Debra Messing, the bubbly star of TV’s “Will and Grace,” confessed she was a little nervous to testify before Congress on Thursday. But she better get used to being bold before lawmakers or, at least, actors playing them. Her next small-screen role is playing a conservative pundit modeled after one of the Right’s feistiest.
“I think that the inspiration for my character was Ann Coulter,” she told Yeas & Nays, adding the two never have met.
Messing will play pundit Evelyn Wright in the ABC pilot “Wright vs. Wrong,” a comedy written by “MAD TV” veteran Stephnie Weir.
“I am a junkie when it comes to the nighttime shows, so it’s sort of melding two passions of mine into one,” she said when we asked exactly how she was going to play a role that pulls her across the aisle. “We have people who are representing liberal points of view as well, and we are going to make it very current and hopefully relevant and provocative.”
Yeas & Nays reached out to Coulter to see if she had any suggestions.
“That’s fantastic,” she said about the news. “To really get ‘inside my head,’ I’d recommend reading the following books: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
Coulter also wanted to know whether the show needed additional conservative comedy writers.
“I know loads of them in L.A. who are underemployed,” she said.
Messing was on Capitol Hill on Thursday representing the global health organization Population Services International and testifying about HIV/AIDS before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health.
No word yet on whether she’ll return to the District to film the show.
