Debra Messing has waited 30 years to share the screen with Robert De Niro — in a gangster film, no less — after she missed out on a big role in Casino. Now the two play husband and wife in The Alto Knights.
The film, in theaters March 21, is about the bitter feud between two of New York’s most notorious mid-century organized crime bosses, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese.
For Messing, it’s a bit of a full-circle moment as she was close to starring opposite De Niro in the 1995 film Casino. The Will & Grace alum was up for the role of Ginger McKenna that ultimately went to Sharon Stone.
“I met [Bob] for the first time when I was 25 years old and I just graduated from NYU grad school and it was one of my first auditions for film,” Messing, 56, told Yahoo Entertainment. “I was called back and they said, ‘You’re going to be meeting Robert De Niro and Marty Scorsese for Casino.’”
Messing continued, “Just getting a callback at that point was so incredible. But I was like, ‘I am too young for this.’ And I went to a salon and I said, ‘Give me an updo, make me look older and sophisticated and glamorous.’ And I knocked on the door [at the audition] and Bob opened it and he was like, ‘What, you going to a prom?'”
Messing laughed, “I died. I don’t remember anything after that.”
Sharon Stone on the set of Casino. (Universal Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
In The Alto Knights, Messing plays mob boss wife Bobbie Costello. In a career first, De Niro plays dual roles as he stars as both Costello and Genovese.
“When we actually read together … the third line in, Bob started improvising and I thought, ‘What’s going on? This isn’t the scene I learned.’ And I thought, ‘OK, sink or swim. This is what you learned how to do in graduate acting school at NYU. So just dive in’ — and I did,” Messing said about finally working with De Niro. “And it became really fun and really fluid. We just had a good chemistry, and he just made it feel very safe and welcoming.”
One of the next big things on Messing’s calendar? Attending the April Broadway premiere of Smash, which is based on her cult-hit TV show.
“I will be there opening night,” she said. “I already saw an early workshop of it, and I was crying through it. It’s going to be so wonderful.”
Although she’s ready to walk down memory lane with Smash, it doesn’t sound like a second revival of Will & Grace will happen anytime soon. The three-season reboot ended in 2020, and Messing seems to be content with leaving it there.
“I think the only thing that we could ever get away with would be in a couple of decades, The Golden Girls: Will and Grace, where all four of them are living in Boca Raton together and everyone’s in a caftan,” she said. “I would buy that! But I don’t think anything before that. … Come back in 40 years!”
The Alto Knights is in theaters on March 21.
