Debra Messing, who is perhaps most well known for her role on the hit TV sitcom Will And Grace, has told of her horrific first experience shooting a Hollywood film.
At age 25, Debra had been cast in her first big movie, 1995’s A Walk in the Clouds. The film starred Hollywood heavy-weight Keanu Reeves and had recruited, in her own words, the “ass-hat” director Alfonso Arau.
In a speech at the Makers Conference in California earlier this week, Debra, now 48, recalled that on the second day of filming, the director surprised her with plans to shoot a nude scene – a scene, which she had never formally agreed to do.
Naturally, before jumping into bed, Debra decided to ask the director for an explanation. She alleges that her perfectly-sane request, prompted Alfonso to berate her saying, “Your job is to get naked and to say the lines. That’s it.”
Fearing that her refusal to partake in the scene might lose her the coveted role, The Mysteries of Laura star agreed to concerning request.
Debra went on to reveal that the director, who has taken the reigns other big names films such as Like Water For Chocolate and Romancing The Stone, decided he needed to “set” the single sheet which cover her on naked body.
“He lifts it, scans my naked body, then drops the sheet on top of me like a used Kleenex. He walks away without a word,” the actress said.
But upon seeing the final edit of the film, she quickly realised that the only unclothed part of her body was her back – nothing else.
“The whole thing was a power play, a game,” the actress recalled in hindsight. “And the goal, to demean me, to strip me of my power and make me feel on a cellular level his dominance over me.”
Debra is perhaps most well known for her portrayal of Grace Adler on the hit TV sitcom, Will And Grace.
The American-born actress added that Alfonso also attacked her physical appearance.
“I’d never been on a film before. I was doing a love scene with Keanu Reeves. We started filming and the very famous director screamed ‘Cut’ and said, ‘How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here? Her nose is ruining my movie’,” she said.
“It was a shock. I was so confident coming out of graduate school with my Masters in acting. I’d studied in London and I was so well equipped with skill sets, and then to walk on set and have that happen — I was reduced to an un-Hollywood nose.”
Debra will soon appear in the much-anticipated revival of Will And Grace.
The bigger than big news was announced at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in Pasadena, California, on Wednesday, January 18.
Following the exciting announcement, Debra took to Twitter to celebrate.
She tweeted, “IT’S OFFICIAL !!! THE GANG IS GETTING BACK TOGETHER on @NBC!!”
A premiere date has not yet been announced for the much-loved TV show, but it is believed the comedy will make its comeback sometime during the 2017–18 TV season with a whopping ten new episodes.
