TV comedy is a very serious job
Playing Jack and Karen – Will & Grace’s hilarious pals in the hit sit-com – might sound like a barrel of laughs but as Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally tell us, there’s plenty of pain and tears on set.
‘‘Jack is a very physical character,’’ Hayes says, who plays Will’s flamboyantly camp best friend.
‘‘Here take a look at this,’’ he says, rolling up his trouser leg and pointing to several cuts and grazes.
‘‘This one is from a month ago, this from two months and this three months. I am constantly bumping into the furniture. Most recently I grazed my shin after jumping onto the table.’’
Fans of the show know that noone enters or exits an apartment with Jack’s flair, but coming up with different ways to do it can be taxing.
Will & Grace was Hayes’ first TV role. Now, as well as being one of the most loved sit-com characters, he has his own successful TV production company. It was announced last year he was helping to bring an American remake of the Kiwi comedy Step Dave.
‘‘I was starring in two commercials that went out during the break in Superbowl, and that’s a big achievement in America. I had also landed a film called Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss and I was at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah to promote it. I watched my adverts go out during Superbowl on the TV in my hotel room and felt very proud. Later, an executive from NBC who had watched a screening of the movie said he was casting for a new sit-com called Will & Grace and said, ‘Would you ever come in and read for it?’’’
Megan Mullally, who plays, motor-mouth Karen, loved getting the chance to show another side to her hard-faced character in this new series, particularly in the episode that sees the death and funeral of her cleaner, Rosario.
‘‘That, for me, was the greatest episode ever written for the character of Karen,’’ she says.
‘‘It was important to me because I haven’t been given very many opportunities in my career to show a different side of myself that’s not just broad comedy. When they handed me that script I was overwhelmed by it and I wanted to rise to the level of the writing. I didn’t want to let them down.’’
In real-life, Mullally, 59, is the polar opposite of Karen.
‘‘My natural speaking voice is very laconic and not the right pace for the show so over the years I made Karen’s voice higher and faster so that dogs come running. My hair is naturally long and I wear little if any make-up day to day. I wear wigs for the role and once I have the pouf on top of my head and my Nancy Reagan finery, I feel like I am Karen. I call it getting into my drag!’’