Long before Mario Lopez played the hunky AC Slater on Saved By the Bell, he starred in an episode of The Golden Girls as an undocumented immigrant, which he recalled on this morning’s episode of The View.

Lopez, who recently turned 50, had Sunny Hostin wondering if he drinks “vampire blood” to keep himself young. Despite his lack of aging, the Access Hollywood host revealed that he originally had mixed feelings about entering his new decade of life.

“It kinda messed with me, to be honest with you,” he admitted. “Turning 50, I was a little, like, depressed initially and I got bummed out. But then I embraced it and I’m kind of leaning into it and I figured it beats the alternative, right? So I feel very blessed to be here right now.”

The conversation took a turn when Joy Behar pointed out that Lopez is around the same age that the Golden Girls cast was when they filmed the hit sitcom in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“Yes! Even a little younger, Joy,” he said. “They were like in their late 40s.”

The actor even opened up about appearing on a Season 2 episode as Dorothy’s (Bea Arthur) student, who wrote an award-winning essay on what it means to be an American only for the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services to reveal that he was in the country without proper documentation.

“I was like 13 there, something like that,” Lopez said. “That’s when I got deported. I was like the original Elliott Gonzalez. They sent me back to Cuba.”

While he was young when he starred on the show, it wasn’t the first time Lopez had worked with Arthur.

“Bea Arthur, that was actually my third time working with her. I had done a couple of shows … She was awesome,” he told the panel. “Even as a little kid, I recognized how funny and how awesome those ladies were. And then I thought about it and I’m like, they’re really like the original Sex and the City.“

The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.