Fifty Years of Funny w/ James Burrows & Debra Messing

Everyone always has a choice. Whenever somebody says no, you can't, or there's no rules for you, or you have to look like this, I go. I'll show you. I'll show you. Welcome to Go, ask Allie. I'm Alli Wentworth and I am over the moon right now because I have James Burrows on my podcast and he is the greatest sitcom director of all time. You may not know his name, but you've seen it on television credits. For almost fifty years.

He's been at the helm of some of the most popular, beloved iconic sitcoms since the seventies, starting with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and Laverne and Shirley. He became the resident director on Taxi. Co created the classic sitcom Cheers and directed two hundred twenty five of the two hundred and seventy episodes. The shortlist of his credits include Frasier Friends, Will and Grace, Mike and Molly, the pilots of Two and a Half Men, and The

Big Bang Theory. James Brows has directed more than one thousand episodes of sitcom television and has earned eleven Emmy Awards and five Director Guild of America Awards. And another feather in his cap was he directed me in an episode of Will and Grace. I played Grace's gynecologist, and I got down and dirty, and now on my tombstone. It can say a lot of bullshit, but it'll end with the line and she was directed by Jimmy Burrows.

And just when you thought this podcast couldn't get any better, after my conversation with Jimmy Burrows, I'll be talking to Debor Messing about all the guest stars that came on Will and Grace, but mostly to find out what it was like to have Matt Damon grabbed her ass. Hello, James Burrows, or as you're called, Jimmy Burrows in the industry. First of all, I love your book so much. And I love it so much because as a girl who grew up in Washington, d C. Around politics, all I

cared about with sitcoms. It was my life. And I'm from a family of many divorces, and I always was seated in front of the television watching Mary child More, Bob Newhart. So everything good in my childhood is shows that you worked on or directed. So thank you. I appreciate that there's so many great stories in this book. And I had no idea. I mean, I could do a month of pod casting with you. But because I have you hostage for the next forty five minutes, I

want to talk about the sitcom. So you very early on love the concept of the sitcom, right, I did? And why is that there's so many other mediums, especially entertainment. What do you love about the sitcom? Well, it's a theatrical experience. You're doing a play every week, three minute play every week. And I was a theater rat. My dad was in the theater. I was brought up in the theater. I never wanted to be in the theater, but eventually when he taught me, when I didn't know.

I was learning. I ended up in the theater, so I did a lot of theater before I came out to do sitcoms. So for me, the situation comedy is just theater on television. And you have some great stories about interning in theater, and you did a lot of hand holding too. I did, Yeah, I did. There's the way great line in your book that Jabor, who you were working with, said she was married multiple times, as we all know, and she said something about the ring was so expensive. I had to say, yes, yes. She

was one of the important people in my success. It was a stage manager on Broadway for a show called forty carrotstef Jay Presson Allen wrote, my dad directed it, and when Julie Harris left, we brought in Jajabor. You know, Josh is not an actress, she's a presence. So I was in charge of putting her in the show, and she had to rely on me because I knew all the ins and outs of the show and everything like that. So we kind of became friends and she really liked me.

She never treated me abusively or anything like that. She never slapped me like she slapped the cop. Therefore, when she would do stock productions or dinner theater productions of Forty Carrots or Blithe Spirit, which was our other play. They would hire me because I could wrangle her. So I got a job running a theater in San Diego because of her, and that led to me being out in California and reacquainting myself with Mary Tyler Moore. Yeah,

you've wrangled a lot of people. You've probably wrangled every great star I can even think of, in one way or another. Yes, I'm not sure we better look up the definition of wrangle. Yeah, we should. In my case, I'm saying you wrangled in the most positive way with scaffolding and warmth. Yes. So you decide to write a letter to Marriage Heller Moore and they hire you based off this letter, correct, Yeah, but I don't recommend people sitting down and writing a letter to Robert de Niro.

I had an experience with Mary. One of my first jobs was as an assistant stage manager on an ill fated Broadway musical endeavor called Breaks Tiphanies, based on the RG Hepburn movie and the Truman Campode novella. My dad wrote the script and I was hired as he assistant to the assistant. My job was I was in charge of the stars, Mary Tyler Moore and Richard Chamberlain, who were both from California, both doing their first Broadway show.

So I was literally there Gopher and I would make sure they had lunch, and I make sure they know when the show was running, where they had to be to make their entrance and everything like that. And then my dad was unceremoniously fired from the show by David Merrick, and I asked him if when he left, if I could stay on this Titanic, and he said sure, and so they brought in somebody to replace him, and the show was horrible. We opened for four previews on Broadway.

