Speaking at the MAKERS Conference in California this week, actress Debra Messing recalled being harassed and insulted by director Alfonso Arau on the set of her very first film, 1995's
A Walk In The Clouds.
"I'd never been on a film before. I was doing a love scene with Keanu Reeves. We started filming and the very famous director screamed 'Cut' and said, 'How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here? Her nose is ruining my movie.'"
"It was a shock. I was so confident coming out of graduate school with my Masters in acting. I'd studied in London and I was so well equipped with skill sets, and then to walk on set and have that happen - I was reduced to an un-Hollywood nose."
She went on to describe to the audience how Arau bullied her into doing an unplanned nude scene that was not in her contract, then lifted the sheet covering her to take a good look: "He dropped the sheet on top of me like a used Kleenex, then walked away without a word."
The nudity wasn't even used in the final cut. "It turns out, after all this trauma, the only part of my body that's seen naked in the film is my back." She said she believed Arau did it as "a power play" that would "demean me, strip me of my pride, my power."
Nine years later - after the sitcom
Will and Grace had made her a mainstream success —Messing ran into Arau in the street. "He said, 'Bella! It's been so long, you were so funny in the movie, I'm so happy to see you again!' I said, 'Thank you,' and I turned around and never looked back."
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