Pictured: Kevin McHale Credit: FameFlynet, Inc.

Glee’s Kevin McHale had lots of fun at the Oscars this past weekend, and now he’s making everyone cry in Dustin Lance Black’s When We Rise, a miniseries about the LGBT movement airing on ABC.

The week before the show premiered, actors and activists gathered at the Castro theatre in San Francisco. 1,400 people ended up watching the series together in a huge historical theatre — how cool!

In an interview with Hollywood Today Live, McHale spoke to hosts Ross Mathews and Amanda Salas about what it was like sitting next to the faces they were portraying on film, many of whom were actually there.

“It was very emotional and heavy being in the room with all those people,” Kevin explained. “Even if they’re not portrayed in the show, the community was still involved in the movement, so little places would come up on screen and people would be cheering, and people would be booing at certain characters. I think it was the best way to experience that.”

In the series, Kevin plays Bobbi Campbell, one of the first to come out publicly as a person living with AIDS. Bobbi ended up spending the rest of his life as an activist until he succumbed to the disease in 1984. He appeared on the cover of Newsweek with his boyfriend, which sparked a much-needed dialogue about the disease.

“[Bobbi] was a trained nurse so he was very vocal about [AIDS] and was really trying to figure out what was going on,” Kevin said. “And he wasn’t living in shame and hiding it. A lot of people were really scared, but he was sort of living out loud wth it and trying to be an activist.”

Watch the interview below: