We here at Messing Around wants to wish everybody a merry christmas and I hope you all have a really a festive evening tonight/tomorrow. Updates with return after christmas, I’ll be off the until the 27th so don’t expect any updates the following days.
I have made a little special update today with screen captures from Nothing Like The Holidays.

The festive romantic comedy is set for high-definition release this fall, more precisely on October 20.

So far there’s no more details, but suggested list price for the Blu-ray has been set at $39.95.

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

LINKS TO THE REST OF THE VIDEOS:
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #1
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #2
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #3
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #4
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #5
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #6
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #7
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #8
Nothing Like The Holidays – Interview #9
Nothing Like The Holidays – Premiere #1
Nothing Like The Holidays – Premiere #2

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)

The Starter Wife – Fall 2008
The Starter Wife – Fall 2008 #2
Nothing Like the Holidays – Clip #1

It’s Christmastime and the far-flung members of the Rodriguez family are converging at their parents’ home in Chicago to celebrate the season and rejoice in their youngest brother’s safe return from combat overseas. For Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez), coming home has rekindled feelings for an old flame, although she can’t seem to forgive him for leaving. His older sister Roxanna, a struggling actress, has been chasing her Hollywood dreams for years with little to show for it. And much to the dismay of their mother Anna (Elizabeth Peña), eldest brother Mauricio (John Leguizamo) brings home a high-powered executive wife (Debra Messing) who would rather raise capital than a child.

In the course of one eventful week, traditions will be celebrated, secrets revealed and major life decisions made. It all begins when Anna announces to her children she is divorcing their father Eduardo (Alfred Molina). The shock waves from this familial upheaval prompt Roxanna, Mauricio and Jesse, each in their own way, to reevaluate the past and rethink the future. But when the Rodriguezes learn that one of their own is facing a true crisis, they instinctively pull together: Old resentments are forgotten, familial bonds are re-affirmed and the healing power of laughter works its magic as the family discovers they are much stronger than they ever realized. Nothing Like the Holidays — In theaters November 14th, 2008

Stills in from “Nothing Like the Holidays” in the gallery has been replaced with HQs.