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March
/ april 2006:
Lady of Grace
Actress Debra Messing speaks candidly on motherhood, her Judaism, and saying farewell to Will & Grace.
Story by Gerri Miller | Photography by George Lange
“It
feels like our home,”
Debra Messing says as she glances around at the
comfortably furnished apartment that has rows of lights
where its ceiling should be and just three walls, its
fourth opened to an audience's view. “We come in and we
play every day and we do little shows that people come
and watch. But it’s our place.”
Well, not for much longer. On May 18th, Will & Grace
will bid farewell to its viewers after eight years on
NBC, and the soundstage in Studio City, California that
has been its home. Those familiar furnishings will go
into storage. Before then, Messing plans to snag a few
souvenirs, among them the door to her office bearing the
name of her lovably neurotic character, Grace Adler. “I
just want to put it in my house like art, just lean it
up against the wall,” she tells me during a tour of the
set.
Even though the decision was made a year ago to end the
series, Messing and co-stars Eric McCormack, Megan Mullally
and Sean Hayes feel wistful, their day-to-day routine
of work marked by moments of realization that the end
is near. “You think, ‘this might be the last time we trip
over a couch,’” says Messing, who has done more than her
share of such pratfalls as the endearingly klutzy Ms.
Adler.
Later, chatting in the living room set, she confides that
she’ll miss those scenes the most. “The physical comedy,
being able to do that every single day, is really fun
but I’ll also miss Grace’s cheapness and slovenly ‘male’
characteristics, the not flushing the toilet, the leaving
food under my bed.” Not to mention Grace’s off-key attempts
to sing.
“To me, the bad singing, no pun intended, takes the grace
off her,” quips Messing, who insisted as a condition of
signing on for the role that she’d be allowed to make
Grace “funny and unusual in a way that tickled me and
surprised me. I didn’t want to be the pretty straight
woman. I knew I wouldn’t be happy. I grew up watching
Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett with curtain rods in her
arms, falling down stairs. To me, that’s funny.”
Not surprisingly, Messing was frustrated when she was
pregnant and restricted from using her physical comedy
gifts. “It was depressing, but fascinating because it
was a test for the writers and for me. They had to make
me funny in a more verbal way. It was tricky and when
it worked it was incredibly satisfying.”
It was also a test for the prop department to devise ways
of hiding the pregnancy, which wasn’t part of the storyline.
Messing, who gave birth to son Roman in April 2004, laughs
heartily at the memory. “There was an ever-growing bowl
of fruit, and it just kept getting stacked higher and
higher until finally the fruit wasn't going to cut it
anymore. So they put this shrub in a pot on the table
and all you saw was my neck up, and we shot it that way.”
But another real-life aspect of Messing has been an integral
part of Grace, much to the actress's delight. “They made
Grace Jewish and I love that. I loved the Jewish jokes,”
she says. “There just hadn't been a Jewish leading lady.
I wanted to be really upfront about it, enjoy it, and
not hide it. It's hard to quantify how much was the writing
staff and how much was Debra,” she muses. ”Aunt
Honey is [co-creator] Max Mutchnick's actual aunt, and
[co-creator David Kohan's sister] Jenji Kohan went to
Camp Ramah. I came in with stories about my bat mitzvah
or whatever. I thank them for adding that color.”
She's disappointed, however, that two particular story
ideas never materialized. “I thought it would be really
funny if we did a Passover seder at my mother's, with
the non-Jews, and Elijah coming to the door and climbing
under the table to steal the afikomen. So little of the
country really would understand what they were watching
but it could have been hilarious. The other idea was celebrating
Cranukkah -- Christmas and Hanukkah. I wanted us to have
a big Christmas tree and my mother unexpectedly shows
up and we have to hide the tree because she would disown
me if there was a tree in the apartment. So we'd be moving
it all over the place, out on the balcony -- very Noel
Coward-esque.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Messing
credits her comic timing to years as “a student
of television.” Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised
near Providence, Rhode Island, she grew up watching Ball
and Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Tracey Ullman, Madeline
Kahn, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. “These are women who shaped
my comic sensibility. My mother was a recording artist
so there was music in the family. We’d go to New York
to visit family and see plays and musicals. From a very
early age I knew this was something I wanted to do.”
She was Rhode Island’s Junior Miss in 1986 and after graduating
summa cum laude from Brandeis University, she got her
masters degree from New York University, where three years
of hard work “helped me hone my skills,” preparing her
for roles on the New York stage. TV audiences first noticed
her in a recurring role on NYPD Blue and got
to know her on a weekly basis in the sitcom Ned and Stacy,
opposite Thomas Haden Church. Other memorable roles followed
as a guest star on Seinfeld, in the short-lived
science fiction series Prey, and — oddly enough
— as Mary Magdalene in the miniseries Jesus.
