No Tomorrow For Yesterday And Today: Seminal Maryland Vinyl Shop Shutters In September
For Alternative Press Magazine

Everybody should have a record store like Yesterday and Today. For the last 25 years, music fans in the metro Washington, D.C. area have had access to a truly great repository of collectible, import and rare vinyl, a 2000-square foot cave of hidden treasures and gruff-but-talented employees. But in September, the store Skip Groff started up just as punk got a toehold in America in 1977 closes its doors at 1327-J Rockville Pike in Rockville, Maryland for good.

 “I’m going out under my own terms,” says Groff, who still rings up the till and stuns friends and patron with his breadth of musical expertise. “It’s when I want to, not owing anybody any money. I’ve been here a quarter century, and that’s enough.”

 It’s a shuttering that’s symptomatic of music in the new millennium, as these days monoliths like Wal-Mart distributing the bulk of music, and weird stuff is accessible on the Internet. But in the 1980s, stores like Groff’s (and the nearby Vinyl Ink, which closed in 1999) were “import shops,” the only way shy of a trip overseas to snag punk and new wave records. Former employee and Velocity Girl singer Archie Moore continues to support mom and pop stores in the area, but says, “It’s a completely different vibe. CD only. It’s not going to be the same.”

 In more ways than one: Groff used his clout and the store to help support the burgeoning D.C. hardcore movement in the late 1970s/early ‘80s (Dischord’s initial address was the same as the shop’s) and ended up employing members of the music scene over the years who went on to bigger and better things.

 The ray of light is that while the brick-and-mortar store is closing, there’ll be a virtual Y&T taking orders indefinitely, run by Groff, at yesterdayandtodayrecords.com. “I’m happy for Skip,” says Dischord/Fugazi’s Ian Mackaye. “He did a great job. And someday, there’ll be another Skip starting a store somewhere that people are going to be searching out. I’m a great fan of change.”

Sidebar: Behind The Music, Behind The Counter

 “ There’s nothing like pulling into the parking lot and walking into the store and seeing Skip behind the counter,” says Henry Rollins, who never officially worked for Groff but who helped lug in newly-arrived English imports so he could get his hands on them first.

But Skip wasn’t the only one back there:
Ian Mackaye (Fugazi, 1983-88): “It put me in a sea of music, I could listen to music all day. I didn’t have to buy it all, I could just listen to it while it was there. I really had to become exposed to all sorts of genres. It was a real education.”

Ted Niceley (Indie Producer, 1978-88): “It was a bunch of people working there, listening to music, and either helping customers or belittling them. We had this one customer with a GQ haircut, always in a tie, looked impeccable. And he’d ask to hear the most obvious records in the world. I blew a gasket. I said, if you don’t know what ‘White Rabbit’ sounds like, I can’t help you.”

Archie Moore (1990-93): “I remember finding records I dreamed about for years, slipped behind the cracks in the store. Like the first single from the Verlaines. Skip sold me that after I found it.”
And one more from Mr. Rollins: “Skip once told me I should be a singer in a band. I asked him why. He said, ‘Because you're an asshole.’ Since then, I’ve been on a few records. I guess he was right.”
 
 

 
 Privacy's a valuable thing in New York, particularly if you're stuck in a studio apartment and want to write deep, meaningful lyrics. Nina Nastasia, whose second album The Blackened Air pairs those lyrics alongside minimalist folk rock, however, has just such a place. "I go into my bathroom. The acoustics are good. I just sit in there and write what comes out. I don't really think about where it's coming from."

 Nastasia, a Los Angeleno-by-way-of-Seattle, began writing after she transplanted east, having spent ten years learning how to play the piano. But with fingers admittedly too short to tackle Chopin, she moved to New York in the early 1990s "for a boy, the absolutely wrong boy, signed a year lease on an apartment with him, and stayed."

 Fortunately, Nastasia found the right boy later, was inspired to start writing and hit the clubs. A friend hooked her up with Steve Albini, who said he'd produce her first album – but there was no money to transport nine musicians (she's a solo artist, but from the cellist, bassist, viola player, drummer, and guitarists who come along for the ride you'd never know) to Chicago to record. "We held a fundraiser," she shrugs. And off they went. Dogs, released in 2000, was a surprise success (and was beautifully packaged by her "right" boyfriend). Touch And Go got involved for The Blackened Air, which she describes as having a "fuller sound. More improvised." It's the kind of record you'll either love or hate, with laid-back, yet intense songs reminiscent of Red House Painters. Nastasia's voice, which rises and falls in a soft cadence that often contrasts sharply with her music, can also take getting used to – but is worth the effort.

 Still, success is hardly freeing: Fans who might be interested in Dogs after a whiff of Air will have to wait. "We've run out of copies," she admits. "We're going to print more, but the packaging is very special. It's very expensive." So ... another fundraiser? She smiles. "That's always a trick, trying to figure out how to get things done. We'll probably have to rob a bank. And then we'll make more."
 
 

 
 Anika Moa isn't sure she can make it in America. "You need to have big boobs and know how to sing love songs and dance for Americans," she worries. "I don't really understand that culture." The good thing, at least for the New Zealander, is that she can sing – love songs, songs of regret, and songs of longing – and she's got the pipes that make them worth listening to: a rich, sweetly expressive voice that belies her 21 years.

