“There’s a real poignancy to the fact that the world is 11-and-a-half years older and in addition to the show being a comedy there’s a subtle underbelly of us all being older,” says Mullally, who is married to fellow actor Nick Offerman – Ron in Parks and Recreation and who has a guest role as bisexual celebrity baker in this Friday’s episode of Will & Grace (Hayes’s husband, musician Scott Icenogle, contributed a deliberately annoying advertising jingle to the same episode).īut what about the children Will and Grace were supposed to have had in the very last episode of season eight – Grace with husband Leo (Harry Connick Jr.) and Will with husband Vince (Bobby Cannavale) – the kids eventually growing up, meeting at college and marrying? We’ve other stories to tell other than Donald Trump – much to his surprise.”ĭespite the actors’ and characters’ remarkably youthful looks, they have inevitably aged since Will & Grace went off air in 2005 Mullally will be 60 this year, McCormack is 55, Debra Messing about to turn 50 and Hayes, the baby of the bunch, is 47 – and the rebooted show deftly reflects this. “The characters live in the same world as we all do so it would only make sense that we comment on it, but it’s only a joke here or there if it makes sense and it’s funny. “It’s not supposed to be about Trump,” adds Hayes. I think they’ve done a very good job of not keeping it too specific.” Has Trump responded? “He hasn’t tweeted at us yet.” “Because every day, almost hour by hour, you don’t know what sort of travesty has been committed, so it’s kind of hard to write about when you know the episode is not going to air for two or three months. “The character of Karen is friends with Donny and Melania and a great supporter of Trump, but the most barbed deadly comments about Trump inadvertently come from Karen,” says Mullally, who adds that it would difficult to make the show too topical. The opening episode of the new Will & Grace, by contrast, was an exercise in Trump-thumping after Karen secured Grace a job redecorating the Oval Office (which she accepts despite her political misgivings).