The actors were hooted off the stage and Mary would come off stage and wrapper arms around me and started crying because it was such a horrible experience. I think in your book, he said, she would be hysterically weeping, saying what have I done to my career? Every night, yes, and the last night it was a Wednesday night. They closed the show early. Wednesday night, I went to Sardis for awake and I stayed with her until her husband, Grant Takers, showed up so I had formed this bond

with her. So when I was directing Joan Fontaine in forty Carrots and Wallingford, Connecticut in a dinner theater or at a theater and around I don't remember, I went home on a Saturday night and I watched television. There was a Mary Tyler Moore show, which was a twenty five minute show done in a week in front of a live audience, and I was doing a two hour show in a week in front of a live audiences.

So I wrote a letter to Mary, which is in the book, and Grant called me about two weeks later and said, we'd like you to come out to Californ ONNYA. We'll pay you a small stipend. We like theatrical directors, and you're gonna have to learn the cameras, which I did. After about four months, I got a gig. So I had a relationship with Mary when I wrote that letter. All right, so you come out to California. Even though you're born in l A. You're a New Yorker. You

sound like a New Yorker. Yeah, yeah, all the glass of water, Yeah, go on some coffee, soft core porn exactly. And so Mary Tyler Moore is the first show you work on, and to me, Mary Tyler Moore is one of the sitcoms that most people have learned the craft from. And what I mean by that is the characters are so well defined, the scripts were so funny. You cite some of your favorite episodes in your book. Can you give me some color about that time in your life

working on that show? Well, I was scared shitless because was the third of the fourth year of the show. J Sandrich, who was my mentor, did the shows, so they had occasional guest directors, and I was a guest director. And I was thrust into maybe the number three or four show in the ratings for my first job. And it was really scary. The cast was intimidating. The writers and Jim Brooks and Alan Burns and Ed and Stan d Winburger Stan Daniels were the pre eminent comedy writers.

And so I was a little pitcher from New York who nobody except Mary and Grant new and so I had to play by the rules of the show. I I was deferential to the cast, deferential to the writers. In the moments when I was alone with the actors blocking the scenes, I would make suggestions in a very subtle way of things to try. In fact, in the last scene, it's a show about Loue moving into wrote his apartment. Mary and Leu are working together and living together,

which doesn't work out. So the last scene was at Asner and Mary sitting on suitcases in a goodbye scene because he's going to move out. And I said, think of this as a cherry orchard, that the two of you are leaving the cherry orchard, and what that means to you. I don't know where that came from. I have no idea, but it was somewhere in my noggin. So it was a C minus script that became a C plus show. On Friday night, we shot at seven thirty.

I was walking to the stage to start shooting and Mary came out of her trailer and said to me, we feel our investment in you has worked out. And I was I don't remember a lot of the show because I was so high at that point figuratively, and the show was okay. But the next day I got calls from the Bob new Heart Show and the Road To Show and Paul Sancho because they had a number of shows at MTM and they wanted me to direct, so I was on my way. Yeah, you were launched.

I was launched. Yeah. You wrote about this too, which I think is fascinating for people, especially not in the business, that Mary was a show that crafted around one person. I mean, she was you know, you laugh so much with Mary, but Mary was pretty much the straight guy, and it was all the characters around her that were

so full of color. And I feel like that happens in Taxi and so many other shows, even Seinfeld, that you have the sort of straight lead and all the sort of fun happens around them, that the situations they're put in. Yeah, well they're called the center of the show. At actor's eyes are the windows that the audience sees the show through. So Mary was the center of the show. She had a bunch of cooks, or they're not all cooks.

Ed was, you know, not necessarily cook, and Nita was Gavin, but Ted was a cook, and Val was a cook, and Chloris was a double cook. And by Mary liking them and listening to them, that validated him. The same is true with Teddy on Cheers. He listens to Cliff Clen and he gives him veracity. He talks to Coach, he talks the Frasier, he deals with Diane, same with Judd on Taxi and those interplanetary people on that show. So and then if the center is funny, Mary was

not the funniest. But Mary had great reactions and could do a joke. She could do a joke as Judd could, as Teddy could, as Eric and Will and Grace could do. So that's the conduit with which the audience associates with the show. So let me ask you a question about actors, because I hate him me too. Yeah, jeezus, I don't think you can teach comedy. I think it's intuitive. Do you agree with me? I agree totally. Yeah. And I

always thought it was interesting going to acting school. I was at n y U with people, and I would watch people try to do comedy and they just they couldn't do it. But you seem to be able to take these incredibly talented, intuitive people and pull out the best of them. And there's something else you wrote in the book which I thought was great, was I think Chuck Laurie said that he was a musician, and so he hears comedy musically. So do you also hear a rhythm,

and our pattern when it comes to comedic writing and jokes. Absolutely. You know, before there were video monitors where you can watch the cameras, I would sit and listen to the actors, so I would listen to the rhythm, and as you know, you were unwill and grace. I tried to anticipate if

a joke is coming, because a joke is surprised. If a joke is coming and an actor screws up the line on the way to a joke, you hear me go blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah to stop the actor from saying the joke because the setup was wrong. And then you know, there's times I closed my eyes during rehearsal I hear the rhythm of the joke and try to protect the joke because it is all about the music. Yeah. I want to talk about romance and sexual tension in so many of these shows

that you've done. So, first of all, cheers, Sam and Diane. You talk a lot about that in your book, and besides Moonlighting, they were kind of the quintessential couple. Will they won't they? Will they won't they? How long do you keep something like that going, and then you did it with Ross and Rachel, and I mean, is there

do you feel it? Well? When we set out to do Cheers, the Charles brothers and myself, we want to do a show about a bar, because we all love bars and we're all sports fans, so we want to do in Boston. But we also wanted another element, and we talked about a Tracy Hepburn relationship, a man and a woman who had this kind of repartee that was sexual tension. And the original concept of Cheers was Sam working for a woman, which after Shelley left, became Kirstilly.

