Boardwalk Empire aired its last season premiere on HBO Sunday when the drama began its fifth season and, in spite of uneven ratings as a series, viewership that night was pretty solid.

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According to Variety on Tuesday, the program brought in around 2.4 million viewers for the premiere, which was up 0.4 million from last season's finale.

Earlier that day, star Steve Buscemi sat down with CBS Morning (featured below) to discuss his performance as the infamous Nucky Thompson.

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Buscemi has played a number of unsettling characters through the years, but Boardwalk Empire has given him somewhat of a reputation of having a certain "look" about him.

"People ask that of my wife," admitted Buscemi, laughing, "They say 'Are you scared of him sometimes?'"

While the actor may be good at what he does, some of more sinister scenes do not always come easily. "If Nucky's doing something that's really, really dark…it's hard to just turn that on," explained the actor, "It takes a little bit of getting into."

"It's weird…I keep joking that we couldn't go past five seasons because I run out of expressions…" said Buscemi, who continued to smile good-naturedly throughout the interview. "In the beginning, Nucky was lot more in the public eye… each season, he got more sort of withdrawn and darker and did more terrible things…It was great as a character to have that place to go."

While Buscemi enjoyed his time with the series immensely, he did note "playing a character that is this dark, it does start to get under your skin." He went on to refer to the prohibition drama's final season as "bittersweet."

"I'll just miss everybody involved," he said sadly, "But I think it was time to end it."

Boardwalk Empire continues on HBO with its fifth and final season Sunday, September 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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