George Lopez Aims to Make Lopez vs. Lopez ‘My Main Focus’ While Joking About an ‘Extended Break’ from Stand-Up Comedy.Linh

George Lopez is stepping off stage to be better on screen.

The comedian previously opened up about retiring from stand-up comedy after announcing his recent tour would be his last. Now, he tells PEOPLE he is putting his energy into the NBC sitcom Lopez vs. Lopez, which is going into its third season.

“That special that we shot, it’s like two years,” he explained. “It’s a long, long time. And two years of doing this [show] too. So I would say that going forward that this show has my main focus and it was nice to finish that.”

“I was gone every weekend and then coming back, sometimes on Sundays, and showing up here,” he continued. “I did that same thing with my first show. But this one, I’m focused on this one.”

When asked if he was retired for good, Lopez jokingly replied, “Adele and I are on an extended break,” referring to the singer’s memorable phrase about what she would do after her Las Vegas residency.

Lopez’s costar Selenis Leyva was also impressed with his ability to work on multiple projects at once, but said she is happy he is going to be able to keep his focus on one thing.

“I don’t know how he does it,” she said. “That’s pretty amazing — to travel alone, traveling alone is exhausting. And then putting a show or two shows [on] and then coming back and sometimes I wouldn’t even know that he was gone and he had that kind of schedule because you couldn’t tell the difference.”

“It wasn’t like tired George versus… No, it was always the same George,” she added. “So kudos to him for showing up.”

The writing and production also takes into account the cast members’ real lives in many ways. Showrunner Debby Wolfe said seeing the Lopez and his daughter Mayan, who plays his daughter on the show as well, in action, along with other cast members’ true lives, has inspired a lot of the storylines viewers have seen.

“It’s a very collaborative process here between writers and talent,” she began. “We are very inspired by Matt [Shively] and by Selenis and obviously George and Mayan — this is their story, their life. So, a lot of who they are slips into the characters and it’s because they’re so great at what they do. They inspire us every day.”

Shively agreed, recalling the start of every season where each actor meets with the writers to see if anything happened that could be brought into the show.

“Because we’re a show that likes to use our own personal experiences in the show, they’ll usually take little bits and pieces here and there from things that we’re actually experiencing and they’ll throw it in, which again, makes it easier to then act them out because they’ve happened,” he said.