But when the boys went off to write the script, they came back with the character of Diane Chambers, which was an extraordinary character had never been on television before. So you know, there was magic between Ted and Shelley, so we said we had to get them together. And we were excoriated because we were before Moonlight. Moonlighting was after us, so we were excoriated the critics. I still have Howard Rosenberg's review the show's over, but we were

we were true to our characters. We knew we had to do an evolving show. So at the end of every year we got them into a pickle, and the big any of the next year we got him out at a pickle. We did that for five years and it was successful because the two of them were so great, the writing was so good. Diane Chambers was a character that half the men wanted to go to bed with her and the other half wanted to kill her, and

some people wanted to do both. That was it. We just said we had to do it to maintain the integrity of the show. But you also have to find the reasons why two characters have that tension. You know, she was always quoting Yates and Blake, and he was always sort of banging his head against the wall about her. So what was it about Sam and Diane? Why were they so hot for each other? That was provided totally by Ted and Shelley. Their chemistry. That's chemistry, that's Ross

and Rachel. You had the chemistry between Eric and deb they were not going to get into bed with one another. But that kind of chemistry you could only have if the two actors have it. I can't give it to them. If they haven't, we can totally use it and make it even better, But they have to have that chemistry. If they don't, you're dead. So the two of them as good actors that they were individually, they were better together. That's what you pray for. And go back to the

original Daisy and Lucy. H. You know, chemistry and most of the shows you did, there was so much chemistry with all the characters, which is what made it so successful that in the good writing and and how you kind of bull you based all of it together in such an amazing way. First time I've ever heard that. Um. And one of the things you talk about is like sit sitcom burnout and their sitcom burnout with the actors

when they've been doing it for a long time. You even talked about Jamie Farr from mash who played such an iconic character that he couldn't really work after that. Yeah. I mean, it's a reason a lot of actors in the seventies and eighties, especially movie people, didn't want to do sitcoms because they felt it typed them. But there have been people who have gone on to multiple sitcoms Mr. Newhart, Mr. Dance and so, you know, I mean, they were leading men.

Jamie Farr played a very iconic character that's tough to get away from the same as Ted Knight. Yeah, yeah, I also think of Michael Richards and Cramer. Yeah, it's very hard to see him as anything else. And what what's it like doing finales? Because the Cheers finale seemed god like the end of an error. There was hugging and loving and kissing and heads of the studios were sitting at the bar in the background. And is it

hard to do finales? It is because you're bringing to an end something that was so wonderful for you, especially Cheers at eleven years of that show, and Teddy didn't want to do it anymore, and we didn't want to do a show where Sam was not there. It was sad. It was so sad that everybody cried. Yeah, yeah, everybody cried. And you know the same with Will and Grace when I did that finale. I did two finales on that show, luckily enough. And the audience never like finalees because you're

taking away something that they love. Every Thursday night they would tune in for Cheers and you're taking that pacifier out of their mouths. So you can't win. When you do a finale, a lot of people are gonna hate it. So I also found that you're in their living rooms. They make this connection to these characters in a way you can't do it with film or books or anything else.

I remember once I was having dinner a million years ago with my then boyfriend in New York and he had a brother and the they're kept talking about these people like they were his friends, and he kept saying, did you see what George did last night? It was incredible, And finally I realized he's talking about the show Seinfeld.

These are not even real people in his life, but there's such a investment, there's such a vicarious journey that everybody has with these people, these characters that for years and years and years. Like you said, now they're streaming, but then they'd be on Thursday nights on NBC water cooler shows, that's what they used to call them. You know, it was incumbent on you back in the seventies, eighties and nineties to watch the episode so you could talk

about it the next day. There was no streaming. There was Beta Max and you had vhs and stuff like that, so you could record it. But if you recorded it, you were out of the loop the next day because you hadn't watched it. I don't think it's like that anymore. No, it's not. There's five hundred sixty shows on the air, and it's just too other than a Super Bowl. Nobody gets together for a good time anymore. No, not at all.