 Not that she isn't interested in at least learning about the U.S. Moa, who is now a platinum artist at home, first caught the attention of Atlantic records brass, who hauled her across several time zones to record her debut, Thinking Room. But it wasn't exactly an overnight success. She went on the road almost directly after finishing her equivalent of high school. "All I wanted to do was play in bars and be a musician," she explains. Local record companies didn't want a wet-behind-the-ears half-Maori (her dad's a native New Zealander, her mom's from England; they're both musicians) until she landed a manager and got that music over to America. Four years later (yeah, four), Thinking Room was ready. "The songs are really basic," she explains, "three chords, maybe four. I surprise myself. You can sit down to dinner and have it in the background."

 She's also refreshingly honest about it: One concession of being signed by a Major Label is that you don't always get choose all the songs on the record. "'Falling In Love' sucks," she says. "I hate that song. I told my producer, do whatever you like with it. But in the back of my mind, I knew it might be big, so I had to put it on the album."

 That little blip aside, Moa says she's ready to give the culture of big boobs, love songs and dancing a shot. With influence like Lisa Loeb and the guilty admission to going through an Alanis Morrissette/Jewel phase, she should fit in just fine. In any case, she's in it for the long haul. "I know I'm young, and I've got another 20, 30 years of it. I'm just taking my time, making sure everything is right."
 
 

 
THR: So what’s your take on being awarded a Gotham? What does this mean to you?
Julianne Moore: I don’t know -- it’s nice. It’s really, it’s kind of exciting because it’s New York. I live here. This is my home, and it’s been my home for the majority of my adult life. So it’s kind of exciting to be in a place with the NY film community and have them acknowledge my work or whatever, so it’s very -- it’s nice. It’s a lot nicer in a sense to be awarded something in your hometown than anywhere else.

THR: Because it means they like me they really like me.
Moore: Yeah, this is where I live. So it’s nice. Plus, I can walk to Chelsea Piers from my house. I used to belong there, but I stopped. I go to Equinox, it’s a little closer.

THR: Has it been difficult keeping yourself in NY when there is Hollywood?
Moore: The irony is I only lived in L.A. for four years, but everybody thinks I live in Los Angeles. There was a thing in the New Yorker years ago, they called me the “quintessential California actress,” because I played all these characters who were based in -- they were L.A. Short Cuts, Safe, all these L.A. sorts of characters, and it’s like, no, actually, I live in New York. So it’s really difficult. The first feature I did in the proximity of NY was Far from Heaven, last year. And it was at my insistence. I said to Todd Haynes, they had budgeted for Canada, and I said I can’t go to Canada any more, I don’t want to go to Canada, we can do this movie in New York. I want to do it, I like NY crews, I want to do it here. It was all east coast -- it was supposed to be taking place in Connecticut. I said let’s look at Connecticut, New Jersey, upstate, anything. And sure enough we found everything we needed in New Jersey. And we had a tremendous crew.

THR: Is that becoming more of an issue, for actors and everyone to stand up and say it may be cheaper but in the long run we’re hurting ourselves?
Moore: I think it is. It’s really important. I don’t want to sound like I'm waving the flag and stuff, but this is our film industry, and we have to protect the people who work in it, and make sure they have jobs. We are doing ourselves a disservice by not using American crews, because they are great. Tremendously talented. And in terms of being New Yorkers, too, I want to keep the work here so we can keep these crews here as well, so I can continue to live and work in NY. I don’t want to lose them to other places.

THR: What is it about NY that you particularly respond to? Aren't you from North Carolina?
Moore: No, I was born there. I was born on an Army base. I only lived there for six months. But my father was in the army all of my childhood and so we moved every couple of years. I’m not from anywhere. The thing I love so much about NY is that -- there are plenty of people who were born and raised here, like my boyfriend, but it is also very accepting of people from all over the world. You can be from anywhere and be a New Yorker. It’s a difficult place to find your footing in a sense, but once you’re in, it’s like you’re locked in. And it’s the only place in the world that is this tolerant. It affords you a sense of anonymity because it is so big and anything goes -- and community at the same time. You can be whatever you want to be here, but every neighborhood I’ve lived in in NY it’s like I’m a member of that neighborhood -- the guy who sells me my newspaper knows me, the guy in the deli knows me. There’s community here, an intense community feeling. And that’s what I love about it.

THR: The Gothams point towards excellence in independent film specifically. What’s the importance to you of doing independent or lower-budget films when you don’t have to?
Moore: I’m always looking for material. You can’t make a living doing independent films for the most part, although there have been some movies that I’ve been paid very generously for. There are some you make scale or very little on, and then there are some where you cut your price, but you’re still making a decent amount of money on, but basically if you’re material driven, that’s where you’re looking for stuff. Hollywood is beginning to be a two-tiered system. The big budget movies they make are action, superhero movies, that kind of stuff, and if you want to make movies that aren’t about mass entertainment, you have to look to the independent film community.

THR: The years in which you’ve done feature films -- it feels as though you’ve bookended the indie film boom of the 90s to what we’ve got today.
Moore: Totally.

THR: How has that shaped you as an actress?
Moore: I don’t think I was aware of it at the time. I wasn’t aware of the opportunities I was given in the independent film world, because I remember when I first came to NY and started auditioning for things, the things I was given -- I was given access to teen comedies, and 20something comedies, and things about people working in car washes and stuff, and I wasn’t pursuing my career in film -- I was doing television and theater in NY, so I wasn’t aware of it. And then kind of gradually I started seeing these scripts -- there was a year where I did Safe, Vanya and Short Cuts. And those to me -- that was the beginning of my film career. And I realized at the time how astonishing those projects were, and it was astonishing to do them, that they were being done at all, and that they were kind of the beginning of a new movement. So I got to do some amazing things in that boom of independent film. Then, as people realized it was just as easy to make money on a low-budget project as it was on a big budget project, things started to change. And then these studios started having these versions of independent whatevers as an arm of the studio, and people were doing things like wanting to make a movie for 10 million that would make 50 million dollars. That was never the intent of independent film. But you know, we live in a capitalist society, and that’s just the arc of business. What can you do.

