Pretty Funny: A Debra Messing Interview

Debra Messing has built her career on a little bit of Hollywood glamour and a whole lot of Lucille Ball.

Nothing gets a bigger laugh than a beautiful woman making a fool of herself. For Debra Messing, 40, comic clumsiness comes naturally -- just check out her winning portrayal of a zany interior designer on the sitcom Will & Grace. "There isn't a rug I don't trip on," she says. We expect similar slapstick sensibilities in Messing's upcoming turns as a suburban New York supermom in a remake of the classic 1939 movie The Women and as a Hollywood mogul's ex-wife in the second TV season of The Starter Wife. This generation's wackiest redhead recently told Reader's Digest why falling down is so much fun.

Q: Have you ever hurt yourself on a set?
A: Many times. On The Starter Wife, I had to walk down a concrete staircase in high heels. I kept looking down, and the director said, "Don't look at your feet. Walk like a queen." I took three steps with my head up and tumbled face-first. I ended up in the hospital but came back to the set three hours later and continued to work.

Q: You say that you'd like to follow in the footsteps of the lovable Lucy. A: She showed how funny it is to be mischievous and inappropriate. She deflected her beauty so it wasn't the first thing people saw and was able to be at the center of the comedy world. No woman had ever done that.

Q: Is that the idea behind your slapstick?
A: I never thought I was pretty enough to be an actress. But I learned I could use comedy to handle uncomfortable situations. I can crack a joke that will distract people when I don't want to reveal too much.

Q: Do you exercise a lot to pull off your physical humor?
A: No. My trainer has never met anyone who hates exercise more than me.

Q: You met your husband, Daniel Zelman, at New York University's drama school. Who made the first pass?
A: After a party in his apartment, I sat with him till 3:30 a.m. talking about the weather. Finally I said, "Um, I guess I'm going to go." I put on my polyester tiger-print swing coat and said, "Will you kiss me?" "Oh, gosh," he said. "I don't know." I tried to be cool and said, "It's just a kiss. I'm not asking you to marry me." He said, "No matter how interested we are in each other, we're so different, it will never work." Cut to ten years later -- we're married.