Debra Messing On Will & Grace’s Upcoming Debbie Reynolds Tribute
This week’s Will & Grace is all about Debbie Reynolds as the cast celebrates her birthday on the show. In the episode, Will and Grace go over to Grace’s family’s house where her dad and two sisters celebrate.
“Working with Debbie was really incredible. She would come on stage and she was a broad in the greatest sense. She always was entertaining and singing and dancing, and then she was running off and doing a one-woman show, you know, 300 days of the year. It was just crazy,” Debra said during the show’s PaleyFest panel in Los Angeles.
“She and I would sit together and we would talk about being mothers — because I was a new mother — and she would talk about [her daughter] Carrie [Fisher], and we would talk about the challenges of being a working mom. It.. she really… she really became someone very, very, very special in my heart, and I really wanted us to honor her. She meant so much to the show, and I really think that the episode that they wrote honors her — it’s funny and it’s moving.”
According to Entertainment Weekly, in the episode, Grace’s sisters think it’s time for their dad to sell the family home, but Grace is adamant her dad stay there, refusing to part with all of the memories of her mother.
Will & Grace co-creater Max Mutchnick added: “She came and she sat down with us, and there’s Debbie Reynolds sitting in our office, and I respectfully said to her, ‘You’re going to be playing Debra’s mother, and you’re this fantastic blonde, but would you mind for our show dying your hair red so you could look a little bit more like Debra?’ And she — this is the first time I’ve ever met her — and she said, ‘I have two hairs on my body, they’re gray, and they’re on my p—y.’”