In fact, my now sixteen year old a couple of years ago, when they I don't think it was streaming yet, when they had Friends and Will and Grace reruns TBS or whatever it was. I remember she started watching Friends like they just started, you know, and my little daughter would run in and say to George and I don't say what happens with Rachel and Ross, don't tell me what happened? You know. It's just so funny to me. But that is the plus side of the television technology

now is that people get to rediscover these shows. Yeah, Friends is gonna go on forever, probably Seinfeld. They're iconic shows and they're still funny. They've always been funny, and a new generation of kids are discovering them. God, they're funny. There's a lot more to come after this short break and we're back. I have to talk now about Will and Grace because I love that show so much. I watched it just to somebody ironing her shirts while she's

watching TV like everybody else. I have since become good friends with Debra Messing and with Sean Hayes, but I first fell in love with them on television, which is kind of a surreal thing. Will and Grace, to me is the greatest show ever. It's not because they talked about George and how they wanted to have sex with them. But I love the characters, I love the writing, I

love everything about it. And this show had so many incredible guest stars that if I name somebody, can you give me just a line or two about them that's a little bit behind the curtiny, I can try. Okay, So Molly Shannon a genius, crazy. We do stuff on stage I could have never thought of. I let them go. I let them do what they want to do. She's amazing and really physical, right, yeah, very physical. And she played Val the clepto crazy. Yeah. Okay. Michael Douglas, the

gay detective. If you ever get to see that show, watch the dance. He does a dance in the club with Eric. It's a straight man dancing. He was great. He was great. You know what's great about him, it's a guy who came from drama, So Michael Douglas, you didn't see him in a lot of comedy, and the fact that he could get those jokes. That kind of actor is what I love. Those guys who you don't think are funny and all of a sudden are funny, which leads me to Glenn close. Same thing with her.

She played this kind of crazy Anna Leebawitz is and she was hilarious, as with all of them, including you. I take them aside when they begin to show and I say, I hope you're going to play with us, because we have a lot of fun here. When you're in rehearsal with these four actors, they're at okay, don't get used to A A because when that audience comes in there they're going a D. And if you don't go to A you're going to get thrown out with the

bathwater because they will demolish you. So I tell all of them, including you and Glenn and Matt Damon and Michael Douglas, I say, Will and Grace is a heightened comedy show. You gotta play on that level otherwise you're going to be on the cutting room floor. So no, I learned that, Yeah, I was playing Grace is kynecologist, and I got under the sheet and I was face to face with her vagina, So I like, I came to play. I knew that now, you said, Matt Damon,

my favorite episode is a chorus Lie. Matt Damon h was so game to play in that episode. I mean, the story itself is hilarious that the straight guy pretends to be gay so that he can get a free trip to Europe with the gay chorus, So already it's

a funny premise. Then Matt Damon comes and he is so so funny and even physical, you know, when he's trying to be gay with Sean Hayes's character and they're doing the little dance and then I think one of the best repartee in comedy is when Matt Damon and Sean Hayes are at each other's throats and Sean Hayes starts whipping off these quick like how do I know you've never seen the gym? Who did you date? It goes? I never go to the gym. I work out at home.

You know I'm not doing it justice, And I think you have it actually in your book the dialogue. Then there's a great scene with Messing when he's on the couch with Messing trying to out it, trying to out him as straight. Yeah, and he said he said something about her rocking ass, rocking ass, Yes, and grabbed him this rocking ass, and they're all over each other, I mean all over each other. It was fantastic, all right.

Sydney Pollock amazing. Sydney Pollock who plays Will's father, blythe Danner perfect as the Icy Wasppeball, John Slattery as Will's brother, I mean John Clice, Alec Baldwin, Patrick Dempsey. And then Harry Connick had this little arc or long arc. It got much longer with Grace as the love interest in then husband. Was he a surprise to work with I believe it or not. I had worked with Harry before you had. Yeah. Harry Connick was in an episode of Cheers.

He played Woody Harrelson's cousin who was infatuated with Rebecca with Kirstie Alley. I don't know how old he was usually a kid then, Yeah, but he he was wonderful. He was wonderful. And then I did the episode of Friends where Matthew Perry was locked in the A T. M. Right, with Jill Goodacre. I'm trapped in an a t M. Yes, So I've known Harry longtime and Harry was so game to play and so sweet and so nice and funny, because if if Harry wasn't funny, he wouldn't have been back.

So yeah, he was really funny. And I'm friends with Harry and Jill and she brings that episode up all the time because you know, people still stop her for that. Really, Yes, all right. Tell me about Kevin Bacon Unwill and Grace. You had known him in New York a little bit. He was a bartender at the All State Cafe, which in the late sixties and early seventies before Ali was born, Thank you. I used to frequent. I had a number of friends there. It's a big influence on me for

cheers because we had a norm in that bar. And then Debbie, my wife, Debbie and I we had a house in Millbrook, New York, and Kevin and Kira have a house just outside of Menia. So we were at the Old Drover's Inn, which was a great restaurant, and Kevin and Kira came in and I went up to Kevin, I said, you remember me, I remember you from the All State said yes, yes. I said, look, the character of Jack has been infatuated with stalking Kevin Bacon, would

