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Debra Messing Talks Will & Grace Movie

Connie — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:32:46 +0000

With Sex & The Citybeing made into a movie, we’re getting greedy and want all our favorite shows to do the same! Come on, Seinfeld, Friends, and Will & Grace!

Hollyscoop caught up with Debra Messing at the Crystal + Lucy Awards this week and asked her point blank: Will there be a Will & Grace movie in the future???

Debra laughed about the rumor, saying, “Oh my gosh, really?? That is news to me! This is literally the first time I’ve heard that.”

Ok, ok, we admit. We started the rumor. But is it so far off? Come on! While they’re may not be any plans for a film, Messing said she is down to do a reunion show.

“You know,” Debra told us. “I guess people always ask if we would have a reunion show and I would always say-Unfortunately because our season finale it skips ahead 25 years so you already know what happens.”

We had to go back and re-watch the last episode, and she’s totally right! But we still think it could work. If Carrie and the girls can still pull it off, so can Will, Grace, Jack, and Karen!

She added, “So either you would have to do a Geriatric Will and Grace, which can work, or an entire rock/opera fantasy. It would be a challenge I think to come up with a story. But I never say never.”

So you’re saying there’s a chance!!!

Source

Videos: 2010 Women in Film Crystal & Lucy Awards

Connie — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:46:27 +0000

Thanks a lot to Samantha for sharing these videos with us.

Will & Grace: Three Years Later

Connie — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:04:53 +0000

She was lovable, affable, fashionable and smart. For eight seasons, Grace Adler was the best friend you wished you had: Will’s devoted other half and the neurotic but wry Olympiad of the single girl’s dating pool, a true-to-life urban woman that endeared herself to audiences like Karen Walker to a gin-soaked olive.

Debra Messing’s Emmy-winning portrayal of Grace helped put the Best Gal archetype on the map of gay entertainment. It was also an opportunity for the Rhode Island-reared actress to inhabit the role of a lifetime. Bay Windows talked to Debra Messing about her reflections on Will & Grace, her New England roots growing up in Rhode Island and attending Brandeis University, and what she thinks Grace would be up to three years later.

Debra, when you think back on Will & Grace and the period that it marked in your career, what’s the initial emotion that you feel?

Oh, gosh. Well now it’s been three years, and having time to let it sink in that it’s over, and actually having a little distance to look back for the first time, it [the emotion] is just awe. You know? Awe and gratitude that I was lucky enough to fall into a creative situation that was so vital and inspiring and ultimately socially important. It’s a very unusual thing for an actor to be able to play one role for eight years! It’s not usually why actors sign on to be actors. We usually want to keep changing. It was a privilege to be able to explore this one character for all those years and to be part of this little family over that period of time. The amount of trust that is earned and created is something that I doubt I will ever feel again. Also, I look back and I feel such joy. As hard as we worked – and we did every day, the business of comedy is really hard work – but the upside is that you laugh every single day at work and that is rare. Actually, my son just went over to Max’s house yesterday to play with his twins… and I just saw Sean and Megan over the weekend, and Eric and I are constantly emailing. We are still incredibly close and it’s become obvious that this is a “’til death do us part” love connection.

I’ve heard it said that gay representation on television and in popular culture can be divided into two periods: before Will & Grace and after Will & Grace. Do you think of the show in those grand terms?

