Sean

"Why not love Sean? He really is one of the most loveable. Most people just know him from his public persona. He's so alive. He's so snuggly. He really is! He's one of the real-life boys with a real smile. He's my blue-eyed boy!"

Megan's New Year's resolution: "To marry Sean Hayes. Nah, that won't work! He won't let me. I'm not good enough for him."

On winning the Emmy: "Sean said to me the other day, he basically just took my head kissed me on the cheek and then put my head back on, what I was thinking about actually was Sean having me for a full mouth in, that's probably what I was thinking about, and I just untangled myself, and yeah that was it."

"Sean likes to pull his pants down and run around in the parking lot. And the first time he came to my house. I opened the door, and he had pulled his pants, including his underwear, down to his ankles. And he was like, 'Hey am I late? You ready?'"

"He got the show based on his beautiful twinkling blue eyes."

Her relationship with Sean

"We have a very unorthodox flirtation on the show and we have it in real life too. I mean, if he walked in right now, he'd grab my boob and start dry-humping me. And it's mutual. We've confused many people on the set because there is not one part of my body that Sean has not touched, nor me his. And I can't explain it-it's just our way of relating. I mean, if we were presented to the queen of England, I'd probably be grabbing his package."

"We're really in sync. Our timing doesn't have to be worked on. It verges on the supernatural."

"Sean and I have this sympatico that money can't buy. We feel each other's timing and we totally enjoy each other. I feel like our enjoyment of each other's humour also play a part in fleshing out the relationship between our two characters."

"It's almost cloying, really. Sean and I bat our eyelashes at each other all day!"

"We have the symbiotic but unorthodox flirtation on the show, but it's 10 times that in real life."

"We just grope each other all day long."

"Working with Sean has been one of those great gifts from the gods."

"I always maintain that I'm not very analytical. I don't go home and think, [in a mad scientist voice] 'I didn't get that laugh tonight! How do I get it!' I never think about it. In the moment you can feel out the audience. I think it's about keeping open to the audience and letting their reactions dictate what's going to be. Sean Hayes is the same way. It's probably the reason we work so well together."

When she knew she and Sean would click so well in their scenes: "Right when I first met him. We hit it off instantly the first day. We really had a great simpatico. It felt really good. It felt really right."

"Karen"

"I've said I would have gone on playing Karen until I literally dropped dead in my Prada suit and Manolo Blahniks."

"A lot of times the funniest characters are those who don't know they've got it wrong, Jack and Karen both think they're normal. Well maybe not normal. They think they've got it right."

Her Entertainment Weekly" description: "It said Karen is the diva that Jack has always aspired to be. It's as if I were Judy Garland and Bette Midler rolled up into one."

Her "Karen" voice: "I don't know where that voice came from. People who've known me for years say they don't remember that voice. You know when you're kidding around with some really good friends, and you're talking in some stupid voice imitating some dumb boyfriend, or your mother? I never used that one."

On auditioning for "Karen": "It was scheduled for 4 o'clock, and at 2:30 I was sitting in my pyjamas in my dining room with no makeup on, eating scrambled eggs. I got a call from the casting director: 'Megan, what are you doing?' 'Eating some eggs.' But I thought, 'Oh, I'll just go.' And I got it! And the minute the cast had our first read-through, I was so happy."

Megan: "Everything she says and does is for the greater good."

Stone Phillips: "Well, she amuses herself. She's constantly gets a kick out of everything she does."

Megan: "She's knocked out by herself."

On Karen's outfits: "They are too 'rich lady' for me."

On Karen's laziness: "She doesn't even have any office supplies on her desk. It's just nail polish, makeup and a 600-page issue of Vogue."

"I didn't really model [Karen] after anybody, though I probably do use a bit of my late dad, who had a very bizarre, black-comedy streak in him. I mean, from the time I was, like, six, I'd come home from school and say, 'Where's Mommy?' and he'd say, 'My darling, I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother is dead.' He'd say that! [Laughs] So since he was so flamboyant and extreme, that probably influenced me a lot."

On how Karen was originally written: "It was just like the role Christine Baranski played on Cybill, this bored rich woman. If she'd been written in the pilot the way she is now, I would have been knocking people down to get it."

On how she helped change the character: "During the first table read I was improvising all this stuff that ended up in the script."

How she describes Karen: "...this completely clueless trophy wife who's happy as a clam."

"They were talking about whether Karen should leave Stan, but I don't think she should ever be poor."

"My favorite idea is that she was a showgirl in her other life."

On auditioning for Grace for the producers: "They were unenthused. Then they wanted me to read for another role - the secretary. I put a different spin on it - they liked it."

"The bottom line with Karen is that along with all of her qualities that might be offensive, she's happy as a clam. She has a joyous quality - that's what saves her and makes her likable. All is well in her world. When she criticizes someone, she's just trying to help."

On Karen's voice: "It's really very grating isn't it? It does not befit a wealthy resident of the Upper East Side. You'd think Karen would take some of her money and get it surgically altered or something."

"A lot of people come up to me and say, 'Oh God, I'm just like Karen, that's what they [tell me] at the office'. I'm like, 'You know what? The people in your office may not be giving you a compliment. You may be getting fired soon.'"

"I think fans really think I'm Karen, so I get really big reactions. They do my lines for me, they do my character. I hear a lot of assistants and secretaries say they emulate my office skills -- or lack thereof."

"Karen is like RuPaul--she's a character. It never occurred to me until now, but she is!"

The cast

"Sean and I had it right away. The whole cast had it, but now it's really come...we've all come into our own with each other. Like every combination of the four of us is so strong. We all just laugh all day long. And we're just like, naughty and juvenile and...it's great."

"I think Debra and I work really well together. Eric and I... ah, um... [trailing off, then smiling] Just kidding."

The show

Megan:"I auditioned for Grace. And there was just a big flat line. And then they called me back in for Karen, but they didn't remember that they'd seen me as Grace. That's how amazingly captivating I was."
Larry King: "Or how amazingly alert they were."
Megan: "Yes, exactly. They were drunk."

"I remember when Doogie Howser was on, I thought, Oh my God. Wow. I was like nervous."

"We laugh all day during rehearsals too. We have a lot of fun. We're very lucky."

Misc.

"My best friend was at the grocery store standing behind these two guys in line, and one of the guys told the other that I was a man. He said, 'If you look closely, you can tell that she is,' and the other guy was like, 'Oh, my God! Now that you mention it, she is a man!'. So I'm denying that I'm a man."

"One day I'm driving to work and, coincidentally, Debra pulls out right in front of me, so we go all to way over to Laurel Canyon [in our Porsches] together. It was dorks on parade."

"I should have my 'girl citizenship' revoked. I never get facials. I never get my nails done. I'm so busy."

"I like looser clothes, which always prompts my mom to say something classic like, 'You have such a darling figure - show it off more!'"

On NBC press release profiles: "'Megan likes to skip down a sunny lane with her basket of flowers, looking for rainbows.' I mean, they make you sound like an idiot!"

"One tabloid had an article about how I was an irresistible sex- and man-magnet and how men flock to me. Of course, they were absolutely correct..."

On sudden fame: "I've been going to the same grocery store for 13 years, and all of a sudden one day everybody was like, 'Oh, my God...'"

"You don't need someone else's approval to do what you want; just figure it out and do it, damn it!"

"My dad was an actor and that was very influential but I was always drawn to that even when I was really little. I was kind of a big weirdo... I would shut myself off in my room and go off into weird territories alone as a child.... My dad was a very theatrical flamboyant person. I was influenced by his ability to just let it go and kind of go off into weird directions."

At the VH1 Fashion Awards: "I could give these bitches a booty shake they'd never f---ing forget."

Megan introduces the Will & Grace pilot: "Hi, in a minute you're going to see the pilot of "Will & Grace", which we made three years ago, You know, when we were each offered our parts, our career insticts were so finely homed that we all said no. Eric was afraid of being typecast as a lawyer, Sean didn't want to give up his cattering job, and Debra was teaching a master class in big shoes at clown camp. As for me, I wasn't interested in playing a gay man, but I like it better now. Anyway, here it is. I hope it makes you feel tingly in your funny places and funny in your tingly places. Enjoy!"

On the acting program she was enrolled in at Northwestern University: "There was no way I was going to roll around on the floor pretending to be a bean or whatever."

"I'm really good at staying home all day in my pajamas because I had a [dad] who did that."

"When I get out of the shower and look in the mirror, I think 'Yeah, I look really womanly and nice."

"I don't believe in plastic surgery. Wrinkles are a part of life, like giving birth."

"I actually auditioned for Grace, but they didn't remember me."

On those offended by Karen: "I got no time for that. No one is safe on our show. It's a comedy."

On growing up in Oklahoma: "Oklahoma was a good place to grow up because it's neighborhoody. Although it wasn't easy to find a lot of people interested in the arts and theater - they were more into field hockey."

"I'm an only child. When I was little, I always came up with dramatic romantic scenarios. Yet I was shy as a kid - and precocious in high school."

On watching The Carol Burnett Show as a child: "I had a deal with Mom. Carol Burnett was on Monday nights at 9 o'clock. So I'd go to bed and hour early, at 8. Then I'd get up to watch the show. Of course I didn't sleep during that hour - I was too wired."

On singing: "I can't think about all the things they teach you: hold your tongue, breathe - that's not my bag. I sing from my emotions. I started singing when I was little. I knew every word to every song on radio and my parents' records. I used to sing to the Monkees, but taught myself to really sing with Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland."

"Two days ago, I dreamt I married a 5-year-old boy. He treated me like a queen and was perfectly lovely. We took a driving trip for our honeymoon. Then it dawned on me: 'Oh my God! He doesn't have a driver's license! We could get arrested!'"

"Recently I had a date with a guy who came over. We ordered in - he brought dessert. We walked my dog together. Later, he even did the dishes. Of course, I'm leaving out the best part - use your imagination. I love a man who tends to a lot of functions and leaves time so I can watch Saturday Night Live."

"If I weren't an actress playing a socialite, I'd have lavender hair, wear crappy vintage clothes and have tattoos. I'd be some kind of crazy lawless rebel - an alternative underground riot girl."

On shopping in Chinatown: "I love all the things you can buy. I'll get some little poppers that snap on the ground and scream, 'I don't have any money left!'"

On the Emmys: "You see the other girls in the catgory and you're like, "Oh, hi".

Megan: "We've seen five Broadway musicals in five days..."
Rosie O'Donnell: "That's living, honey, that's living."
Megan: "Yeah, my boyfriend who is straight is now gay."

On her Stealing Harvard character: "My character lives in a trailer park, actually. So it's totally different."

On whether Karen would like her Stealing Harvard character: "Who knows? Karen would probably love her because she's pretty ballsy."

To Rosie O'Donnell when she arrives on the escalator: "Hey, take the stairs, lazy! Take the stairs!"

"People see you one way and think, 'That's not her real thing, she's just putting that on now.' But that is! That's where my creativity really resides. Where it all springs. My characters are really bizarre. They're kind of dark and not really considered great people. It all comes from the same dark place it's just filtered through comedy."

On how she make believes she's drinking during rehearsals: "I'm [imitates drinking a martini] sipping and [series creator Max Mutchnick] will stop and say, 'You really believe you're drinking a martini, don't you?' And I don't realize I'm doing it. It's a kid thing. It's the ability to use your imagination and pretend. That's all, I think. Just the ability to lose yourself in pretending."

What her porn name would be (first pet's name with the street that you grew up on): "Taffy Huntington -- but my actual porn-star name was something different. You'll have to do the research."

"I only want to work on projects that inspire me, that kind of push me to expand my horizons and really, really learn. That's my criteria."

Describing her Stealing Harvard character: "I just did this movie where my character lives in a trailer park and I'm not attractive. I'm wearing a big wig that looks like a cross between Wynonna and Loni Anderson. I have long acrylic fingernails with tiger-stripes airbrushed on them, and hot pants. It's really tacky."

Where her Porsche is: "It's sitting in the garage. I don't drive it as much as I drive my other car. I'm not really sports car-oriented, mainly because I have a little poodle. It gets loud and she gets scared."

On The Tonight Show, shaking a pen to sign Jay's bike: "I can shake anything, Jay."

"I am terrified of mayonnaise. It was so bad when I was little that my friends would chase me around the house with a jar of mayonnaise and a knife."

On reading the Monkeybone script: "Brendan Fraser's character is in between life and death and he goes into this coma and all these characters are half-animal, half-human. It's a very absurdist fantasy. I barely understood the script when I read it. I was like, 'Well, okay, I'll just learn my lines and shut up.'"

Karen's "advice" to teenagers in Seventeen Magazine: "You know, when you're a teenager, a lot of people will try to give you advice, tell you they have all the answers. But don't listen to them. Listen to me. I have all the answers. Be your own person. Unless you're boring, in which case, be someone else. Take care of your money. If you put away just a million a week, you'll be surprised how quickly it adds up. And drink responsibly. In your house. With your mother. Oh and one more thing: keep a positive attitude. You know, when I was in the Mickey Mouse Club, I used to be jealous of Christina Aguilera. But then I realized what has she got that I don't have? I've got cute blonde hair, a little button nose, a girlish pout... Oh, wait. That's not me. That's Justin Timberlake. Anyway, have a good time out there."

On reading the book "Anna Karenina": "The whole breakdown, or Anna Karenina's entire mental unraveling, is really interesting. Of course, now she could just, like, take some Paxil and it all would be cured. But, you know, they didn't have those mood stabilizers back then. I heartily recommend it to one and all. It's so rich. It's pretty great. There were times, I must admit, since it is 817 pages long, that I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it. But you can't wait to get back to it and get back to the story."

Megan (on her job prior to Will & Grace): "You know, I was actually a prostitute. So this was really great for me."
Larry King: "Actually, you are in fact losing money doing this."

Megan (on what she'd be if not an actress): "I'd go back to hooking. It's hard to get out of the life."

Megan, in People Magazine's What Grosses You Out?: "When you go to a restaurant and they give you shellfish with the little tentacles, antennae and eyes still in."

Back to the Quotes
Back to Show
Back to the main page