Neil Patrick Harris Talks HBO Max Series ‘It’s a Sin’ on ‘The Daily Show’

Neil Patrick Harris appeared on Monday night’s Daily Show to discuss his new HBO Max series It’s a Sin, along with the surreal experience of having to work through a pandemic.

“I got Covid, my husband [and] our kids all got Covid early on,” Harris told Trevor Noah, explaining that he had been in the middle of filming the fourth Matrix movie when the initial pandemic lockdown happened in March 2020. “We were all hunkered down, and on a spicy level, we were like a four.”

Once Harris and his family recovered from Covid-19, their temporary antibodies gave them some slight relief — even as they stuck to social distancing — and Harris was able to resume some of his work. After flying back to Berlin to shoot more of The Matrix 4, Harris got an unexpected call from Nicolas Cage’s team, asking if he wanted to head over to Budapest to film a movie there.

“Budapest was completely locked down…I was [quarantined] in this hotel, no restaurants were open,” he said. “It was just a really weird time to be traveling the globe, filming things.”

Harris recently celebrated the premiere of It’s a Sin in the U.K. to critical acclaim. Created by Russell T Davies (Doctor Who, Torchwood), the five-part miniseries depicts a group of gay men and their friends living through the HIV/AIDS crisis in London.

“It’s very emotional, it’s very educational, but not in a pejorative, lecture-y way,” Harris said. The series, which will premiere on HBO Max on February 18th, stars Harris alongside Olly Alexander, Lydia West, Stephen Fry, and more.