You know, I’ve heard that before, and it’s a stunning thing that it is perceived that way. I know that was never the intention going into this job. You know, everyone’s first priority was to entertain, to make people laugh. To make a show that everybody wanted to see. I think it surprised all of us that it was able to simultaneously be entertaining to a mass audience as well as being very honest and open and really nonchalant about the sexual orientation of the characters, which was a first. I do see the “before and after Will & Grace,” in that regard. Nothing makes me more proud than the effect it had on the gay and lesbian community, and also the more close-minded straight community, as a result of Max and Dave’s writing. They created characters that people could fall in love with and laugh at and care about. They were able to educate the world and challenge the status quo. They were recognized, and rightly so, by GLAAD and we attended so many awards ceremonies over the course of those eight years where Max and Dave were acknowledged for doing just that. It was those evenings when we were all together that I felt like, “Wow, this is a night that I’m going to talk to my son about when he grows up and can understand.” Yes, the SAG Award for best ensemble [Arts Editor note: 2000 Screen Actors Guild Award winner, Outstanding Cast - Comedy Series] was amazing, but to hear people talk about it, or read letters from young people who had just come out as a result of watching the show with their parents… and how, according to them, it felt like it was a bridge… those are the things that made you sort of gasp, and hold your breath.

What was your college experience like at Brandeis? Tell me about your school days in Boston.

I grew up in Rhode Island next to a farm, so Boston was a huge bustling city to me. … So every time I went into Boston when I was a student, I felt like it was a city essentially created for college students. You could feel that there were a hundred colleges within 15 miles of Boston’s center. There was something exciting about that, something innocent about it. I think of Boston as a very clean city. It’s very manageable. My brother went to Harvard Law School, and so I spent a lot of time in Cambridge, going around Boston and feeling like it was my city. Brandeis, at least when I was there, it was a very small school. Everyone would go into Boston for a social life. There was no social life in Waltham [laughs].

Yeah, well – some things never change!

I would imagine! [Laughs] … My husband went to Harvard undergrad. The Boston community is in my blood.

It must have been fun to get back here to shoot for The Women.

It really was. It was fantastic. I didn’t expect that it would be shot in Boston! It was a beautiful time of year, and I really felt like I was returning home.

As far as you growing up in Rhode Island – Until recently, I had no idea that you were a Rhode Island Junior Miss!

I was! [Laughs] I was, indeed. And that helped me go to Brandeis. It was a scholastic program: only seniors in high school could participate. The winner got $25,000 toward the college of your choice. It was a grueling interview process about politics and world events and then the talent competition. … I won, and then I thought, “Cool, I got some money for college.” I went to the Nationals in Mobile, Alabama. It was a fascinating experience.

Well, as a former title-holder, and given that Rhode Island seems to be the New England state most struggling to advance marriage equality… any thoughts? It seems like a certain other Miss has spoken out…?

Honestly, my heart broke when I heard her speak. And you know, I will preface this by saying that everyone has the right to their own opinion. But when it comes to civil rights, I feel like it’s just time for us to take that leap. It’s an incredibly complicated issue because there are religious [connotations] wrapped up in the idea of what marriage is and what marriage means. But putting the title of marriage aside, I just think everybody has to step up and say, let’s put that word aside and at the very least, let’s get to make this a level playing field. Everyone should be allowed to love whoever they want to love, and get the same respect and the same protections, the same tax exemptions. Everyone should be equal, and then we can decide on a title for it.

Last question: what are you working on right now… and three years later, what do you think Grace would be up to?

I’m currently in pre-production for a new comedy for NBC, a single-camera comedy. The pilot is just being written, so it’s in the very beginning stages. As for Grace, I think she would have worked for the Obama campaign. And perhaps right now, she’d be decorating their house.

Really? Max thought she’d be divorced right now.

[Laughs] Well! I’m going to have to call him up and ask about that.

Debra Messing’s Son Keeps Her Grounded — Literally

Connie — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:47:10 +0000

Actress Debra Messing has it all — a great career (she just landed a sitcom development deal with NBC), handsome husband and an adorable son. But before the Emmy-winning star gets a swollen head from living the good life, she just has to take a look at her scraped-up knees.

OK! caught up with the ravishing redhead at Thursday night’s Chanel Dinner for the Tribeca Film Festival, where she explained that playing with her son Roman helps to keep her grounded — quite literally.

“When I’m on the floor with my son — Look at my knees, do you see? Majorly skinned knees,” she pointed out to OK!. “That’s from my son’s birthday party on Saturday at the gym and I was crawling on the floor. Skinned knees and chasing after a little boy keeps everything in perspective.”

