It's 5 o'clock somewhere – London, to be exact – and Stanley Tucci isn't in a fitted shirt pumping a cocktail shaker. But he is talking about how he almost threw his back out trying to lift a 40-kilo wheel of Parmigiano so he could cut it into two moons, hollow out one of them, and make carbonara inside of it. Same Tucci, different flex.

Looking distinguished in a black turtleneck and matching thick-framed eyewear, the 60-year-old actor is video-chatting from the backyard studio of the London home where he and his family have been riding out most of the past year. Like the rest of us, he's grown used to these sorts of virtual conversations – except his extra screen time has earned him a spot in the club of unexpected quarantine social media stars, alongside Patti LuPone, Leslie Jordan, and husband-and-wife duo Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody.