Debra Messing:

Friendly Forest Ranger

by Lynn B

You’ve seen her on TV. She’s that gorgeous redhead who played Grace Adler for many years on the popular comedy “Will and Grace”. You might also have caught Debra Messing in the relationship comedy film The Wedding Date. Now, the talented actress voices Beth, a kindly forest ranger who raises a grizzly bear from cubhood in the animated feature Open Season. Hey, what if the animals called “open season” on their hunters and predators? This film gives you the hilarious answer.

In the movie, Beth is afraid for her domesticated bear to be out in the world on his own. Debra has a two and a half-year-old son and this is a film she can allow him to see. We chatted with the actress about voicing her first animated film, her life and plans since “Will and Grace” ended, singing a lullabye, being a nurturing young mom and protecting all creatures great and small.

AGW: Were you looking to do something while you were pregnant in 2004?

Debra: You know it came to me without looking. The timing of it was so perfect because I was pregnant at the time. I was also working on ‘Will and Grace’ at the time, but as you know, animation takes three plus years to do. I’m such a big fan of animation. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try and so when it came up it was just like, ‘Oh thank you.’

AGW: You roar in the movie. Did you have to practice your roar?

Debra: Actually I didn’t. I found that I actually have a natural robust roar that’s there and very accessible. I don’t know what that means. I’ll have to ask a shrink.

AGW: Did the character of Beth already have red hair or did they do that for you?

Debra: [excited] They made it for me. They made it for me!

AGW: Martin Lawrence plays the grizzly bear Boog that Beth raises. Did you have any interaction with Martin in the recording studio?

Debra: I never had his voice to play opposite, which was really shocking. I only just met him here in the hall! The whole process of working in animation at first was so intimidating and scary because you have no one to act opposite and so much of it is having courage to try different things and to make yourself look like an idiot. You put your trust and faith in other people’s hands to put it together to make it funny or tender or what have you. So you really just hand over it all and they really become the architect of the whole creative vision. At first that was kind of scary and daunting. Very quickly, it became thrilling and liberating.

AGW: So you would like to voice another animated character?

Debra: I just really fell in love with the whole thing of rolling out of bed in my sweatpants, not having to put on makeup, not having to brush my hair. Just walking into a studio and having all of these people who are so excited about this project and passionate and playful. People who are in animation are animated people. Their energy is infectious. I was never worried about anyone judging me and saying, ‘Oh that was awful.’ Everything was just, ‘Okay let’s try something else.’ It was almost like going back to graduate school and being in a theatre games class where it’s like ‘oh let’s try this’.

AGW: Do you remember the parts you recorded after coming back and giving birth and were any of the nurturing scenes done after?

Debra: Yes. The lullaby was done after giving birth.

AGW: Do you think you were better at it because you had a child?

Debra: I think so. In the beginning they said ‘this character isn’t very well defined. But, we really want you to make it as personal as possible. We want you to really represent the female point of view as much as possible because with the guys and the animals, it’s so comic and it’s so playful and then you have this other element of the maternal/child and nurturing. It’s the struggle of when to let go. When to encourage change. How do you do that? It’s a very universal theme and it was important to them that it land. Because I am a new mother, I think it was just very acceptable to me and understandable to me. It’s very easy to understand wanting to protect your child.

AGW: How early on did they approach you about this project?

Debra: I came into it about a year and a half into their process so they had just finished doing the renderings. They had pictures up all over the place of just the animation itself of the valley and some of the different characters. They had some of the script, but for the most part when I went in there I didn’t have a script to read.

AGW: Was it scary was it to commit to a project when there is nothing written to look at?

Debra: Yeah. I mean I’ve never done it before. But, it might have been a little less scary because I knew that it was Ashton [Kutcher] who voices Elliot and mule deer] and Martin who were the comic focus of the project and I was the heart, the nurturing. I think I felt like it was less chancy to dive into something when it wasn’t comic.

AGW: Which animation movies made an impact on you when you were a kid?

Debra: Oh my goodness. ‘Charlotte’s Web’ was huge. ‘Winnie the Pooh.’ Loved ‘Winnie the Pooh’ when I was a child. I loved ‘Little Mermaid’.

AGW: Which ones do you watch now with your son?

Debra: He’s very into ‘The Wiggles’ right now. His first love was ‘Winnie the Pooh.’ I would show him the non scary parts of ‘Lion King’ like the singing. He loved Hakuna Matata so he would sing and ‘Jungle Book’.

AGW: Do you sing to him?

Debra: All the time. Disney has out these compilations CD’s of songs from all of their movies and so I just play those and his taste changes every month.

AGW: How has motherhood changed your life?

Debra: I think that it’s made me more grateful. I think it made balance in my life a much greater priority. It’s always been important to me and it’s always been a goal, but I think it’s become the main focus for me. When I start my day now I’m like’ ok how am I going to make sure that I everything is balanced correctly’. I laugh more than I ever have.

AGW: What’s life like now that ‘Will & Grace’ is over?

Debra: It’s really interesting. At first it was really traumatizing when it ended because we loved each other and enjoyed what we were doing. But, I took a month off with my family and went to Cape Cod and just went swimming in the ponds and cooked hotdogs. It was exactly what I needed to just take the time to let it sink in that this was really over and that this is the new chapter that is beginning. Now I feel excited about the future and about the new challenges that lay ahead. I’m going to Australia to shoot a six hour mini-series next month. A novel has been adapted and that’s exciting to me. Then I’m going to do another film in Toronto next spring.

AGW: What one is that?

Debra: That one is called Cry of the Owl. It’s a dark thriller. It’s a novel written by the same woman who did The Talented Mr. Ripley. It’s that sort of genre. I’m just trying to hunt down a play. I’m always talking about a play. It’s going to happen.

AGW: Since you record your voice alone, what was it like seeing the film with everyone in it once it was completed?

Debra: I felt like I knew the relationship more you know. It’s like you read it on the page but, usually, you discover it as you’re acting it, but in this case I wasn’t acting with anybody. I was acting with the different directors. I felt like it was very gratifying to sit and watch those scenes and say ‘awww’ You do get the tenderness between [the characters]. You do get the playfulness you know that there were colors to the relationship that intellectually hope will be gleaned, but don’t know until you watch it yourself.

AGW: Is it weird giving up the control to the animation directors and not knowing which voice take they will use, etc. ?

Debra: It’s very unnerving. At first it was scary. You just feel like ‘okay what are you going to do with my performance of these 10 versions of the same line that I just said’?. You know I’ve done 10-15 versions of every single line and you don’t know which ones they are going to put together and what the performance is ultimately going to be. By the end, it’s all about working with the best people.

AGW: How did you feel when you saw the opening credits with your name?

Debra: I was so excited. I’m like ‘Yeah’ (as she’s clapping).

AGW: Boog is kind of Beth’s “pet”. Have you had pets that you treat like part of the family?

Debra: Oh I have a dog and she’s my first child. She’s my first daughter.

Her name is Lilia. She’s six and a half and she sleeps with us every night. I don’t put clothes on her. You know it’s not that kind of thing. I have a certain respect for her as a dog and I think she appreciates it. I did try once to put a sweater on her and she got really, really angry. We get each other.

AGW: Do you have a moral feeling about hunting?

Debra: I think killing anything for sport or just for fun is just something I can’t wrap my mind around. I wish it wouldn’t exist.

AGW: Do you think Beth would still be taking in animals if she had a boyfriend?

Debra: Oh yeah definitely. Absolutely.

pictures on this page courtesy of and copyright Columbia Pictures, 2006, and Universal Pictures, 2004

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