When “Will & Grace” returned to big ratings in fall 2017, it proved audiences were still hungry for the hit sitcom. But another one of Megan Mullally’s roles may not have withstood the test of time quite as well.
In 2005, Mullally took to the stage for a light-hearted duet with then-“Apprentice” star Donald Trump.
“It wasn’t something I would even normally do, because I think those things are stupid,” Mullally explained in an interview with TheWrap. “It was at the height of the popularity of ‘The Apprentice.’ Everybody was going, ‘You’re fired.’ Everybody was doing that, it was kind of in the mass consciousness.”
In character as Karen Walker, Mullally performed with an overall-wearing Trump to sing the theme song from the 1960s Eva Gabor sitcom “Green Acres.”
“Everybody thought he was this funny guy who was doing this caricature of himself [on ‘The Apprentice’], nobody thought he was really that person,” she said. “I thought it was fun to see him in overalls and a white t-shirt and a pitchfork and a straw hat.”
Also in the interview, Mullally discussed how returning to “Will & Grace” was like riding a bike. She and her co-stars Debra Messing, Eric McCormack and Sean Hayes slipped back into their easy chemistry after more than a decade off the air.
“On the one hand it feels like we never left, and on the other hand it feels like a complete miracle has occurred,” Mullally said. “It didn’t feel like I had to think, ‘oh gosh how did that go?’ I don’t know why, but I guess since we’d already done almost 200 episodes … it was still kind of in my muscle memory or something.”
The revival first became a possibility after the four stars reunited with the show’s writers for an election special in 2016, revealing to both the audience and NBC that the show still had some life in it, even after all this time. And now NBC is in on the revival for the long haul, already having picked up the show for two more seasons.
“When you have that kind of chemistry with someone,” Mullally said, “It never really goes away.”