Now, as Will & Grace’s run winds down, Messing
reflects on the show that earned her an Emmy and broke
new ground for TV sitcoms. “As much as this is an extraordinary
premise because two of the four main characters were gay
and we’d never seen this before, it was really a universal
theme and that was friendship. It’s a show about friends,
and two of them happen to be gay. I’m very proud to be
in the very small number of shows that have had this kind
of longevity. We are going out exactly as I had hoped:
uncompromisingly and under our terms. We’ve had a year
to map out the best way to bid adieu to the characters
and to this world in a way we’ll all feel proud of and
will feel celebratory.”
Not about to spoil the farewell fun, Messing will not
discuss details of the one-hour Will & Grace
finale, which will be preceded by an hour-long retrospective.
“All I really want for Grace is peace,” she says thoughtfully.
“She doesn’t have to be married, she doesn’t have to be
a mother, there are no specifics that I require. I just
want her to be in a really good place.”
For Messing, that good place is her family. “My husband
and child have always been number one far and above anything
else. My husband is my partner in life and every decision
is made with him as a couple to decide what is best for
us,” she says, aware that there are now many options to
discuss with Daniel Zelman, the screenwriter and actor
she married in September 2000.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One
topic sure to be on their agenda: How does one
follow up a role that undoubtedly raised the bar for what
comes next? Not with another sitcom, Messing assures.
While she’s a fan of shows like The Office and
My Name is Earl, “I don’t feel hungry to dive
into the same genre right away, what I really want to
do is what I was trained to do — go from character to
character and change genres and mediums as often as I
can. I’m attached to do the film remake of The Women
with Meg Ryan and Angelica Huston, and I’m in talks about
doing a Broadway play in the fall. And I’d love to guest
star on Law & Order: SVU or ER.”
Messing will also add to a film résumé that includes roles
in The Mothman Prophecies, Along Came Polly,
and The Wedding Date. She used her weeks off
from Will & Grace last Thanksgiving and Christmas
to work on the romantic comedy Purple Violets,
opposite writer-director-star Edward Burns.
“It’s the quintessential New York story,” Messing relates.
“It’s about four friends who graduated from NYU 12 years
earlier with aspirations of being the next great writer/artist
and they have achieved varying degrees of success. It’s
about art and commerce and selling out and it’s very smart
and very funny. It was probably the most fun I’ve ever
had doing a film.”
This April, Messing will be seen as Eric Bana’s lover
in Lucky You, co-starring Drew Barrymore and
Robert Duvall. “It’s the world of Vegas and gambling and
familial struggles and competition,” she describes. She’ll
also be heard this fall in the animated movie Open
Season as a forest ranger who searches for her domesticated
bear pal (Martin Lawrence) when he and a deer (Ashton
Kutcher) get lost in the woods during hunting season.
Being able to record her part in casual clothes, sans
makeup, was a welcome change from the usual primping time
necessary to prepare for on camera roles. “I was like,
‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life!’”
laughs Messing, who, for all her red carpet glamour, habitually
arrives at work wearing jeans or sweatpants, sneakers
or Uggs, “a sweater or sweatshirt because I’m always cold,
maybe a hat that I’ve knit, and not a stitch of makeup.”
That’s not to say she doesn’t like playing the fashion
plate on occasion. “I think I’m a good Barbie doll. I
like to play dress up. I like for people to say ‘put this
on.’ I have very strong opinions about what I like and
I enjoy the process,” says Messing, her trim curves accentuated
by a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.
While pregnant with Roman, she missed being able to wear
stylish clothes and high heels, but was happy to live
in comfortable sweatpants and tees, especially when complications
confined her to bed for most of her final trimester and
caused her to miss four episodes of the 2004 season.
After three months of no exercise while caring for her
infant, Messing began dropping the pregnancy poundage
with yoga, walking, and Pilates. Today, she says her favorite
workout is “running after my son.”
The dressing room next to hers was converted into a nursery
so that Messing could bring Roman to work, and the show’s
taping schedule has made it relatively easy for her to
balance career and motherhood. Working six months a year
with a week off each month gave her the chance to have
a life. “I can get the laundry done and the dry cleaning
and I can play mom and go to the park and go to different
classes. I can go out on a date with my husband. A sitcom
is the most humane schedule an actor can be in.”
Now that she’s saying goodbye to that character, she’s
excited about the possibilities ahead but wants to savor
her freedom. “Right now, I want to rest and travel a little
bit,” she confides. “My dream is to go on a safari, to
Africa. This is the beginning of a whole new chapter in
my life,” she says, smiling with anticipation. “For the
first time in eight years I won’t know where I am at 3:00
on a Tuesday eight months from now and that’s sort of
thrilling. Everything is open.” 
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