you consider coming on the show? And it was as quick as yes. Ever, so we brought him out to do one show and he was wonderful. Yeah, very funny. And whose idea was it to do the footloose dance? Was that in the script? Yeah, we're gonna take from everywhere. I mean, that show was totally contemporary humor and humor in the news, and Cheers was completely the opposite. We never did a reference joke or anything like that. We never did that kind of pop culture joke on Will

and Grace. We did them all the time. One thing about Will and Grace, which has been I mean, not only has it been a show that entertained us solved for years, but and Biden said it probably educated the American public more about gay rights, gay issues than anything else. Isn't that correct? Isn't it Biden that said that, Yeah, that's correct. I have never done a show that took a stand or proselytized. All my shows are to amuse.

I leave that to Norman Lair, who's a genius. Said, but we had this show and when Well and Grace is sent to me, it was to me a sitcom that happened to have a gay characters. It was not about advancing an agenda. But what happened with that show was that people started to watch it because it was so funny and oh, I see, so they're gay character. They're not threatening, they're fine. You know, I'll continue to

watch it because it's so funny. And the example I talk about that she the deal for me for how important the show was was. I used to drive carpool for my seventh grader. When Will and Grace is on, I would get the four kids in the car and start driving to school, and invariably, because it was Thursday, invariably one of the kids would say. The thirteen year

old would say, what's unwilling Grace tonight? So I knew that these kids were picking up the vibes of that show at an early age and saying, Wow, gay people aren't that bad there. They're just like us and they're funnier. That's when I knew that the show was making a mark in that world. Although we never we dealt with a couple of issues, like you know those camps that

try to mind bend you to anti gay camps. We dealt with that with Jane Lynch, Jane Lynch and Andrew Reynolds, and we did a scene with Sean and his grandson, Yep, who wanted to be gay and Sean was talking to him. And but we didn't hit people over the head with that because we knew what our lot was and we had to be funny. You know, I had a great time. It's literally the funniest show I ever did. It's not my favorite. My favorite is Cheers because I I gotta

go created credit on it. But Will and Grace last per page was was hysterical, the best. And I have to ask you about because we're talking about Will and Grace about Stanley Walker, Oh my god, because Karen Walker was the most fucked up person, for lack of better words, fucked up character that there ever was. But Stanley who made the decision to never see him. I was always worried that at some point they were going to show him. But you you can't know. It's I mean, we were

at the original months. You know, you go back to Calton, the doorman on Rhoda, and you go back to Vera, Norm's wife and cheers and Maris David Hyde Pierce wife and sometimes it's better her not to see that person and let it be a figment of your own imagination. Yeah, because you could do jokes about it that are not real, and you don't confirm it or you don't see it. It's just a new audience's imagination. You did see Varia's

legs once, right, believe it or not. Vera Norms wife was played by Bernadette Burquette, who is George's actual life so Burne would show up occasionally. Right. I was going to ask you how do you deal with things like pregnancy, because you guys didn't acknowledge Debra Messings pregnancy at all. You just said she was eating a lot. Yeah. Well, the first one we had to deal with was the Diane Chambers because Shelley got pregnant year three, right, So

she has a tray in front of her belly. The bar had slats in it which raised the actors up behind the bar. So we took the slats out so Shelley would be behind the bar. You didn't see her belly with Messing, we did things to cover it up. We had her sitting a lot. We were careful. We don't want Sam and Diane to have a baby, and we don't want to stay with somebody else, and with Messing, we didn't. We didn't want to deal with that. So although they did have babies at the end, but not

not during. Yeah, I'm always fascinated by all the mechanics of that, of all of a sudden, characters disappearing or people getting pregnant, you know, the stuff that happens in real life that you have to somehow put in Make believe life. One other thing, Ria Ria had three kids on Cheers, but she could be pregnant because that was the whole character thing. However, if we know Reese was gonna have three children, we wouldn't have started out with

she had four children in the first year. So, as I say in the book, I think there are forty babies born to the cast and crew on I had three, you know, Teddy at two, and George had free I think it was crazy. And you have a bunch of girls, right, I have four daughters, four daughters and no sons. I

have a grandson. So okay, yeah, well I have to tell you that there are two episodes that I can think of that somehow relate to my husband, George Stephanopolis, and with Friends, the episode is called the one with George Stephanopolis, and I was not married to George at the time. I didn't know him, but that is something

that seems to surface all the time. And now that we have two daughters, they've seen that episode of Friends and screamed when they saw it the first time because jen Aniston and Courtney Cox are referring to how hot their father was, and I truly thought they were going to have a meltdown. And the other time was I

was pregnant with our second daughter. I was sitting in bed with our three year old and I was watching Will and Grace and Sean and Eric, the two lead actors, go into a bar in Vermont, and the bartender says to both of them, what can I get you? And they both said in unison, George Stephanopolis, to which my three year old daughter turned to me and said, why do these guys want daddy? And I thought, Jesus Christ,

how am I going to explain this to them? Which I think is really funny because I have lots of little inlets that lead me to you friends or you know, people that I've worked with, but the George Stephanopolis thing seems to come up a lot, especially when I was reading your book and thinking about all the shows that you've done. All right, so James, you get to ask me a question now, Okay? Why do I only see your head? Comedy is you have to see the comedy?

