Trivia for
"Will & Grace" (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• During the episode in which Will and Grace compete for the Tenants Association Presidency, one tenant complains that her missing umbrella closely resembles the one belonging to "Tim Kaiser in apartment 12-B." Tim Kaiser was a producer of the episode.
  
  
• Director Sydney Pollack guest-starred in four episodes as Will's father, who cheats on Will's mother (played by Blythe Danner) with a woman named Tina (played by Lesley Ann Warren).
  
  
• Karen Walker's husband, Stan, is never entirely seen. However, in Season 3, Episode 1, viewers do get to see parts of Stan Walker. He reaches out and grabs Karen's breast while she is talking to Will and throughout the scene viewers can see Stan's legs though most of him is blocked by a plant.
  
  
• Will originally had a partner in the original pilot, Higgins, but his scenes were deleted in the final draft of the script.
  
  
• Grace's middle name is Elizabeth. It is explained that this is because her mother was a big fan of Elizabeth Taylor. In real life Debbie Reynolds, who plays Grace's mother, had her husband leave her for Elizabeth Taylor.
  
  
• In one episode, Karen mistakes Grace's last name for "Alden". One of the producers on the show is Bruce Alden.
  
  
• In the episode where Grace is going to meet an old high school crush, he says he's part of a group of artists showing their art at the Zelman Gallery. Debra Messing's (Grace) real-life husband is Daniel Zelman.
  
  
• Jarrod Emick read for the part of Will.
  
  
• Alexis Arquette lost the part of Jack to Sean Hayes at the final auditions.
  
  
• Nicollette Sheridan lost the part of Grace Adler to Debra Messing at the final auditions.
  
  
• Yasmine Bleeth auditioned for the role of Grace, but lost to Debra Messing
  
  
• Megan Mullally was offered both Karen and the role of Carrie in "The King of Queens" (1998). She almost went with the latter role.
  
  
• Early promotional spots for the show were ambiguous about Will's homosexuality since NBC didn't know how well the gay leading character would play.
  
  
• Rosario was a one-joke character in the first season, when Jack married her so she could stay in the country. The character became so popular, she was made a semi-regular.
  
  
• In the episode when Grace married Leo, the music to which Will walked Grace up the aisle was the main theme from "Brideshead Revisited" (1981), composed by Geoffrey Burgon.
  
  
• Jack's website www.justjack.com really does exist. It now redirects you to NBC's Will & Grace website, but at the time it was created, it was an actual web site created by "Jack." It included pictures and a letter Rosario wrote to the INS.
  
  
• Originally Max Mutchnick and David Kohan pitched a straightforward couples comedy in which a gay man and his straight female roommate were supporting characters. NBC liked the supporting characters better.
  
  
• Will's apartment building is at 155 Riverside Drive, Upper West Side Manhattan.
  
  
• The Grace Adler Designs office is located in the Puck Building at 295 Lafayette St., south of Houston St.
  
  
• The first episode of the eighth and last season was a live-aired episode
  
  
• Due to Debra Messing's pregnancy during the sixth season, Grace did not appear in five episodes: 6.6 "Heart Like a Wheelchair", 6.21 "I Never Cheered for my Father", 6.22 "Speechless", 6.23/6.24 "I Do. Oh, No, You Didn't".
  
  
• Jack's full name is John Phillip McFarland.
  
  
• John Barrowman was up for the role of Will but didn't get it because he was "too straight" and the role went to Eric McCormack. Barrowman actually is gay, while McCormack is straight
  
  
• Will's brother, Sam, was portrayed by two different actors, each appearing in two episodes: John Slattery in 1999 and Steven Weber in 2005 and 2006.
  
  
• One of three TV-series to win Emmys for all their principal cast-members. The others are "All in the Family" (1971) and "The Golden Girls" (1985). In all three shows a regular cast of four.
  
  
• Because of the show's numerous pop culture references, many of the celebrity guests had already been mentioned on the show before their eventual guest appearances (e.g., Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Madonna, Britney Spears, etc.)
  
  
• Veronica Cartwright and Suzanne Pleshette respectively played the mothers of Jack and Karen. Cartwright and Pleshette appeared together in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963).
  
  
• If Grace had given birth to a daughter, she wanted to name her "Lilly."
  
  

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