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Debra Messing is many things — an accomplished actress, an Emmy nominee … and a “horrible” baker.
In the upcoming Broadway play “Birthday Candles,” she plays Ernestine Ashworth who ages “90 years in 90 minutes while baking a cake in real-time on stage,” she told Page Six exclusively at a press event promoting the upcoming production.
“I was absolutely terrified when I learned I had to bake,” the actress, 52, said. “That was actually the scariest part of the entire endeavor. My first attempt was horrible … it blew up in my oven. I went back and tried again and I finally got it and I felt vindicated.”
And although the “Will & Grace” star is now adept at that specific cake, don’t expect anything else from her kitchen.
“If someone asks me to bake that cake I could do it,” she explained. “It’s a pretty simple cake.”
And it sounds like culinary skills aren’t the only tricky thing required for the role.
“I have no makeup or hair change, no clothing change, I never leave the stage so the aging process is entirely internal,” she revealed.
Messing says she’s “excited” to finally be bringing the play to Broadway after it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which shuttered theaters down for 18 months.
“It’s really about what makes up a life and the relationships we have,” the “Smash” star said, “how we change over time, the expectations we have, the ups the downs, the surprises that happen but also just how quickly life moves.
“The thing that was most incredible was coming back to it two years later after catastrophic change and tragedy and to recognize how all of us in the cast changed in those two years.”
“I am not the same person I was two years ago, I actually think this play is the exact thing we all need right now,” she added.
“Birthday Candles” has a limited run from March 18 to May 29 at the American Airlines Theater.
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