You have to see hands see. People at home won't know this, but all I see of Ali Wentworth is her head and humor. If you watch my shows, I shoot from the waist up because arms and hand gestures are funny. Why do I only see your head? You're absolutely right? I could answer I'm pregnant. That won't work. I had another question for you. Yes, who do you like better? Me and Michael Smith? Thank you? Hands down? Thank you so much for doing this. Oh, thank you.

I have to tell you I really love this book. I love it. It was like a delicious dessert. I couldn't get enough of it. Well, I I appreciate it, and best to you and your girls, and I get them to continue to watch Will and Grace. Please. Best you needs some money? Oh God, let's take a little break and when we come back, we're messing. Will give us the inside scoop on Jimmy Burrows and so many of the dazzling guest stars Will and Grace hosted over

the years. Welcome back. I'm so excited to have my very good friend here to dish about the eleven years she worked with the great director James Burrows. Deborah Messing played Grace Adler on the NBC sitcom Will and Grace for eleven seasons, for which she received seven Golden Globe Award nominations and five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a win and Emmy win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a

Comedy Series. And Messing's film work include, among others, Along Came Polly, The Wedding Day, The Women, and she has two movies out this year of Bros. And Thirteen. As you know, Deborah, I did a podcast recently with Jimmy Burrows, who everyone says it's the greatest director of all time. But can you tell me why Jimmy Burrows is the best. I think the thing that makes him unique is that he thinks of comedy as music and he would rather

hear the language than see it. And you will actually see him on show night just walking back and forth, not even watching us acting, just listening and when something doesn't sound right in his ear, he goes go back, go back, and literally, I've never seen anyone else in my entire career do that. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that he came up in the theater, and I think that kind of musicality was understood very young because his father did huge Broadway musicals.

So I think that that's all sort of genetic. But I think also he trusts actors. There is a weird thing that happens. I can speak to network television, A weird thing that happens when there are between six and ten executives for every run through, and everyone has lots

of opinions. We only rehearse four days. Every single day, they completely rewrite the script based on what is discussed after a run through, and what is the norm is that the director stay silent and the executives talk about, Okay, that's not good for this character. We don't like where that's going, so you should change this, you should do this,

you should change this. Speaking to the writers, Jimmy Burrows does not allow that to happen on his set, and it's it's only because he's a legend that he has gained the respect and the right to say a I've got this back off. He tells the show runners from the very beginning, you are the creators. I am here to bring your creation to life. So there's no ego power struggle from the very beginning, which obviously Jimmy Burrows,

as you know, is an imposing person. But what happens with him is he says, you know what, the cast knows these characters, and I trust their instincts more than the executives. So I want to hear from the actors after every scene, what worked for you, what didn't work for you? And that made it much more of a democracy. It makes the whole creative endeavor much more fulfilling to actors because we are invited to the collaboration. The first show I did, it was not that and I literally

just felt like a dancing monkey. Yeah, because usually a directors it's just about blocking, and you know they don't consider the acting part of it. But let me ask you this, When you heard Jimmy Burrows laugh when you were doing a scene, did it make you feel good? Oh? God? That was the highest, by far, the pinnacle of what you could possibly accomplish because if you made Jimmy Burrows laugh. You know, I called him Papa Jimmy, and he called me juicy. But why why because he called me the

Jewish Lucy. So he called me juicy. Oh my god, that has to stick. That's such a good name. Okay, yeah, go ahead, juicy okay. And so you know the fact that he did every single episode, you really feel like a sense of owner ship and you feel like you are in partnership with Jimmy. And like you said, he's kind of got a Papa bear thing to him too.

He does so that if you inevitably you're going to be struggling with something, you're gonna be struggling with something that you read and on the page and you know it's supposed to be funny and you cannot figure it out. So you could go up to him and say, Jimmy, I'm I'm lost. I don't know why this isn't working in my mouth. I don't know why this isn't working in my body. He then sort of watches the scene and he finds ways to punctuate with physical comedy mhm,

or just with movement on stage. You know, I didn't realize that literally just one person walking from the door to the kitchen could be hilarious until I started working with Jimmy. And by the way, I mean Sean, of course, and hilarious the physical But you you juicy. I mean I can name off the top of my head scenes in which the physicality of what you did made it all work. I mean, even if you're standing on a bed with Jeremy Piven and you know, and you're like,