THR: Do you have any particular affection for any one role, indie or not?
Moore: Any of them. I feel tremendously lucky to have the opportunities that I’ve had. One of the things that's meant the most to me is working with directors for a second time. That’s the best thing that can happen to an actor, to be asked back in a way. To have worked with Bart twice, Paul Thomas Anderson, Todd Haynes, Bob Altman. What an honor that’s really great.

THR: Any movies that make you cringe?
Moore: Are you kidding? Tons. I made a movie called Assassins, and every time it shows up on TV, I’m like Oh, I want to die. But you know, on the other hand, I had a great time making that movie. I had a wonderful time. The people were wonderful -- I’m just terrible in it. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m just terrible.

THR: How do you keep yourself going, knowing you’re doing drek one day, but hoping to do classy stuff later on?
Moore: Everything I’ve done in my career, I have to say honestly I’ve enjoyed at the time. I like to work. I’ve always liked to work. I like to be busy, you find value and interest in everything you do. I’ve never liked when someone says That’s a stepping stone to something else. What the heck is that? It’s your life. Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing. And everything I’ve done I’ve done for a reason and I’ve enjoyed.

THR: What’s the extent of your interest in being involved behind the scenes? Production process?
Moore: Yeaaaaah, I do. And I always feel that I can learn more about production and producing in general. I think that would be something I would be very interested in doing. I’d like to start a production company someday. But between my acting and my children I haven’t done anything about learning how to do it. It’s one of those things where I think, I really should learn more about this, I should understand this.

THR: There’s also the whole discussion about not as many roles for women after 40 -- but that doesn’t seem to have affected you.
Moore: Not yet, but who knows. It’s obviously-- there are many many more roles for men than for women, so it is something we all deal with to one extent or the other but I also think that there are opportunities out there and I think Anjelica Houston had a great quote once. She said you don’t have to be the prettiest kitty in the litter. If you want to start talking about female roles -- no, maybe you’re not going to be the girlfriend in every movie, but who wants to be?

THR: You are going to the Gotham Award ceremony, right?
Moore: Yeah, I am.

THR: What are you looking forward to there?
Moore: I don’t know. It’s always nice when you see all of the different people in NY and the film industry. Every time I go to a screening I’m always like Oh, so and so is here, too! I haven’t seen that person in a while. Often, it’s people you’ve known a long time. Since I moved to New York, that’s always comforting to me. I like that feeling of community.

THR: What’s next for you. Are you taking baby time off?
Moore: Yeah. Right now I’m doing -- I worked until I was 7 months pregnant, and my daughter will be four months next week. So I’m home with the kids, and I have to do press for two movies this fall, so I don’t know what I’m doing next. I’m looking into things now, but it probably won’t be until next year.

Randee: So, I'd like to switch gears and ask you a bit about your soap opera career, as Frannie on As The World Turns and Edge of Night.
Moore: No problem.

Randee: But first, I noticed that you and I are both Boston U. grads.
Moore: Get out! When were you?

Randee: I graduated 1991.
Moore: Were you at SFA [School of Fine Arts]?

Randee: No, I was a COMmie [College of Communication]. There’s so many BU grads [at Soap Opera Digest], and in the industry.
Moore: Really? Wow. That’s interesting. No, I have great fondness for my years on the soaps. That’s one of the things that would make me crabby: people talking about soaps being a stepping stone. It isn’t a stepping stone, it’s a job. It’s a job and you have to pay attention to it, and you have to work really hard, and you have to make it matter. I always disliked that.

SOD: I’m always suspicious of people who disparage that part of their career.
Moore: Yeah. I was thrilled to get an acting job that paid me money. I got to go to work every single day, I had a lot of responsibility and I had to figure out things by myself. That’s a lot for a young actor to have to do. It was sort of great.

SOD: What did you learn from soaps?
Moore: I learned to depend on myself and make decisions very quickly. I think that every -- the pace of soap opera production is alarming, it’s so fast. They’re doing 60-70 pages a day on one show, you might have 30 pages of dialogue on any given day, you might have a frontburner storyline and have to carry that for weeks at a time. So you have to work quickly and make decisions. And you have help from people around you, but they’re working fast, so it’s not like they can sit down and say I think you should do such and such a thing. So you have to make up your mind and decide what to do and stand by it. And sometimes you fail. But then you learn. And you see the show and think Well, that blew, let me try something else. It gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to make decisions. And it gave me a lot of experience acting. It was every single day, so it was a tremendous experience.

SOD: Were you there when Edge finished?
Moore: I only had like 7 episodes on it. It was my first soap job, I had just gotten into the city, so it was a very big deal for me. World Turns I was on for a contract role of 3 years.

SOD: When you were there, it turned out that was a real renaissance time there -- did you cross paths with Marisa Tomei?
Moore: I did, and we had gone to BU together, too. It was wild. She had been at BU, and then she left, got a job on the soap, and she was the first person I worked with when I was on WORLD TURNS, and she was great to me, really really nice. And very helpful. I love Marisa. So Marisa was there, Meg Ryan had just left, Fin Carter, who I just got off the phone with, who has remained a friend of mine for years and years was on the show, so it was a great time.