Debra also told OK! that what she enjoys doing most with Roman, 4, is sharing a good book.

“We like to read together,” she explained. “We have an embarrassingly big library. I’m a book fanatic so he gets to go and pick out whatever he wants and his choice changes all the time.”

Debra Messing on her Favorite Role

Connie — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:55:35 +0000

It’s not easy having your show cancelled after getting so much critical acclaim. Emmy nominated TV show The Starter Wife starring Debra Messing was recently canceled by the USA Network.

Hollyscoop caught up with the ‘Starter Wife’ star at the 11th Annual Costume Designers Guild Awards to get her thoughts on her show coming to an end.

“It was the best experience,” Debra told Hollyscoop exclusively.

“Somehow, you know you can’t force chemistry and somehow we lucked out and we all came together and we laughed inspired each other and became best friends.”

In regards to her next role, Messing said, “While I’m reading scripts I am very excited I have been spending a lot of time with my son and that’s my favorite roll of all.”

Speaking of motherhood, we asked Debra about her thoughts on the Octa-mom and her 14 children. “I just hope that they are all happy and healthy.”

With a wacky mom like Nadya Suleman, we’ll be hoping for the same thing Deb!

Source: HollyScoop.com

Debra: Everyone should bow to me!

Connie — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:26:49 +0000

Debra Messing went for a Queen-like look as she hosted a glitzy awards ceremony in LA.

Appearing on the red carpet in a tiara, the Will & Grace star was asked if she was styling herself on the British Royal Family.

“You know I’ve never worn a tiara before and now I get it – you Brits really have something! And I feel like everyone should bow to me,” she said.

“And I feel like perhaps I should sleep in this and wear it to the market. There’s something about it that makes you walk a little taller.”

Debra was also donning a glamorous nude-coloured jewelled gown and she revealed she had several outfit changes planned during the event, the 11th Annual Costume Designers Guild Awards.

The actress said the importance of costumes in her job was “really kind of magical.”

“I don’t know who I am until I have the clothes on. It’s – literally – it changes the way you walk, the way you breathe, the way you stand, they way you speak”.

She said one of the most memorable outfits she wore as Grace was a “squirting water bra.”

“I mean until I actually had that on and was working with it, it was just an idea, and then they made it happen and then it was like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be remembered forever”.

Media Archive Update

Connie — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:55:15 +0000

The media archive has been very neglected lately so I have made a big update adding 14 new videos. Including loads of great interviews, some talkshows and red carpet interviews, enjoy!

Debra on; Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno & The View

Messing finds her “inner Latina” in holiday film

Connie — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:59:14 +0000

Debra Messing sticks out like a sore thumb in her latest movie, “Nothing Like the Holidays.” But that is just fine by her.

In the comedy, which debuts in U.S. theaters on Friday, a Puerto Rican family comes together at Christmas for the first time in three years, and Messing plays a very non-Latina career-driven executive wife of the family’s eldest brother, played by John Leguizamo.

“I’d never been an outsider in a film,” Messing said. “I very much felt like the white Jewish girl and it was the first time I had ever been the minority on the set.”

Messing tried to “access my inner Latina” by recalling her elementary school Spanish during the shoot, she said.

The 40-year-old Messing said the film marks a step forward in Hollywood because it is essentially a mainstream holiday film but one that focuses on a minority, Latino family.

“Nothing Like the Holidays” follows the Rodriguez family during a holiday gathering in Chicago that is prompted by the youngest brother’s return from combat overseas.

An ensemble piece, the movie details the trials of each family member’s career or personal relationships. Messing’s character, Sarah, for instance, struggles with whether to take a new, high-powered job while facing pressure from her husband and mother-in-law to start a family.

“That’s not specific to the Puerto Rican culture,” Messing said of the themes the movie pursues. “I could see an Italian family on screen, I could see a Jewish family on screen. You could just fill in the blank, because family is family.”