we're gonna get it on. I mean, you were the genius of that. I'm sorry, I mean your boobs with the water spurting out of it. I mean you had all the lucile ball asked physicality to that, And that is one of the things I think is a genius about Jimmy Burrows is that he let you guys use all that physicality, which made what would be it otherwise not so funny scene hilarious. Now I also have to ask you this, because you were pregnant with Roman while you were shooting Will and Grace. How much fun did

you and Jimmy Burrows have hiding your pregnancy. I wouldn't say it was fun, Okay, you were always behind a table. I was always either behind a table, behind a plant, holding a laundry basket, sitting on the sofa holding a pillow over my stomach. I found it frustrating because I couldn't be physically free, right, you know, so I was very hemmed in. And also I loved how they just made it that you were eating too much. Yes, yes, yes, which was true to Grace. You know, Grace loved to eat,

so of course it was perfect. But the thing, what what you were saying about him allowing the physical comedy. Something happened. I think this is indicative of his credo. We were doing the pilot, and towards the end, when I'm in a wedding gown and my my wedding falls apart, and I visit Will in his office late at night by himself after we fought, I come in to reconcile, and I walk in and closed the door and walk over to him very slowly to try and like be

gentle about it. And my veil gets caught in the door and I keep walking, so I'm ninety degrees going backwards with my veil in the door. I remember, and I remember the first time I did that. He was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, that's too far. And I was like really, and he was like yeah, I think yeah. And I was like, you know what, I think I could make it work. I think we could get the laugh and then I could come out of it in a very subdued way so that we could

get right back into the seriousness of the scene. And he was like show me, and I did, and he was like, you're right, He's like, do it. And from that point on he trusted my instincts for physical comedy. And we were so lucky with our the writing staff because they wrote towards our strengths, they wrote for us, so it was really the best of all possibilities. But you know, when we came back for three years a couple of years ago, we all sat around the table and was like, do we want to do this? Are

we going to do this? Why are we going to do this? It was a very in depth conversation, and the one thing just off the bat that all four of us agreed on we will not do it without Jimmy Burrows. That says a lot too. Yeah, alright, so we're gonna have a little fun now. Because one of the things that I talked to Jimmy about was One of my favorite episodes is when Matt Damon tries to join the Gay Man Choir and pretends to be gay

and he's straight. And there's a scene where Sean sends you in to try to out him as a straight person, and you guys are making out on the couch and he grabs and he goes with this rocking ass. Jimmy and I were laughing about this scene. How much fun was it because it looked like you were having fun, were having fun? Um, yes, I was having a lot

of fun. I have to say that Matt Damon was probably one of the greatest guest stars we've ever had because he was so game and at that time he had been playing a lot of really serious film roles and so when he came on, we didn't know what to expect. We were like, is he funny? Can he be funny? And I think in me there was a

kind of reverence towards him. So I was a little timid to like throw myself on the couch on top of him, and it became clear that he knew the playground he was playing in and he was like, I'm here to play. So we just went for it and that was all improvt like that rock and ass all that. That was all that just came. It was so good. I mean, that's what Jimmy said. He said, when guest stars came on the show, they had to be able to play with you guys. It was not gonna work

if they didn't play. And it was amazing because, like Michael Douglas also was one of my favorites of all time. The dancing that awful, really just horrible dancing with Will At the end, I was like, you know what, this is a playground for actors who never get to be silly, never get to take risks, and never get to play. And as a result, we get to see some of our favorite actors and actresses doing things that we never imagined that they could do. And I think that's what

also made it particularly special. Well, and you can tell how much fun they're having. So while we're talking about guest stars, I'm gonna name a guest star and just give me one line of memory anything. Okay, So I know what you're gonna say this one. Harry Connick Jr. Oh, the love of my life. Yes, yes, yes, I knew you were going to say that I knew it. Harry, the one they got away. God, I loved him so much, so you obviously hated kissing him. It was awful. It

was really really uncomfortable. Yeah, I mean we have to also just put a little note to this that I lost count of how many people I kissed over eight years. Excuse me. Yeah it was a lot of people. So and women too, if I recall, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, So I didn't realize you kissed that many people, but now that they think about it, yes you did, all right, Okay.

Another of course favorite, and the two of you were genius together, was Molly Shannon, who played the cliptomaniac crazy neighbor. You know what, I am still in physical therapy trying to recover from working with her. Really, yo, my god, she injured me every single time she came on the show because she was just out there. She was like, okay, let's go. And I was known on set as being the person who who didn't really have restraint and would like throw myself on Sean and Eric and I didn't

know my own strength. And so you had these two people who were both completely out of control and totally a slave to being funny coming and hitting, and she she kicked my ass. I remember. I mean, I love that. We're talking about how crazy Molly Shannon's character was. And there's a siren in the background of your apartment, which I can only imagine is Grace calling to get somebody to come pick her up, which is a perfect soundtrack

to what we're talking about. Ahead it is. It was something where we could not wait until she came back. It was always fun. It was always funny. I do remember one time towards the end of the first run when she was coming back again and I said to Jimmy, I said, I'm I'm a little nervous. She's going to hurt me. Did Molly know that? Yes, yes, of course she did. That's so funny. I love it because I went up to him like, Molly, don't hurt me. Don't