SOD: Did you have that perspective at the time?
Moore: No, I did have that perspective. The casting director was a guy named Vince Liebhart, who I’m still friends with, who has tremendous taste in actors. Robert Calhoun was producer, and Doug Marland was writing, and these are all people with great taste, who really cared about what people were doing on the show, and what kind of acting was happening, and you could tell. You could really tell. So I really do think that a lot of it had to do with their influence.

SOD: And are you still in touch with people from that day?
Moore: Vince has remained my friend, and he’s still a very good friend of mine, and Marissa I still see, and Fin Carter is one of my best friends, and there are people I see from the soap on things and stuff.

SOD: Not that you’d ever need to, but would you ever go back and guest?
Moore: Yeah, I might! Never say never, that’s the thing. Who knows! Yeah.

SOD: Do you happen to remember your screen test?
Moore: I didn’t actually screen test -- I did it in a room. It was kind of weird. I don’t know why I didn’t screen test, but I read in a conference room. I remember I wore a peach sweater and a white skirt. How awful is that? I know, I was trying to look like an ingenue, so I was trying to wear something pastelly. And it was the 80s, right. So I came in and read in a conference room. There were a bunch of people around a table, and I had to act in the corner of a room. And I got the job.

SOD: Was it difficult to play two roles?
Moore: It was great, a great honor. That always means they like what you’re doing, you get to be spun off into someone else. And it’s a wonderful lesson, too, because the excitement in acting is doing it with another person, because you never know what’s going to happen. If you’re doing both parts yourself, you almost bore yourself to death. You always know what’s going to happen because it’s you! You against yourself!

SOD: "What is my reaction to me?"
Moore: Exactly. But it was a challenge and it was interesting and I was thrilled to be given the opportunity.

SOD: Do you remember any one particular thing that made you proud to be on soaps?
I think probably it was Doug Marland, who came to look at the show and was trying to decide if he wanted to work, and he said he did, and he said he wanted to write some stuff for me. And that made me really proud and really happy, and he wrote me wonderful stories. And that’s the reason I won my Emmy, because Doug was writing this great stuff for me.
 
 

 
 Never let it be said that New York fails to recognize a good deed. Though, truth to tell, winning one of two Lifetime Achievement Gotham Awards this year was probably not on Bingham Ray’s mind when, as he assumed the mantle of President of United Artists last year, he insisted that the corporate headquarters take root in the Big Apple. “I got my start in New York,” he says, “and I was there when so much was going on. It was the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. It was a few years before someone categorized it as the independent movement. I was there before there was a movement.”

 Which is always a good strategy for any business model — perhaps especially in show biz. “To me, the heart and soul of independent film has always been based in New York — L.A. is a company town,” says Ray, who after making his name distributing films like “Sid And Nancy” and “The Last Emperor,” made a splash by co-founding October Films in 1991 — which he moved to New York the following year from L.A. He’s since likened his six years in L.A. to prison: “It was like doing time in Dannemora,” he jokes. “A lot of people told me there’s not enough room for another independent company in 1991. They were wrong.” Over the next few years, co-President Ray helped release startlingly original films like “Secrets & Lies,” “Breaking The Waves” and “The Last Seduction.” At the same time, the big studios at last recognized, then began absorbing, the fiercely independent companies that had fueled the “movement” Ray helped shape.

 Now, as he acknowledges, “The situation is extremely different.” As UA’s head, he’s helping to extricate the company — at least perceptually — from the paws of MGM with releases like this year’s “24 Hour Party People” and “Pumpkin.” He’s hoping that the presence of UA in the town that gave it birth may help balance out the failures of recent years, such as Shooting Gallery (“a great loss for independent film in New York”) and, as he puts it, the loss of Miramax. “Anybody with their eyes open knows those people are a major studio.” Although New York is full of fresh, small companies without a lot of financing — Lot 47, Cowboy, First Run — Ray notes that “there’s not a big game in town. New Line is there, but where is Fine Line? That’s why now United Artists needed to come back to New York.”

 And, now that it’s here, Ray recognizes the pressure to turn things around, but is looking forward to the challenge. “The idea is to reinvigorate an incredibly famous name and set it up to be a strong, aggressive and friendly filmmaking-wise, risk-oriented outfit. Some of the greatest films made in the last 30 to 40 years came out of this studio. Those are films that drew me to film as a career.  That’s very exciting to me.”
 

 
Compared to the subject of his current project, The Hulk, director Ang Lee’s charisma and presence is ... subtle, but just as pervasive. As the Lifetime Achievement Award recipient at this year’s Gotham Awards, Lee has amassed a relatively small body of work, yet is acknowledged almost universally as one of the best in the business. As IFP Executive Director Michelle Byrd notes, “He’s tackled every genre in ten to twelve feature films. As an individual, his presence is quite quiet, but his impact is quite influential.” Lee has brought a gentle sympathy to his works, whether telling a Me-Generation tragedy (The Ice Storm, 199X), an English period piece (Sense and Sensibility, 199X) or a high-flying Chinese fantasy (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 199X) that has resonated among his peers — a ripple effect that can only spread as he continues his career, which has many years left in it. As Lee notes, “I hope I have three lifetimes.”

