Will & Grace's Newest Season is Promising Big Changes for the Characters

The success story that is Will & Grace is still kind of amazing. The series — which brought together Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally — originally ran from 1998 to 2006, and everybody pretty much figured that that was that. Then an online political “episode” for the last presidential election not only brought the cast and creators back together, but proved so popular that NBC decided to resurrect the series, the number of episodes increasing as production went on.

A second season of the revival — which is set to debut on NBC on Tuesday, Oct. 4 — was ordered before the first even hit the air, and then the show got a third season pick-up before the debut of the second. Talk about job security! Commented Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, NBC Entertainment, “As far as I’m concerned, we can’t get enough of Will & Grace, and 23 more episodes is music to my ears. We’re eternally grateful that Debra, Eric, Sean, and Megan feel the same way and wanted to keep this good thing going. I’m overwhelmed by the euphoric response the new show has received from the press and the audience, and my hat is off to this unrivaled writing team of Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, as well as the brilliant directing of Jimmy Burrows, for consistently delivering one of the best shows on television.”

This season there are changes a plenty coming for the foursome in terms of their professional and personal lives, not the least of which is that Grace is going to be dating a character played by Friends star David Schwimmer in what (at the moment) is supposed to be a five-episode arc.

As to what else is to take place, we’ve turned to Eric, Debra, Sean, and Megan to get the inside scoop on their characters. Scroll down to see what they had to say about the new season!

Eric McCormack on being back

“It’s an incredible luxury to come back to this show in general, but in the last season was when there were all the questions, not just from the other side but within ourselves. Can we do this again? Are we still up to this? Will America accept us as these characters again? Do they want them? And that got answered with a resounding and very relieving yes. So now we get to sort of settle into it and we know we have another season after this, so it’s like getting to the middle of a book where you’re into the meat of it. And it’s been fun, because to have other people come on, guest stars big and small, is to watch us and them as a very well-oiled machine. Not everyone’s going to have the same answer, but coming back, for me, I found to be like putting on an old pair of slippers.
“If there was a theme for last season, it was the more things change, the more they stay the same. We needed to show the audience that we can still make the same show and these characters can still live a similar life while being 11 years older. But now that we’ve done that, now we need to switch it up for everybody a little bit. And not just in the obvious ways like, ‘Oh, everyone’s got to get a boyfriend.’ I like that Will right now in his confidence doesn’t need a boyfriend. He’s living the life of ‘I’m a gay man that is proud of who he is and what he’s accomplished.’ But he’s also realized that being a lawyer, a corporate lawyer for all these years, and last year for Grace briefly, it’s just not enough. It’s not like he needs more, but in the very first episode, he finds a new calling. He starts teaching law. Of course he’s not a professor, so he’s teaching at the community college level, basically. That’s a fun new avenue. It’s a few scenes now in his classroom and it’s kind of my Welcome Back, Kotter. A welcome back to him and what we’re doing with him.”

More changes in store for the characters

Notes Eric, “What’s fun about Grace’s story is that unlike the old days, where she seemed to have a lower level of success, now she’s doing quite well and is quite a more renowned designer. She’s running for president of the Designer’s Guild in New York or something crazy. Jack is virtually unchanged as a person. However, it looks like, as we saw at the end of season one, he’s about to get married, which is a big piece of his story and his fears of, can you be Jack McFarland and settle down with one person? Very doubtful. Whereas the opposite’s happening with Karen. Karen, as we will learn in the first episode, is about to lose literally the biggest thing in her life, that 650 pound thing in her life, and that sends her down some really interesting avenues. There’s a constant pushing to find the balance between how crazy and hilarious we can get, but also how emotional you can get. The best comedies do that.
“Just last night we shot the first episode that David Schwimmer’s doing and that’s a huge thing. He’s a great comedian and he’s really right for this role. He and Deb turned out to have great chemistry; I’ve always admired him and probably stole from him, so it’s great to have him around.”

Debra Messing is still in shock

“I think we were all a little stunned the whole first season, because we were newly back and then the number of episodes just kept increasing. I think coming back now, knowing that we’re doing not only one season but another one beyond that, we realized that we’re home again and it really does feel better than ever. Which is kind of shocking, but it really does. And this season, Grace has decided to enter politics. She is running for president of the New York Society of Interior Design and she’s taking it very seriously. She’s campaigning, and it’s really fun for me particularly to see her that into it. It’s just an extension of the work she’s already doing, but it’s going to be a new venue for her having David Schwimmer here. First of all, we and David were doing the NBC upfronts together 20 years ago, so I know him from those days, but I’ve never acted with him before and it is so fun. I’m from the theater, he’s from the theater, so we have just a similar work ethic and a similar vocabulary and it’s really fun. I really love the fact that Grace is sort of exploring her love life this season.”