hurt me. Okay, how about Glenn Close, who played like an Annie Lebowitz type photographer, because oh, that was one of the funniest episodes where she's taking pictures of you and Will and oh yeah, your reactions to her, Oh my god. Oh yeah. I mean, first of all, you know icon right, and I'm like the woman from fatal attraction is undressing me and giving me a deep, deep, sexy kiss. Yes, and I'm like, what's happening. I could

not believe it. I really did not expect her or see any inkling that she had it in her to go that far. So she really kissed you, She really planted. Oh I think she was my most passionate kiss with a woman. Well look at that, miss Deborah. That's right. And I had never kissed a woman before Willie Grace, and she she was the most aggressive of all of them. And your reaction in that episode when she plants that on, your reaction is so genius that, now that I'm thinking

about it, it was really you in shock. It was me in shock. It was me in shock. She didn't do that in rehearsal. Makes me love her even more. I know what about Sydney Pollock and blythe Downer, who played Will's parents, Because when you and blythe when you were just scrappy Grace and she'd be like, Grace, do me a favor and hand you know. Oh, it's so

good just the juxtaposition of your characters. I mean, I had already been like an uber fan of hers from the theater prior to this, so having to two of them come in with so heavy I could not I mean literally, it took years for me to wrap my head around it. But then blythe became family to me. I mean she was just the biggest heart, so sweet, so quirky, so naturally funny. And Sydney Pollock. I never got over being intimidated. I can see that. I think

it was because I revered him so much. The guest stars, and you've worked with everybody at this point, Debbie Reynolds, Abbie Reynolds, you have worked with some of the biggest icons of theater and film and television, and that's incredible. I don't know if you remember on Friends when Brookshields guest start. That opened the gates, the floodgates to having stars as guest stars because it had never happened before.

All of a sudden, they were like, oh my god, they got so much viewership, we should have stars on right, boy? Did you? Then? It was like, Okay, what share is coming next week? Okay, who's after that? Madonna? Janet Jackson? Great, Okay, that's great. It's incredible. Yeah, and having Debbie come back over years as my mother. I can't even put into words what that meant to me. We really had a connection. She and I really had a connection. All of us

that are still watching Will and Grace on Hulu. You see it with you and her. Yeah, I could see you guys in your dressing rooms after rehearsal. You know, Deborah, don't wear your hair in your face. You know what I mean, Like you just see the dialogue and see the warm well. As I said to Jimmy Burrows, and as I've said to you a million times, Will and Grace is my favorite show of all time. It never

gets old. I've seen every episode of thousand times. I was so happy to talk to him because he's the one part of the puzzle of Will and Grace that I've never talked to you before except for that one time I guest starred. But I remember when I did Will and Grace and I told my husband George about it, and he was like, oh my god, that was like highlight of your life. I was like, it's Will and Grace and I got to play with Deborah. Not only that, I was like three inches away from her vagina, and

George is like, you're happy, You're happy. Place. Um, I had been dying for you to come on so I could play with you. And Max and Dave they were like, all right, yeah, we have to have her on. I'm like, but you can't have her on and have her play with other people. I have to play with her. Yeah. And so when they said that you're going to be my gynecologist, I just burst into laughter because I already imagined you bent over in between my legs under the

sheet with the big eyes. And and then afterwards I was like, she needs more doctor's appointments. I was thinking, like I would have come and played. I don't know if I would have been able to do that with an actress I'd never met before. I don't know if I would have gone that far. You were inside me. I was inside you, Yes, at least my face was.

But it was like that was the perfect combination of being somebody that loves to play and also being with somebody that I felt safe that I could do anything and we would laugh about it. So it was truly one of the best times I've had, the best, the best. And now before we end, you get to ask me a question about anything. Um, do you find sex more pleasurable in menopause? Versus Perry menopause, I would say in menopause, Actually,

Perry menopause is when I had too many symptoms. Uh huh, you know, too much sweating and hormonal rage and everything. Poor George m Menopause with the right oil is just fine with me. I'll take it. And I'm saying this as somebody who played your going to collegists are Will and Grace. Yes, God, bless oil. What would we do

without it? Oh God, thank you for having me. I'm so glad you were able to talk to him because you know, he is so wise and it's just a legend, and you know you don't have the opportunity to really like pick his brain, and so I love the fact that you guys did that me too. I love you. Let's get naked now. I love you. Thank you for listening to go ask Alli. James Burrows Memoir is directed

by James Burrows. Five decades of stories from the legendary director of Taxiach Years, Frasier, Friends, will Engrace and more. You can follow him on Instagram at the Real James Burrows, and you can follow Debora Messing at the Real Deborah Messing. If you'd like more info, on what you've heard in this episode. Check out our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review. Go Ask Alli and follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e Wentworth and on

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