THR: Do you see yourself as a New York filmmaker, since you make movies around the globe?
Ang Lee: People over the years asked me what kind of filmmaker I am: Foreign, Chinese, American, Asian-American, Hollywood, independent, but it’s very hard to define. My first couple of movies were made here, but they’re in Chinese. But the way they were made was New York independent. So that’s how I started, and there were six years between jobs from graduation [from NYU] to my first Chinese films, and I stayed in the city. I didn’t know Hollywood. I did go back to Taiwan and I did English-language films and made movies in Europe, but no matter where I film, I cut my film back here in New York and I develop it here in New York. That’s where I’ve stayed, with my family, since 1980. I’m a New Yorker, very much so. If you can make it here...

THR: As the song goes.
Lee (chuckling): As the song goes. New York feels very worldly, very youthful, fresh, with lots of creative energy, and also it feels global. Even though I’m making a big Hollywood film now, I still have my roots in New York. This time is a little different, because of the [Industrial Light And Magic] work, which has to be done in San Francisco. So a big part of the post production has to be done on the West Coast, in the Bay area. But other than that I still feel very New York.

THR: Would you be a very different kind of filmmaker if you hadn’t gotten a start in New York?
Lee: That’s hard to say. Each city has so much to offer, and for the first time making a movie in L.A., I see what they have to offer. I think we stretch our will to the utmost no matter what city we’re in, and will negotiate with our great resources, time, places, people you work with, situations, so it’s very hard to say. But I think being in New York and being educated here and brooding here six years with no job and then starting my career and getting trained as a professional filmmaker and also enjoying the acceptance of the community, gave me a worldly, mainstream taste. There are things New York doesn’t offer that you may need — if you want to make an artistic creature that takes ILM to do it, you have to go there. But if you can, you try to bring New York to them, or bring them to New York when possible. Being a New York filmmaker has a broader meaning than just where you’re located. And now I feel I can go anywhere.

THR: Will you find it harder to make smaller, personal independent movies now that you’ve graduated to, as you say, “Hollywood” filmmaking with The Hulk?
Lee: Smaller, yes, it will be harder -- people will charge me more! Only in that sense. Hulk feels like a big personal film so far. Perhaps more like a New York film than anything I’ve done. And being a New Yorker doesn’t mean you have to make small, independent movies. You can make big, independent movies.

THR: You’re obviously a bit young to be getting a Lifetime Achievement Award, but what does it mean to you?
Lee: I’m glad to be accepted as part of the [New York] family in such an honorable way with this award. It tastes very sweet to me. It’s sweeter than getting an Academy Award. Not that I’m cynical towards the other awards, but this is where my cinematic roots are, and becoming cultural roots as well. How you see yourself and how you’re recognized, accepted are sometimes different, so I’m very glad and very honored and feel very warm that the two have become one.
 
 

 
Eric McCormack

 Perhaps the only thing more terrifying than unemployment to an actor is to get a job on a show like Will & Grace. Call it the “Sam Malone” factor. When Eric McCormack first was offered the titular male lead in NBC’s newest buddy comedy, he froze. Not because he was being asked to play a gay man — he was worried that the show would be the success the pilot script promised it could be.

 “I read the script and said, ‘This is going to be on the air for a long time,’ ” recalls McCormack. “Anybody who is about to embark on a pilot they think could be the next Cheers or ER, you’d better be ready to be that character in your obituary. I could live until I’m 85, and I’ll be that guy who was on Will & Grace. That made me take stock for a couple of weeks. It’s a responsibility — was I ready for it?”

 Turns out, he was exactly right for the role of neurotic gay lawyer Will, whose strongest relationship is with his best friend and ex-fiancée, Grace. (Emmy thought so, too: McCormack took home an Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series award in 200). The Toronto-born, Calgary-raised actor spent years in thespian training before segueing into guest spots and TV films — but stayed stuck in that gear for most of a decade. (His resume reads like a map through mid-80s to mid-90s television: The Commish, Ally McBeal, Townies.) Clearly, McCormack was a talent waiting to happen, but where that talent should go remained elusive: “Pilot season for me [before W&G] had been scripts about guys who sit on couches, watching sports and don’t understand their wives,” he sighs. “I kind of get women, and I’m not a big sports guy, and I thought, ‘There has to be someone out there for me.’ So when I read the [W&G] script, I thought, ‘I’m not gay, but I certainly relate much ore to this man than any of the guys with baseball caps turned around.’ ”

 A match was made. Not that McCormack clicked with Will instantly — that first year, he’s noticing when watching the series in syndication, Will was pretty “bland.” But over time, he says, “We found more sides to this guy. So we made him more neurotic, more anal, more controlling, more screwed up — and more likeable. I keep finding new things each week that are quirky about him.”

 His chemistry with co-star Debra Messing doesn’t hurt, either. Remembers the actor, she was the first actress auditioning for Grace who, “Got the idea that these two people have a great time together. Those first six episodes, we’re just laughing at each others’ jokes. It felt good to me.”

 Viewers would agree — in addition to the creative success of the show, there’s been a definite effect on many fans’ lives: McCormack is regularly approached by young men who tell him he’s helped them come out to family and friends. “It’s a resonance we’ve never striven for — we go out of our way to be funny, not iconic,” says the actor. “But it’s a nice gravy to have.”

 And in the end, having “Played Will Truman” on your gravestone isn’t such a bad way to be remembered. Says the actor, “The thing I thought that would be so much responsibility — that part of the job has been the most fun. I love the show, and I’m not dying to do nine other things to prove I’m not Will. I can be proud of the show I’m coming from, and not apologize for it, which happens in television sometimes. You know, the show that made you successful is the thing you have to overcome. I don’t feel that way. This is my show.”
 

