Debra Messing Biography

Birth Name : Debra Lynn Messing 

Date of Birth : 15 August 1968, Brooklyn, New York, USA 

Height : 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Profession: Actress    

Debra Messing was born in Brooklyn on August 15, 1968, and raised in a quiet community just outside Providence, Rhode Island. Messing majored in theater arts at Brandeis University, where she received her liberal arts degree. Half of her junior year was spent in London's prestigious B.E.S.G.L. program. Upon graduating from Brandeis, Debra was accepted into New York University's Graduate Acting Program and received a master's degree in fine arts three years later.

Later in 1993 Messing won praise for her acting in the pre-Broadway workshop production of Tony Kushner's much-lauded play Angels in America: Perestroika. Before long she broke into television, playing the part of Dana Abandando - the conniving sister of one of the main characters - in three episodes of the award-winning television series NYPD Blue; those installments aired in late 1994 and early 1995. In 1995 Messing made her film debut, in the director Alfonso Arau's love story A Walk in the Clouds, in which she had a small role as the wife of a World War II veteren (Keanu Reeves). This exposure led the Fox network to make her the co-star of the television sitcom Ned and Stacey; the series, about a young man and young woman who marry for reasons other than love after knowing each other for only a week, lasted for two seasons (1995-97). "I had no idea what I was doing," Messing told David Martindale for Biography (May 2001). "I was thrown into the fire and learning on my feet in front of millions of viewers. I hardly even remember the first six months, because I was terrified. I feel so much more at home [acting in a prime-time show] now." Messing appeared as Jerry Seinfeld's date in two episodes of the hit television show Seinfeld: "The Wait Out," in 1996, and "The Yada Yada," in 1997. The actress turned down a starring role in another television sitcom to appear in Donald Margulies's two-character play Collected Stories, which opened at the Manhattan Theater Club, an Off-Broadway venue, in 1997. Messing portrayed the protégé - and, ultimately, literary betrayer - of a famous short-story writer (Maria Tucci). Speaking of her rejection of the TV role in favor of acting on the stage, she told Furmaniak, "One was going to afford me money and fame. The other would take me back to the reason I'm an actor - the theater.... It was the most important decision I've ever made in my professional life. It was about risk taking and not looking back." But Messing also acknowledged to Brooks, "I love the theater, but if I wanted to pay off my bills, I had to be open to film and television.

Meanwhile, after much speculation as to who would make the cut, Messing joined a powerhouse cast that included Candice Bergen, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Meg Ryan for Diane English's film adaptation of Claire Booth Luce's biting Depression-era play, "The Women" (2008). She then had a supporting role in "Nothing Like the Holidays" (2008), a Christmas dramedy about the far-flung members of the Rodriguez family (Messing, John Lequizamo, Freddy Rodriguez) converging on their parent's house for the holidays, only to learn that their mother and father (Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Peña) are getting a divorce.