Actress Debra Messing has revealed a distressing encounter with a director way back when she was getting her start in Hollywood.
The 48-year-old TV star, who recently signed on for a reboot of her best-known role as Grace in Will & Grace, was speaking at a conference in California this week when she recounted the story from the set of her very first film, 1995’s A Walk In The Clouds.
Director Alfonso Arau was behind the camera for a love scene between Messing and the film’s star, heart throb Keanu Reeves.
“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 recalled.
She then asked Arau about the scene, alleging he told her, “‘Your job is to get naked and say the lines. That’s it. You should be grateful to have this part!’”
When the scene finally began shooting, Arau claimed to want to “set the sheet” when Messing was on the bed nude.
“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,” said. “Throughout the day, he made me stand only slightly covered with the sheet while he walked around me deciding his camera angles. He says nothing to me, only yells, ‘No, cover your nipple!’ or ‘Cover your ass!’”
She continued, “It turns out, after all this trauma, the only part of my body that is seen naked in the film is my back. The whole thing was a power play, a game. And the goal, to demean me, to strip me of my pride and power and make me feel on a cellular level his dominance over me. I felt violated.”
She added, “I told my agents I would never work with that a—–e again.”
The “Mysteries of Laura” star also claimed that in a big kiss scene with Reeves, Arau threw a tantrum over her appearance.
“We come into frame, and all of a sudden, ‘Cut!’ We look over at Alfonso, slumped in his chair at the monitor with this look of horror on his face, and he yells out, ‘How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here? Her nose is ruining my movie!’” She said, “I went into my trailer and cried.”
“I have a strong nose. I have small breasts,” said the actress. “I’m a f—king original. My nose and I have come this far, and like Barbra Streisand, I’m defiantly keeping it.”
