--- title: Debra Messing Alleges Sexual Harassment Claim description: Find out what Debra Messing said about allegedly being sexually harassed by director Alfonso Arau on the set of a 1995 film canonical: https://time.com/4667215/debra-messing-alfonso-arau/ author: Entertainment Weekly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-02-10T16:32:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:04:46.157Z og:title: Debra Messing Alleges Director Told Her 'Your Job Is to Get Naked' og:description: A rep for Alfonso Arau said the claims were 'false' og:url: https://time.com/4667215/debra-messing-alfonso-arau/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5eabea809ba246bd/6988b9b4196cf45a3a03ed0e/debra-messing-sexual-harassment.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The 2017 MAKERS Conference Day 1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Debra Messing Alleges Director Told Her 'Your Job Is to Get Naked' twitter:description: A rep for Alfonso Arau said the claims were 'false' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5eabea809ba246bd/6988b9b4196cf45a3a03ed0e/debra-messing-sexual-harassment.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Debra Messing Alleges Director Told Her 'Your Job Is to Get Naked' by [Oliver Gettell / Entertainment Weekly](/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Oliver Gettell / Entertainment Weekly Feb 10, 2017 4:32 PM CUT  RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA - FEBRUARY 06: Actor Debra Messing attends the 2017 MAKERS Conference Day 1 at Terranea Resort on February 6, 2017 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for AOL) RANCHO PALOS VERDES, CA - FEBRUARY 06: Actor Debra Messing attends the 2017 MAKERS Conference Day 1 at Terranea Resort on February 6, 2017 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for AOL)Emma McIntyre—Getty Images for AOL by [Oliver Gettell / Entertainment Weekly](/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Oliver Gettell / Entertainment Weekly Feb 10, 2017 4:32 PM CUT Actress Debra Messing has alleged that director Alfonso Arau pressured her to perform a nude scene and made disparaging comments about her appearance during the making of the 1995 film _A Walk in the Clouds_. [Speaking at the Makers Conference](http://www.makers.com/blog/2017-makers-conference-debra-messing "undefined") in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on Monday, Messing recalled that her initial excitement about shooting her first Hollywood movie — opposite rising star Keanu Reeves — was marred by several humiliating incidents. On the first day of filming, Messing said, she and Reeves were in the middle of a dramatic kiss scene when Arau interjected, “How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here? Her nose is ruining my movie!” After completing the scene in a daze, Messing retreated to her trailer and cried. “I felt ugly, I felt like garbage, and I felt deep shame,” she said, adding that Arau’s comments reminded her of anti-Semitism she experienced growing up in Rhode Island. On the second day of filming, Messing said, she was browbeaten into shooting a nude scene, despite having been told previously the movie would not feature nudity. When she confronted Arau about the scene, he allegedly told her, “I’m the director, it’s my movie. Your job is to get naked and say the lines. That’s it. You should be grateful to have this part.” After grudgingly going through with the scene, only Messing’s bare back appeared in the final cut, she said. “The whole thing was a power play, a game. And the goal? To demean me, strip me of my pride and power, make me feel on a cellular level his dominance over me. I felt violated.” Arau’s manager did not respond to a request for comment, but a representative for the filmmaker [told TooFab](http://toofab.com/2017/02/09/debra-messings-harassment-claims-from-walk-in-the-clouds-shoot-are-false-director-says-exclusive/ "undefined") that Messing’s description of the events was “false.” The representative said Messing was never nude during the scene in question, and that Arau did not make derogatory comments about her nose. A spokesperson for 20th Century Fox, the studio that released _A Walk in the Clouds_, declined to comment. Elsewhere in her monologue, Messing said she was pressed to wear bra inserts, a.k.a. “chicken cutlets,” during her early days on the NBC sitcom _Will & Grace_. After threatening to take up the issue with network brass, Messing said, she never saw the inserts again. An NBC spokesperson declined to comment. Watch Messing’s monologue on the [Makers Conference website](http://www.makers.com/blog/2017-makers-conference-debra-messing "undefined"). _This_ [_article_](http://ew.com/movies/2017/02/09/debra-messing-alfonso-arau-nude-scene/ "undefined") _originally appeared on_ [_EW.com_](http://ew.com "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4667215/debra-messing-alfonso-arau/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4667215/debra-messing-alfonso-arau/"},"headline":"Debra Messing Alleges Director Told Her 'Your Job Is to Get Naked'","datePublished":"2017-02-10T16:32:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:04:46.157Z","description":"A rep for Alfonso Arau said the claims were 'false'","url":"https://time.com/4667215/debra-messing-alfonso-arau/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5eabea809ba246bd/6988b9b4196cf45a3a03ed0e/debra-messing-sexual-harassment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Oliver Gettell / Entertainment Weekly"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5eabea809ba246bd/6988b9b4196cf45a3a03ed0e/debra-messing-sexual-harassment.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The 2017 MAKERS Conference Day 1","caption":"The 2017 MAKERS Conference Day 1","creditText":"Emma McIntyre—Getty Images for AOL","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4667215/debra-messing-alfonso-arau/","name":"Debra Messing Alleges Director Told Her 'Your Job Is to Get Naked'"}}]}] ```