When Max Mutchnick and David Cohn pitched “Will & Grace” to NBC, the pair were tasked with creating a replacement for “Mad About You”.
“We went and wrote a basic heterosexual love story and their neighbors were these two,” said Mutchnick, referring to stars Eric McCormack and Debra Messing. “And [former NBC entertainment president] To his credit, Warren Littlefield said, ‘It looks like the two of you are really livable’ [those friends] Next door.’ This is how the show happened. They were part of a different outfit. ,
“Our aim was to write an entertaining show about people we knew. That was really it,” Cohan said. “We weren’t even trying to be bold. We were really just trying to say in the air.
Initially, McCormack was paired with Marin Hinkle.
McCormack recalled, “Everyone gave me the impression they liked the two of you together or not and that’s it, the show dies.” “And it didn’t happen, they offered me the part. And I had a month like, ‘If we don’t get the right grace this show is going to die.’ I read with many women.
McCormack, Mutchnick and Cohan said they had always wanted Debra Messing to play Grace, but had trouble getting her due to her involvement with the ABC show “Prey” at the time.
“I had just finished shooting ‘Pray’ and I was exhausted and my agents called and said, ‘We have a special script,’ and I said, ‘I’m so tired, I’ll be back in three months. Call.’ And they were like ‘we’ll send it to you because it’s so special.’ And I read it and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s special.’ And I went in and had a meeting with these two and I still feel like I’m pretty tired. And they come over to my house with a bottle of vodka and a lemon and say, ‘Ask us the question.’ And for three hours we talked, and I started to feel good about it and he said, ‘Okay, will you read? We have our will and you don’t even need to talk, just will you read?’ And I was like, ‘Okay we’ll see how it goes.’
McCormack said Messing and two other actresses were set up to believe they were auditioning only to “drop people off with a cadre of cars” at director Jimmy Burrows’ house.
“Naturally, it was Debra, a girl from the Nicolette Sheridan and Kleenex commercial. She was kind of a hot girl in the commercials that year,” Muchnick said. “We always knew it would be like this, but you gotta do what you gotta do.”
Cohn said, “It was coordinated because each actress could not know about the other actress’ audition.” “It was very cloak and dagger.”
Messing said that reading the script with McCormack for the first time was “instinctive”.
“We were laughing at each other,” she said. “And then I was walking outside and Jimmy came over and he went, ‘You gotta do the show,’ and I was like, ‘Oh Jimmy, I don’t know. I’ll have to look into it.’ And he was like, ‘You’ll never get a show like this again.’
Mutchnick revealed that they could not offer Messing the role in the audition room because of the previous precedent set by Farrah Fawcett on “Charlie’s Angels”.
“Farah Fawcett got cast on ‘Charlie’s Angels’ before they closed their deal, and so she put them on a barrel. So you shouldn’t hire an actor before the deal is signed.” “That’s why it was such a joke that Jim and Warren kicked you out of that house saying, ‘It’s yours, it’s yours.’ We didn’t sign.
“Will & Grace”, which earned 18 Primetime Emmy Awards and 83 nominations, ran on the network from 1998 to 2006. The revival returned to primetime in 2017 and ran through 2020.