At the same time, she added, “you can learn and celebrate the Puerto Rican culture, which has never really been done.”

CULTURE WATCHER

Messing, who shot to stardom on eight seasons of the NBC sitcom “Will & Grace,” said she hoped “Nothing Like the Holidays” would help break down cultural barriers in Hollywood in much the same way “Will & Grace” brought gay characters to mainstream TV audiences in a hit prime-time

show.

“It would be wonderful if this film in some way has a similar effect, representing a community who is normally not represented, not written about, and often represented in stereotypes,” Messing said.

She said the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president made her hopeful that Hollywood will embrace characters of different cultural backgrounds.

“There is an excitement about the possibility of tolerance, especially now we are going to have our first African American president,” she said. “It seems like a reflection of that, this film. And I hope it does become a trend.”

Messing has appeared in several movies since “Will & Grace” wound down in 2006, including the high-society comedy “The Women” earlier this year.

Despite wanting to focus on films and plays following that show’s end, however, Messing is back on television in USA Network’s series “The Starter Wife,” in which she plays the ex-wife of a Hollywood mogul.

“It was not in my master plan,” Messing said of her latest TV stint, adding that the program’s 5-month shooting schedule still gives her the flexibility she craved when “Will & Grace” ended.

“That was much more palatable being A, a mother, and B, someone who just wanted to be able to say ‘I don’t know what I’m going to be doing,’ and to give myself some air so I could figure out what I was hungering for,” Messing said.

With her time off last year, Messing shot “Nothing Like the Holidays” in five weeks. The short schedule was critical, given she has a four-year-old son at home and her husband, Daniel Zelman, also has a busy schedule as writer and producer of the cable TV show “Damages.”

“It’s impossibly hard,” Messing said of managing the demands of both motherhood and work. “Compromises are made every month, and it just feels like ‘Okay, this is the life of an adult woman in America.’”

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Debra Messing’s Home for the Holidays

Connie — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:41:48 +0000

Bouncing back after the end of Will and Grace, Debra Messing has returned to prime-time in the The Starter Wife (based on the hit USA network mini-series).

And now she’s back on the big screen in Nothing Like the Holidays, a dramedy about a dysfunctional Puerto Rican family struggling to find a little joy at a Christmas reunion. Messing plays the daughter-in-law who’s trying to keep her marriage together without sacrificing her career.

Q: Did you feel a little left out being the only Anglo in the family?

A: Actually, it was fascinating. By the end of the film the culture became sort of irrelevant. It was all about family. I saw my Jewish family and I saw my Italian friends’ family in the movie. I think there’s something beautiful about the idea that it’s a holiday film about an American family who happens to be Puerto Rican.

Q: Judging from all the food in scene after scene, eating is a Puerto Rican holiday tradition.

A: And everything was delicious. I gained 10 pounds in five weeks eating during those scenes. I’m not kidding. I think some of the guys gained a lot more. We would check in with each other every week like, ‘How much did you gain?’

Q: Did you have a favorite Puerto Rican holiday custom?

A: I’d never heard of the paranda before, and actually being able to experience it was even more extraordinary. You go caroling from house to house and at each stop another family joins you until you have a sea of people walking down the street singing. It was great fun to film, except it was horrendously cold.

Q: How cold was it?

A: It was Antarctic cold. Seriously, like 25 below zero. Who knew that it could get that cold in America anywhere? And none of us were dressed for it. It was just insanity.

Q: How did you survive?

DM: I Googled ‘Antarctica’ and found out what people who are researchers wear who have to live there for months on end. Then I went to this site online and bought a coat that promises to keep you warm to 100 degrees below zero. I thought, ‘I only need 25 below so 100 will cover it.’ But it didn’t arrive until four days before we wrapped. But those were the warmest four days of my entire life. I just went, ‘Why didn’t I think of this earlier?’

Q: What would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas?