Sean Hayes

 For some, it’s about money. For Sean Hayes, fate had to do with money. While at Sundance, where he was screening “Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss,” Hayes was approached by an NBC exec, who told him he should read for the part of Will Truman in a new series that was going to pilot, Will & Grace. But he’d have to go and read like, now. “I didn’t have the money to fly back just for the audition,” shrugs the actor, who clearly has recovered: He got back, found out they’d cast Eric McCormack as Will, won the role of Jack McFarland, won everyone over with his gleeful performance — and won an Emmy (for Outstanding Supporting Actor) in 2000. Not bad, all in all. “I was happy to just get a pilot,” he recalls. “As an actor, you’re happy to get the pilot, then you’re happy it gets picked up for six episodes, then you’re happy it gets picked up for a year. A year? I can get my car fixed!”

 Playing a supporting role can be a one-way ticket to the back burner (or to trite storyland), but Hayes made sure that Jack was, in his own way, as memorable as either Will or Grace. “I play him like a teenage girl, because teenage girls make me laugh so hard,” he says. “Everything is so important, so huge, and so dramatic. I have nieces who are just now having sleepovers and talking about boys — and that is so Jack.”

 Major success on a top show has changed the Illinois-born actor’s life (although he notes that while he’s getting access to more scripts, the ones being sent him are “pretty bad), but he suggests that in the early days of W&G, no one really had a sense it would take off the way it did: “All of us were unaware of what was going to happen.” His first meeting with Megan Mullally was hardly a portent of the sparkling non-couple they would become: “It was very cordial and lighthearted, very ‘hi, nice to meet you,’ ” but that changed in time: “We came to understand each other’s sense of humor. We’re both very old souls in a sense that we both love vaudeville. So a lot of what you see is old-school comedy. We both feed off of that.”

 And, if he has his way, there’s a good chance he’ll be feeding off of it for another 100 episodes. “It is a challenge ever week to keep things fresh,” he admits. “But it’s amazing how much we care every week. We’re all still really incredibly involved, and we want to make it the best it can be, as opposed to it being just a regular job.” And should anyone forget, Hayes is happy to remind them: On a regular basis, before each show tapes, he has a tendency to shout out, “You guys, we’re on a hit television show! Take a minute to think about that!” Chuckles the actor, “They’re like, ‘Sean, we get it.’ But I have to constantly remind myself, constantly, how lucky I am.”
 

Megan Mullally

 Talk about parallel universes: Had the stars aligned differently, Will & Grace would have looked, well, different. After all, Sean Hayes (Jack) nearly read for the part of Will [see sidebar] — and as it turns out, Megan Mullally (Karen) did read for Grace. “Though in retrospect, neither one of us are right for Will or Grace, particularly,” says the actress. “On some other planet, maybe we could have pulled it off, though....”

 Probably they could have. Though as it turns out, Megan Mullally as bawdy, vivacious, substance-indulgent Karen almost didn’t happen. This is the woman who, disillusioned with the biz, only went on the audition because she had to pay the rent. Who passed twice when execs wanted her back. Who went back for a final read after a last-minute call from the casting director mere hours before the network test. Who, when she finally walked in the room that day, earned cheers from those in attendance (and eventually an Emmy — 2000’s Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series prize). They wanted her. But for a while, Mullally wasn’t sure if she wanted a sitcom. “I had done a lot of sitcoms,” she says. “I’d gotten to the point where I decided it wasn’t meant to be. I didn’t know that I had any particular comedic gift that might be considered commercially viable. Fortunately, Karen’s pretty out there.”

 She sure is, though it’s hard to appreciate just how out there without discussing The Voice. In normal speaking tones, the Oklahoma-born Mullally says her own voice is very “laconic — it does not lend itself to sitcom comedy.” So she tweaked it up and leaned heavy on the nasal. “I didn’t use it in the auditions, because I didn’t think they’d hire me,” she admits. “I’d done a lot of character work in the past and taken chances at auditions, and sometimes they’d look at me like I could be dangerous.” But for Karen, it fit: “I think it’s funny that a woman who’s so judgmental of everyone else has this crazy voice that’s completely annoying.” And that small detail helps explain Mullally’s process: “I almost always try to put a weird spin on characters in auditions. I don’t want to rehash the classic characters, the wisecracking sidekick.”

 So far, she hasn’t: Karen is a true original. She’s had a bonus in that the other “sidekick” in the equation is Hayes’s Jack. “We’ve had a lot of fun with the physical stuff. It’s just fun to do because it’s so stupid. I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of that, either — I still think talking about sex and body parts is hilarious.”

 Fortunately, there’s plenty of room on W&G for such amusements. But the small screen is hardly the be-all and end-all for Mullally, who recently released (with her band Supreme Music Program) an album of covers. As she says, it’s a chance to break away from her characters and be herself: “Music is so personal. This is a better indicator of my personality.”

 Just so long as she doesn’t forget to come back and share Karen again for another (hopefully) 100 episodes. That seems unlikely; now that she’s joined the party, it’s going to be hard to get Mullally to leave. “Having never done more than 13 episodes of anything, 100 seems gargantuan,” she admits. “Inconceivable. It’s flown by so quickly — I feel like we just started.”
 

Debra Messing

 When you’ve “almost” made it as much as Debra Messing, there is a tendency to be a little gunshy when the next project comes down the pike. Prior to being won over into the role of Grace, Messing seemed to have “made” it as half of “Ned And Stacey,” and later crossed into drama with a regular role on “Prey,” shows that were gone within a few seasons. So — no surprise she required a some coaxing before she’d say “Yes” to Grace.

