In a move surely Grace Adler herself would agree with, Debra Messing had some very choice words for some NBC execs who tried to make her pay for a memento from set.
It all went down when the show ended, and she was asked what she wanted to take from the set, Messing, who played Grace for all 8 seasons of Will & Grace plus three seasons of its revival, said during a recent SiriusXM Town Hall hosted by Andy Cohen for her new film, Alto Knights.
“And I said, ‘I want the door,'” she told Cohen of her character’s office door, which famously read “Grace Adler Designs” on it. “And they’re like, ‘Absolutely, take it.'”
She continued, “And I took it, and two days later someone from NBC called and said, ‘That’ll be $250 for the wood.’ That was how much the wood was worth. Because if I hadn’t taken it, they would have used it on another show.”
Her response? “I said, ‘F you.’ I said, ‘I made you literally billions of dollars, and you are charging me $250,'” a fired-up Messing told Cohen, who then wanted to know what NBC’s reaction was. “They backed off,” she deadpanned.
Messing has mentioned taking the door before, telling PEOPLE back in 2006, “I was promised the door to Grace’s office. I want to lean it up against the wall [in my house] like a piece of modern art.”
“I’m going to keep a couple of pieces from Will’s apartment,” costar Sean Hayes, who played Jack McFarland, told the outlet. “There’s a leather box that was on Will’s desk that I want to find a place for.”
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Fellow stars Megan Mullally took a portrait, and Eric McCormack took a small ceramic dog, per the report.
The Town Hall also included Messing’s costars Robert De Niro and Kathrine Narducci. Elsewhere in the conversation, Messing talked about improvising with De Niro during filming, De Niro gave an update on Meet the Parents 4, and much more.
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In Alto Knights, which hails from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Barry Levinson, De Niro stars in the dual roles of notorious New York crime bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, respectively, as they vie for control over the city’s streets.
Written by Goodfellas‘ Nicholas Pileggi, the thriller hit theaters on March 21. In addition to De Niro, Messing, and Narducci, it also stars Cosmo Jarvis, Michael Rispoli, Michael Adler, Ed Amatrudo, Joe Bacino, and Anthony J. Gallo, among others.