Debra shares more on David Schwimmer

“David and I just filmed our first episode together and it really did feel like, ‘Oh, okay, we’re just popping right off of each other.’ It really does feel like there’s a natural chemistry between David and I. You never know if it’s going to happen. You can’t predict it, you can’t force it. It just happens. And I think it’s happening with us. I’m a fan girl, you know. I love talented people and when we have really talented guest stars come, it definitely sort of gives us a little shock and a little excitement, and I think we up our game a little bit. When you have someone like Alec Baldwin come in, he has such a specific energy that it it just sort of changes the air a little bit in the room. And it’s incredibly fun.”

Sean Hayes sets up the characters

“It was very, very easy for us to all kind of get together and get into the skin of our characters again. One look at each other’s eyes and we’re, like, ‘Wait, we got this, you got this, we got this. Okay, we all got this.’ So it’s very easy. It’s very comfortable shoes to slip into again.
“This year, Grace is running for the president of interior designers in New York, which is really cool, actually. It’s a slant on politics in a different way, with the backdrop being the interior design world, which I think is very fun. Will has left a practicing law and is now teaching law. It’s also an interesting thing to see Will with students and being in that kind of professorial role, which fits him nicely. Karen has just gone through a divorce that’s been finalized with her husband, which was a sad thing, but also kind of a thrilling thing for the character, because now the character’s free, single and ready to mingle. I’m excited to see where that goes for that character. My character, Jack, is heading for a wedding with his partner and we will see where that goes. It’s been going great, but who knows if there’s going to be bumps or not?”

For Sean, the magic continues

“Look, we’re only as good as the writing and the writing is superb. You know, if it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage, so we’re given gifts of amazing dialogue and story every single week. Add into that David Schwimmer this season. I’ve known David forever and he, like the four of us on the show, is a theater nerd. Anything we’ve all learned through a theater about process and acting, he brings that here. So it’s a perfect fit for our show.
“My favorite thing about the show is when the four characters are in a situation together, but I also love when that is amped up with a guest star that comes in from time to time. I find tremendous joy in sharing this little sandbox with an outsider who has quickly becomes part of the family.”

Megan Mullally: Looking back and looking ahead

“For me, it felt very easy to just slip right back into playing Karen and doing Will & Grace. And, you know, seeing all the same faces. It’s so incredible. I keep saying this, but it’s sort of like a miracle occurred, because once the show is over, it’s never ever supposed to come back. Traditionally it’s over forever and ever, and yet here we are. During that 11 years, I kind of felt like Karen was living in a parallel universe somewhere doing terrible things to people. So it wasn’t that hard to just, like, hop over the tracks and get back in.

“I felt last season was great, but there’s something about this season that just feels really good. I feel like we’re all officially back in it now. It’s really like the squeaky parts have been oiled, everything feels like it’s running smoothly and the characters are solid. The writing’s super solid; the scripts so far this season have been great and have a lot of variety. This show is a comedy. This is an entertainment. This is our public service to you, to hopefully be successful and entertaining you primarily by making you laugh. So that’s what we’re shooting for and I feel like this season we’re really hitting that. I felt like we hit it last season, but maybe more so this season a little bit.”

For Karen, it’s divorce and moving forward

“Karen is going to get divorced from Stan after all these years, because Stan finds out that she was having an affair,” says Megan. “I’m sleeping with Malcolm Gladwell, the Alec Baldwin character, and he divorces her. So that’s a whole new can of worms that gets opened up for her. Jack has a new love and he is very, very serious, because this is his first really serious relationship. He’s in love with Stefan, played brilliantly by Brian Jordan Alvarez, who is a new addition to the show. He’s recurring and he’s just fits in so seamlessly. We’ve had so many great guest stars, but I don’t know anyone who’s just fit in so beautifully and seamlessly as this. He’s just got a really, really chill personality. Debra is a swinging single, but meets someone. Eric Mccormack as Will has changed jobs. He’s stopped lawyering and started teaching, so he’s also got a lot of change. Everybody does. There’s change in the air.”
Season 2 of Will & Grace premieres on NBC Oct. 4.