A: A Kindle. It’s a new technological gadget that weighs about two pounds and is the size of a small paperback book. It can hold like a hundred novels and it’s ecologically responsible because you’re saving trees and paper. And you can also get newspapers and magazines downloaded.

Q: When you were growing up, did you look forward to the holidays?

A: I grew up in New England, we almost always had a white Hanukkah and a white Christmas. And there was always hot cocoa and the fire going and sledding outside. It was heaven. Now, I travel all the time, but if I can get the whole family together with me at the holidays, then that’s the best gift anyone could give me.

Q: Are you getting any feedback from the fans of Starter Wife?

A: Women literally stop me on the street and they’re like, ‘I am a starter wife.’ I was campaigning in Pennsylvania for Obama, and we went to this lower income African American senior citizens’ home. This older woman came up to me and she was like, ‘Honey, I’m a starter wife. That’s me.’ And I was like, ‘But you’re a survivor, right?’ She said, ‘Damn straight.’ So I think a pretty broad group are connecting with the series.

Q: Since you campaigned for Obama, will you be at his inauguration?

A: At the end of election night we were at a rally with Vice President Elect Biden, and there was someone there who was like, ‘Oh, now that we’ve won, you have to come to the inaugural party.’ And he gave me his card. For some reason, I haven’t called because I was like, ‘Oh, I’m sure everyone is calling him.’ But now maybe I will.

Source.

Reaction to latest roll thrills Messing

Connie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:01:36 +0000

On her character Angela Martin, the cold, unforgiving worker on the office Debra Messing isn’t starting over exactly in The Starter Wife. The risk-taking, occasionally risque satire about a Hollywood divorcee rebooting her social life after being cast aside by her rich, self-absorbed TVproducer husband is a world removed, though, from her last gig as Grace in the long-running sitcom Will&Grace.

In the seminal, groundbreaking sitcom Messing called home for eight years, she played single, straight interior designer Grace Adler, best friend to Will Truman, a gay lawyer looking for love and a comfortable life in the big city.

Messing no longer plays the best friend. In The Starter Wife, she’s the centre of attention as Molly Kagan, a struggling writer of children’s books who finds herself divorced and forced to scrape by without the comfy settlement she’d always expected, and believed was her right.

“This is so different from my last experience,” Messing said. “In the miniseries, Molly’s life begins again, really. The mini-series was kind of like summer, and now school begins. It’s about how she feels about her new love life, about entering the Hollywood world and trying to make a living, and interacting with (her) ex-husband much more than she expected.”

Molly’s ties to her ex-husband are hard to break, because they share a seven-year-old daughter and because he’s a power broker, kingmaker and decision maker in the very world she’s trying to break into as a fledgling scriptwriter, now that she’s on her own.

Being dumped unceremoniously and without warning is a situation many once-married women have found themselves in, Messing said.

“What was most surprising to me, after the miniseries, was how many women would come up to me, and not just in Los Angeles,”Messing said. “I would be in airports in the middle of the country, and women would come up and say, ‘I’m a starter wife.’ It was validating. It was validating to see it really is as universal as we thought it might be, even though our story is specific to Hollywood.

“I think a lot of these women feel like, ‘Wow, I’ve never been represented before. There’s never been a TV show or movie about this phenomenon.’ I think it makes them feel like they’re not alone, and yet, we can have a lot of fun with it.”

There will be pitfalls and missteps along the way, but life will work out for Molly in the end, Messing said.

Messing doesn’t want to think about The Starter Wife’s life beyond the current season, though.

“Oh, gosh, I can’t speak to that now,” she said. “Every time I’ve tried to guess what I would be doing, or even feel like doing, six months from now, I’ve always been wrong. So my credo is to not even try to predict what will happen and just make the best show we can and have as much fun as we can, and hope that people respond as well as they did to the miniseries. Who knows? It might turn into geriatric Hollywood. We all might be going into the movie version as seniors. You never say never.”

Source.