Will & Grace an ‘antidote’ to toxic times
Lead Eric McCormack shares how the hit sitcom’s reboot born in wake of U.S. election
When Eric McCormack played a gay leading man 19 years ago in the prime-time sitcom Will & Grace, it was seen as something of a revolutionary move by a major American broadcaster.
NBC’s faith paid off: Will & Grace was one of the last of the big Thursday night “Must See TV” shows that cemented the comedy legacy for the broadcaster. It also earned 16 Emmy Awards, including one for McCormack as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy. And it helped pave the way for other LGBT characters on series such as Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black and Amazon’s Transparent.
But this is 2017. Same-sex marriage has been allowed in the United State for the past two years. And LGBT characters are much more plentiful, if not mainstream on television. The revolution, it seems, should be over.
“You’d think it’s over. But it’s not,” McCormack says in the sleek waterfront office building that houses broadcaster Corus, parent company of Global, in Toronto. “But then we went ahead and elected the most conservative government of all. Everyone is losing rights that we thought were inalienable. Now we have the rights of women, minorities, gays all being challenged. It’s now topical when it shouldn’t be.”
Will & Grace’s final season was in 2006 but, at 54, McCormack still fits right into that ’90s power-suit uniform of lawyer Will Truman.
NBC’s decision to bring back Will & Grace, which debuts Thursday at 9 p.m. on Global, isn’t so much a gamble. Gilmore Girls, Fuller House and now Roseanne this fall mean that viewers are being inundated with reboots of familiar brands that executives hope can cut through the clutter of shows.
“A reboot can be a dangerous thing and it can be a bad idea, but hopefully it’s more like your favourite uncle coming back,” McCormack says. “I’m not sure if we would be getting the same level of love if Hillary Clinton had won the election. But now we, I think, are an antidote to a very toxic time.”
Will & Grace wasn’t even on the reboot radar for NBC until the stars, including Debra Messing, Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes, got together for a secret reunion minishow themed around the American election in September 2016.
After Will & Grace disbanded, pro- ducer and co-creator Max Mutchnick had the entire set sent from the studio in Los Angeles to his alma mater at Emerson College in Boston. The set languished behind glass on display at the library for a year before being moved into storage.
“They called him up and said, ‘We need the space, we have to expand the library, so you need to take your stuff back,’ ” McCormack says. “So he had this set intact. So he phoned us all up and said, ‘I have an idea,’ and we shot it six weeks later. He flew the set piece by piece to Los Angeles and it was all top secret.
The nine-and-a-half-minute episode was shot without the knowledge of NBC. Or the studio audience, who thought they were going to see a new sitcom pilot. But it’s not hard to see why NBC decided to give it the green light: The vignette is sharp, crisp and funny. The suits and the sets are the same. The chemistry hasn’t left the building. And that starts when wealthy socialite Karen (Mullally) walks in the door, waving flags and proclaiming that Trump would “make America bueno again!”
“It was so secret that we all entered the studio by different gates so people wouldn’t see us together,” McCormack says. “And when the network finally saw it, instead of suing us, they said, ‘Let’s do more.’ ”
The new series picks up with the characters a decade later. It is directed by Cheers creator James Burrows, who directed every episode of Will & Grace over its eight seasons.
Returning guest stars include significant others Harry Connick Jr. as Messing’s love interest and Bobby Cannavale, who played Will’s boyfriend. NBC has so much confidence in the show — or put another way, an alarming lack of bankable, original sitcoms — that it has already been renewed for another season.
“We’re not making it out like it’s a big deal that it’s years later. But we have obviously aged. Will might tackle what it’s like for gay men in their 40s and 50s versus when they’re all cute in their 30s, for example,” McCormack says.
“But it’s going to be an interesting switch. Will was always trying to find his own skin, while Jack (Hayes) was always very comfortable about himself. Now you’ll see Will as a very comfortable middle-aged gay man and Jack not being able to get comfortable with the idea he’s in his late 40s.”
Born in Toronto, McCormack studied theatre at Ryerson and went on to perform classic theatre at Stratford for five seasons.
He was honoured this month for his work with the theatre company at a gala dinner at the Four Seasons in Toronto.
After moving to California, he made his TV debut in the CBS crime series Top Cops. But Will Truman was his breakthrough role. Since the series ended, he has played several parts, including three seasons as eccentric neuroscientist Daniel Pierce in TNT’s Perception.
This has been a particularly busy year for McCormack. He is also starring in the Vancouver-shot science fiction series Travelers. He directed the last episode of the show in July before flying to Los Angeles to start shooting Will & Grace. In Travelers, which airs on Showcase, McCormack plays timetravelling, alpha-male, special agent Grant MacLaren, a role that is the diametric opposite of the run-first, talk-later Will Truman.
“It all works out. I come from the theatre, where at Stratford you would do a comedy in the afternoon and a tragedy at night,” McCormack says. “I’m hoping for whatever crossover there might be that audiences get to see what an actor does. Because, especially on television, we often get pigeonholed. Now you get to see two sides of me that are equally true to who I am. And I’m really excited about working with those possibilities.”