 Well, maybe a little more than “some” coaxing: She met with creators Max Mutchnick and Dave Kohan. She got calls from then-President of NBC, Warren Littlefield. (Ironically, at the same time, she was being wooed for another pilot by future NBC Studios President Ted Harbert; for the record, he sent flowers.) It was too much. She says, “I’d just wrapped for the season on ‘Prey,’ and I didn’t have my wits about me to make a good decision about whether to commit six years of my life to something. I didn’t even know when my birthday was at that point.”

 Fortunately, Kohan and Mutchnick had the right stuff: A great script, sure, but a personal visit came next. “They’d driven all the way out to [Messing’s home in] Santa Monica with a liter of vodka and a lime,” she recalls. “And they said, ‘Okay, what do we have to do to get you to do the show?’ And I’m a lightweight.” Several hours of progressively-tipsier conversation later, she agreed to read with Eric McCormack (Will). “I guess any girl is a sucker for a vodka and lime,” she laughs.

 After a read at director/executive producer James Burrows’s house, her mind was made up. “Within five minutes of meeting Eric, I remember feeling so comfortable, we were laughing as if we’d known each other for so long. It was immediately fun, and in that moment I knew I had to do it.”

 And now, after 100 episodes as the beautiful, slightly loopy but still utterly sympathetic Grace, Messing can be said to have “made it.” The New York native grew up in Rhode Island and spent years pointing her arrow in an acting direction, from studying in London to getting her Masters in acting at NYU, then moving onto the stage and a recurring role on “NYPD Blue.” But making that next leap, to a regular role or film career, was elusive. “Ned And Stacey” came close — she says, “I had the experience of having people associate me with a character — I would go places and they’d call me ‘Stacey.’ And then it went away.”

 Having lasted so long with “W&G,” she says, is almost startling: “This is my third series — it’s a rare thing to be part of a show where all the elements come together and support 100 episodes.” But, she adds, if any show would do that, it’d be “Will & Grace.” “Even though we’re in our fifth season, it still feels incredibly vital and fertile, and we never know what’s going to happen next. From the beginning, Max and David and Jim established an environment of collaboration — they let everyone know their contribution was vital. So I don’t feel like I am just a dancing monkey, I am an active contributor.”

 So if it took a little ... lubrication to get her to agree, she figures it was (probably) the best decision she ever made while intoxicated. “The great thing is that regardless of all of the good fortune and honors and recognition, we all still love our jobs and still enjoy the work that we do and we still laugh every day at work. That’s the most important thing.”
 
 

 
 Back in the 1980s, future NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield had an idea. As was the way of things, he took it to a development meeting at NBC and pitched it: A sitcom that would explore the unique friendship of a "girl" and a "gay guy," as he remembers it. "I was told it was the worst idea it ever came up with."

 So let it be said that NBC will air no sitcom before its time: Fast forward to the new millennium, and a show with that same general description has become the network's – and NBC Studio's – great shining light. Almost since the first episode, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick's creation has routinely landed in the top 5 (Nielsen and demo), raked in the Emmys and kicked butt in syndication ratings. It has the current NBC Entertainment President, Jeff Zucker, calling it "the best comedy on television" while its Executive Producer and Director James Burrows says it's "the dirtiest show in the world on network." And it has just reached that magic number: 100 episodes.

 Not bad for being a former worst idea. In five years, a show that moves as fast as a Capra comedy, whose two male leads are playing gay men, whose two female leads are hardly traditional in their own ways – that is to say, "Will & Grace" has opened up the genre's closet doors (and kept them open, something the ill-fated "Ellen" couldn't do) while making 21 million people a week laugh really, really hard at some of today's most taboo subject matter.

 So how did this all come to pass? Blame it on "Mad About You," which was dying a slow death in 1997-98, and NBC needed a replacement – ideally an elusive tentpole sitcom that could ultimately prop up the voracious Must See Thursday lineup. A "couple comedy" was called for, so Littlefield called the writing team of Kohan and Mutchnick in. Initally, what they pitched fell flat: A San Francisco-based comedy focusing on three sets of couples/roommates. Possibly the least-important pairing was this twosome of a gay man and straight woman who are best friends and live together. But as the pitch was thrown, it curved: "We found ourselves explaining this couple for 45 minutes," remembers Kohan.

Littlefield, no doubt experiencing a sense of deja-vu, told the writing team to stick with the couple that got them so worked up. But, says Mutchnick, "As the gay one in this partnership, I was reluctant to do it. 'Ellen' had just been cancelled. No one had ever done this with any kind of success. But if there's anything we've learned in this dynamic as writers is that if we're into it, they'll be into it."

They were into it. Such was the conception of "Will & Grace."

But the pregnancy was difficult. "Networks frown on anything innovative," says Burrows. "They understand imitative."

Landing James Burrows on the project was likely what saved a promising idea from being consigned to an early development death. "Teaming up with him was and continues to be the best decision we could ever have made," says Mutchnick. It was inevitable that the script would cross Burrows's desk -- he gets nearly all NBC comedy scripts after a deal has been made -- but Littlefield made a special effort to bring him in on the project. "Jimmy's gray hair," explains the exec. "He represents a history of quality, outstanding, successful comedy. So it was important for the squeamish NBC management to hear. 'Jimmy Burrows is going to do it? Well, then it can't be far off.' "

"I'm an 800 pound gorilla," admits the EP. "When you hire me, I will go to bat for your show. In the beginning, this thing was quite controversial. And sometimes, my clout can make problems go away."

