Stanley Tucci knows his way around Italy. As a child, Tucci spent a year of his life living in Florence, Italy, and has returned to the country several times over the ensuing decades, most notably as the host and executive producer of the CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. Tucci now has a new nonfiction series, Nat Geo’s Tucci in Italy, which explores the country and offers a new perspective on his role as host.

“It’s not necessarily a natural thing for me,” Tucci said during the show’s world premiere in New York on Monday night. “When I first started doing the show years ago, I was so nervous, and I didn’t really know how to do it. My whole life has been spent playing other people. So suddenly I had to be myself, and that’s a f--king nightmare. So yeah, now I’m better at it.