenes with Straight Men

Russell Tovey is one of the out actors on the current 11th season of "American Horror Story," titled "AHS: NYC." Speaking with Variety's podcast "Just for Variety," the 40-year-old actor opened up about becoming part of the Ryan Murphy series, coming out as gay early in his career, what it's like to have sex scenes with straight actors and more.

Tovey said that he was having lunch in London when Murphy first reached out to him to discuss the new season of the long-running FX anthology series.

"He said, 'I've got a great role for you. It's going to be based on 'Cruising'...It's kind of like the Al Pacino role. How would you feel about doing that? Are you free?' And I was like, 'My god, yeah, I can make myself free. I can do that," he said. "Then we talked for about 15 minutes about art. So we talked about 'American Horror Story' for about a minute and a half. We talked about art, artists we love, queer artists of the '80s and '90s.

"A lot of artists that were lost that are now being rediscovered because there's a lot of themes that me and Ryan share in our taste for artists and especially artists that died of AIDS and were overlooked in their lifetime. Reasserting them into the cannon is something that's really important to me," he added.

Elsewhere in the interview, Tovey recalled being told that coming out would negatively impact his career.

"I remember thinking, 'I'm hearing you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your advice, but I'm going to do this because this feels authentic to me,'" he said. "This feels important to me. It feels important to my life outside of my pretend life of playing all these characters. I have to have the stability to know who I am outside of this."

He went on to say that he doesn't "regret it on any level became my career has taken me to somewhere really exciting."

"And I've played so many queer guys, queer characters that have brought me so much joy and I feel like have brought a lot of people joy and changed, set the dial somewhere else for people," the "Looking" star added.

Tovey discussed the intense leather scenes in "AHS: NYC" as well. In the show, he plays a closeted cop investigating a string of murders among gay men in New York City during the very early days of what appears to be the AIDS epidemic. Much of the backdrop of the show involves iconic late 70s and early 80s gay hotspots in the city, including bathhouses and NYC's gay leather scene.

"I always get jobs where I make out with a lot of people," Tovey told the podcast. "I'm always having sex and stuff on screen. My mom, bless her, has seen me have sex in multiple ways and she's seen me die hundreds of times. I feel sorry for her that she's seen sex and death through my eyes a lot."

Tovey also said the role made him realize that needed the monkeypox vaccine.

"I'm in a relationship in the U.K. and I don't make a habit of going out and kissing other people, but suddenly because of my job, I'm kissing lots of guys and you are a bit like, 'Oh, shit, I need to go and get vaccinated,'" he said. "The only place they had it was Fire Island and I'd never been. So my first ever experience of Fire Island was going to get the monkeypox vaccine. I had the vaccine, I swam in the sea, had some lunch, got back on the ferry. I was like, 'This is a lovely way to get a vaccine.' Everyone should do it this way."

Tovey is currently dating rugby coach and former adult actor Steve Brockman, after meeting in 2016. They were engaged in 2018 but separated later that year only to reconcile in 2019. Tovey told the London Sunday Times last year: "I know Steve is my man and we're in this amazing place now. I want what my parents have. After 42 years they're still best mates and they laugh all the time. That kind of love doesn't come along every day."

He went on to discuss what it was like having intense sex scenes that involved whips with straight actors, like Zach Meiser.

"There is an anxiety that kicks in that you go, 'This is a straight guy, I'm a gay guy, openly, and we're going to be kissing now.' And we did it and then his tongue slipped in and then they cut and he went to me, 'I just slipped my tongue in there...Is that all right?' I said, 'If it's all right with you,'" Tovey explained. "The next time we did it, I was like, 'This guy is up for it! This guy's committed. I absolutely love this, let's go for it!' So then we are like eating each other's face, tongue in each other's face. At one point I thought, 'I'm going to spit in his mouth. No, don't do that. That's too much.' I had to hold back. That's when you get in trouble."

Click here to listen to the full Tovey interview on "Just for Variety."