Or, in this case, at least hold them in abeyance until the pilot could get shot. With Burrows on board, assembling the cast came next, but proved problematic as nearly all of the actors balked before saying yes [see Sidebars]. Though each had their reasons, Debra Messing (Grace) says it wasn't just a matter of taking the next job: "There was something very different about this one. It felt like it was uncharted territory, like it could be socially consequential, that it just carried a different kind of weight and responsibility. That specific gay man-straight woman friendship is very real, and I didn't want it to ever become just a source of sophomoric belittling it or demeaning it."

Slowly, however, the stars lined up around the production, and behind the scenes, unusual deals were also taking place: Kohan and Mutchnick were contracted to stay for an unusually long four years. That worked so well, the writing staff would remain, five years later, almost 90 percent unchanged. Says Executive Producer Jeff Greenstein (who joined as a consultant after the first few episodes), "This is a show that is written by a core group of people who have similar frames of reference and a similar understanding of the characters," he says. Agrees fellow EP Jhoni Marchinko, "We're even kind of cliquey, because most of us have been here since day one. It's a very tight group."

And once the pilot ran -- Mondays at 9:30 to start off, a low-key, "Off-Broadway" location that was a "godsend," says Burrows -- there was no stopping the train. Although Burrows recalls getting network notes early on that the show was "too gay," eventually nearly all dissention in the ranks vanished. "The pilot wasn't a fluke," says Littlefield. "Once everyone at NBC realized that, there was very much a sense that this is destined to be a signature Thursday night comedy. Everything else was strategic in terms of how, and when, we get there."

Perhaps strikingly, getting there has been the easiest part of the equation. Audiences took to the so-called controversial comedy -- and once it began pulling in numbers, hesitant advertisers were much less of an issue. "The show was in such demand that any advertisers who were squeamish about it, others were right there to take their place," explains Littlefield. "Who wants to be in 'Will & Grace'? Pretty much everybody."

A certain level of audience psychology was used to draw in viewers early on, however. Burrows recalls that early NBC ads for the show utterly avoided calling Will gay (he and Grace were "best friends" instead). And in the show's initial year, he adds, "Most people rooted for Will to recant. I knew it would never happen, but that's how you get people. Then, when they began to enjoy the show for what it was, we didn't have to play that any more. As more people began to watch, we started to get more outrageous."

 So instead of controversy, the show turned inward, and the fast pace, humor and how the show would evolve the characters became more of a talking point than the occasional "fag" reference. Says Greenstein, "Deep friendships are simultaneously the greatest thing in the world and the biggest obstacle to true happiness. The truth about Will and Grace's relationship to me is they are the best an the worst thing for each other -- for as long as you have a person at home like that, who gives you that kind of love and emotional sustenance, you will never find it in anyone else." The contradictions of that relationship formed the basis for much of W&G's first hundred episodes.

Along the way, writers and actors began getting unexpected feedback: "I did a seminar for the Emmys, and a guy came up and said, 'When I told my parents [that I'm gay], I said, 'I'm like Will,'" recalls Greenstein. "He's a role model in a way that other characters have not been. And in what we like to call the 'flyover states,' they let these characters into their world even if they might be unsure about letting them into their homes." Reaction from the gay community has for the most part been positive, though closely monitored. Critics have pointed out that the show only represents a small portion of gay men (white, financially comfortable, urban-living), but as Greenstein says, "I feel that there is a sense in the gay community that this show is theirs, that they don't have another show that belongs to them in the way this one does. When Will goes several episodes without a romantic life, they worry we're making him asexual."

Awards (including 2000's Best Comedy Emmy) began rolling in as if inevitable, and NBC studios was "over the moon" with their "flagship" show. "It's a great calling card," admits Studios President CHECK Ted Harbert. "Only once a decade can you get a show that clicks like this, and it's ours. Not only do we have amazing writers on staff that I plan to develop with in the future, but it attracts other writers and creative people who know that NBC studios supports its creators and its shows." Syndication has only lent an additional value to the show: Early numbers have made it the number one new off-network show, which has been "a tremendous, welcome surprise," says Zucker.

And yet, despite all of this success, and despite (to paraphrase Burrows) television's desire to imitate, Kohan and Mutchnick's program remains unique and unmatched. But expecting a rash of gay-character-fronted sitcoms to take over the schedules is missing the point, insists Zucker: "It's not great because it's got a gay character at its center. It's great because it's funny, beautifully written and beautifully acted. All these other elements make it work."

"People have tried," says Greenstein. "But the flaw in those shows is treating gayness as if it was a real special thing, something to be singled out as unusual week after week. In 'Will & Grace,' it is accepted as part of these people's lives, it's part of their frame of reference. It's where we go for comedy -- God knows what we'd do if they outlawed gay puns and homo references."
 No chance of that, and no chance that "Will & Grace" won't be using them for another five years, or another hundred episodes.

All that seems to stand in their way now is figuring out how to keep telling them, week after week. And this season promises some major changes in the characters' lives -- starting with episode 100, which was filmed on location in New York. Promises Greenstein, "We're going to put the characters through the wringer. When the audience sees them in these situations they're going to say, 'Damn, I can't wait to see what happens next week.' That's the challenge." He chuckles. "The easy 100 are behind us, the hard 100 are ahead. Fortunately, the big needle isn't on E. There still seems to be a lot of gas in the tank."
 

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