Alan Cumming on his role in "The Good Wife," return to "Cabaret"

As political mastermind Eli Gold on "The Good Wife," actor Alan Cumming combines a talent for drama, humor and a shamelessly twisted sense of morality.

In real life, he can also do it all. He's an actor, singer, writer and director. His career has taken him from Broadway to television and the movies.

His role on "The Good Wife" has earned two Emmy Award nominations and after being off-air for many weeks, the show returns to original episodes this month. Cumming told the co-hosts that originally Gold was only supposed to be on the series for one episode.

"After one episode, I was like oh, I quite like this. And then they said, 'Oh you want to do the next?' and I was 'Oh' and then the next one and the next one until the end of the season," he said.

Cumming also said that the writers of the show based his character on Rahm Emanuel, who is the current mayor of Chicago and the former chief-of-staff to President Obama. He said knowing this gave him an "idea or a hook of the kind of intensity of him."

"Rahm Emanuel is such a strong personality. I've never met him, but I read up a wee-bit about him. It's obviously affliction, not character," he said. "He's a very coiled spring. He's ruthless. He shouts a lot. He's also got this sort of interesting side. Eli used to be a concert pianist. Rahm Emanuel was a dancer. And there's a fascinating sort of dichotomy there. Those are the sort of things I focused on."

When asked if he was nervous about going back to the role of Emcee after 16 years away, Cumming said he's actually "looking forward to it, rather than being scared."

"The good thing about muscle memory is that it actually exists. It's not just a concept. Like, it comes back into your body in a way, which is very heartening when you think you're not going to remember it," he said. "Dance steps are hard ... and I'm not a dancer."

To see the full interview with Alan Cumming, watch the video in the player above