Tyler Ritter says he's okay with kissing men as the lead character on CBS' The McCarthys.

Ritter plays openly gay Ronny on the sitcom, which premiered Thursday.

(Related: CBS' The McCarthys off to slow start.)

In discussing his first gay role with TheBacklot.com, Ritter, 29, laughed when told he “might have to kiss some dudes.”

“Yeah, I'll have to kiss dudes, and I will,” he answered. “Because I imagine this show is gong to go on long enough [that] Ronny is going to find love someday.”

Ritter, the son of the late comic actor John Ritter, who is best known for pretending to be gay on the ABC sitcom Three's Company, and actress Nancy Morgan, and brother of actor Jason Ritter, said that he grew up in an accepting community.

“There was never a strange feeling around someone because of their sexual orientation, it was just another characteristic and I have since grown to realize how fortunate I am in that regard, that the rest of the country isn't quite on that level in some aspects,” Ritter said. “Some people won't be as comfortable seeing a gay man as a lead in a show. But I think what’s great about The McCarthys is that because he's having so much fun and he's a spark in the family and he's intelligent and I think people are going to relate to him and they're going to say, 'I'm relating to this guy who is a high school guidance counselor and who's gay.'”