GREAT & GAY

She might be a pill-popping, jet fuel sniffing, gin-soaked narcissist, but Karen Walker will always have a special place in our hearts. In her own words, actual Megan Mullally tells us about reuniting with the much-loved cast and the significance Will & Grace still has in the world today. Knock knock! Anybody homo?

It’s easy to be Karen Walker. I feel like she never left me, or like she’s been living in a parallel universe just waiting to jump back in for this entire time because, really, I just don’t have to think about it.

The strangest thing about it is that it doesn’t seem strange. It’s almost like no time has passed. We had a photoshoot and I walked in, and Eric and Sean were already there, and I was just like ‘hey guys’. I walked into my dressing room and then I was like, ‘Wait a minute! I shouldn’t be flippant about this! It’s not like it happens every day…’ But it’s been a blast. We’re just laughing and cracking each other and dry-humping each other – it’s just like old times!

When we made that election video [in support of Hilary Clinton, for the 2016 presidential election] I don’t think anyone ever dreamed everything would be the state that it’s in now. The first priority though is to let the show be funny, because that’s what it was before. That was the goal then and that’s the goal now. But we’ll see what happens.

It’s certainly not gonna turn into any kind of political platform. It’s gonna remain a comedy… but a topical comedy.

But it wasn’t until the election video came out and we were posting things about Will & Grace that I realised how popular the show still was. I mean, it’s been off the air for 10 years! I’ll sometimes run into fans when

I’m out at the airport, and that’s great, but I had no idea there was still such a following – and it’s touching. I think it’s just because the creators of the show created these four characters and the dynamics between them are so solid. If you gave me a trivia quiz about various different episodes of Will & Grace, I’d probably not score very well, but the characters and their dynamics with each other are crystal clear in my mind.

We we started the show in 1998, there were no gay characters on any shows in the US. And then there was a lot of change. I’m not saying that’s a direct result of Will & Grace alone – I’m not saying that by any means! – but maybe Will & Grace played a part in that. But while it seems like the world has been forced to take a couple of steps backwards, you can’t reverse enlightenment. All the people on this planet who’ve reached a certain level of enlightenment [in terms of acceptance of LGBT+ people] are not going to go backwards. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tune.