Celebrity Movie Blog

Who is Debra Messing?

Debra Messing was born in a Jewish family in the New York City on August 15, 1968. She was three when she moved with her parents and her older brother, Brett, to a quiet town called Rhode Island. As a youngster, Messing took lessons in dance, singing, and acting. Messing went to Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts and during her junior year she studied theater at the prestigious British European Studio Group of London program, in England, an experience that fueled her desire to act. After graduating in 1990, with a bachelors degree in theater arts, Messing gained admission to the elite Graduate Acting Program at New York University (NYU), which accepts only about 15 new students annually. Three years later she earned a masters degree in fine arts from NYU. In 1993, Messing received praise for her acting in the production of Tony Kushners much-lauded play Angels in America: Perestroika. Consequently, she appeared in several episodes of the television series NYPD Blue during 1994 and 1995. Messing made her film debut in the year 1995 with a relatively small but important role in Alfonso Araus A Walk in the Clouds playing the unfaithful wife of Keanu Reeves. This exposure led to the Fox network giving her the co-star role on the television sitcom, Ned and Stacey. Messing met her husband, Daniel Zelman (an actor and screenwriter), on their first day as graduate students at NYU. The two were married on September 3, 2000 and on April 7, 2004, Messing gave birth to their son, Roman Walker Zelman.