Out actor Ian McKellen has joked that he's looking for his “inner pussy” in preparation to play Gus the Theater Cat in the upcoming film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Cats.

The Tony-award winner made his remarks during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show. Also appearing on the show were Michael Buble, Taron Egerton and Carey Mulligan.

“How do you prepare for being a cat?” Norton asked at McKellen's prompting.

“Well, at the moment I'm looking for the inner pussy,” McKellen joked. “The moggy-ness that is within us all. Not doing very well at it.”

“I thought about going on a cat's diet, you know, weekends just eating the cat food, seeing if that helped. And I've always thought that tinned cat food smelled like it might be rather tasty, It isn't,” he added.

The movie also stars Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift and James Corden.

(Related: Ian McKellen calls Trump “Illiterate.”)