Ageing with Grace: Why comedy Will & Grace is still having a big impact.

The stars of Will & Grace talk to Jim Maloney about why the show is just as relevant now as it ever was.

The secret of eternal youth is out. Since the surprising and delightful return of classic US comedy Will & Grace to TV after 11 years, many people have been amazed at how well the cast look.

When TV Guide was invited to meet the two title characters of the series in London, we asked them how they have aged so well.

“It’s about very clean living,” says Debra Messing, who plays Grace.

“It’s not fun. I drink green juice every day and don’t have sugar, alcohol, wheat, fried food or dairy products. All the things that make you happy in life I don’t have. I go around miserable but I look good.”

She lets out a familiar, Grace-like roar of laughter.

Eric McCormack, 54, who plays Grace’s gay best pal, Will, also appears to have barely aged, but he jokes, “This is just the exterior. I’m rotting inside. But I think we have somehow managed to age well as a team.” Both believe the tone of the show is just as relevant now as ever. “When we talked about coming back,” says Messing, 49, “I said my own prerequisite was that we had to be allowed to do the show that we always were. “Right from the beginning it was a provocative show that made comments on politics, social trends, pop culture, things that were happening in the moment. “We did it in a sassy, funny way, but it always pushed the envelope. And I knew that if there was anybody who was going to say, ‘You’ve got to be gentle with our President’ then I would say, ‘Then we can’t do our show.’ “The last year and a half has been very chaotic and confusing and scary and there are many facets of our society that have gone backwards. Because of that it feels very timely to do our show.”

The impact that Will & Grace has had over the years in giving a voice to the LGBT community, portraying gay characters in a mainstream TV show, has been a surprise and a delight to the cast. “That was the thing that was most surprising about the show. “We knew it was funny, but it was when we started getting letters from gay people expressing their gratitude for representing them on prime-time television as hard-working, loyal, romantic, funny, multi-faceted people, that we started to realise that it was having social and, ultimately, political impact,” says Messing. “Besides the birth of my son (Roman, 13, from her marriage to actor Daniel Zelman, which ended in 2016), the show, and what it has done in terms of healing families, encouraging people to accept and celebrate themselves, is the thing that I am most proud of.”

In the 11-year hiatus, Messing missed filming in front of a live studio audience.

“I grew up watching I Love Lucy and The Carol Burnett Show and that was what formed my comic sensibility. There is something dangerous and thrilling about performing in front of an audience because you have no guarantee that they are going to like what you are doing, and they let you know right away.” McCormack and Messing admit they felt apprehensive about how the show would be accepted again.

“There was a positive response to the idea of us returning but if we had sucked then that would have been terrible,” says McCormack.

“But we slowly began to relax as each episode went well and we realised that the writers still had it and there was still plenty to say.

“It was great being back in Will’s apartment. When I’m standing in that kitchen I feel like Captain Picard on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. It’s like, ‘This is my kitchen. From here I can command the apartment.’ It feels very natural.

“Over the years I had teenagers coming up to me and saying things like, ‘You helped me come out to my parents’, and I would think, ‘How? You were too young when the show came out.’ But a lot of young people have been watching re-runs, so they were familiar with the show.”

And what does his own teenage son, 15-year-old Finnigan (from his marriage to Janet Holden) think of his dad in the show?

“Like most teenage boys of his age he is mortally embarrassed by what his father does. I realised years ago that he only requires me to be Dad.”

“All the things that make you happy in life I don’t have. I go around miserable but I look good.”

– Debra Messing