In the wake of this terrible new administration, more of us are openly discussing how we’ve been personally affected by similar abuses to those committed by Baby Fists and his panel of a-holes. Debra Messing, 48, gave a speech at the Maker’s conference detailing how the director on her first film, A Walk in The Clouds with Keanu Reeves, went out of his way to shame her for her nose, insisted on seeing her naked basically despite assurances from her management that nudity would not be required for this film, and worked to break down her self esteem. She was only 25 and all of this sounds like sexual harassment and textbook emotional abuse however no one stepped in to protect her. The director, Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate), has denied these claims, including Messing’s opening line in her speech that Arau told her that her nose was ruining his movie and that she needed to get plastic surgery for it. The Wrap did a good job of recapping this and I’m including their segment below but if you have some time and want to watch the video it’s on their site. Messing explains it so well, especially the way that Arau was sweet to her in the lead-up to filming but then completely tore her down afterwards.

At the MAKERS conference in Palos Verdes this week, the actress recounted her time on the set of her first movie which also starred Keanue Reeves and was directed by Alfonso Arau. She began her story by saying that the “a– hat” director once told her that her “nose is ruining my movie.”

“How quickly can we get a plastic surgeon in here?” she says he shouted after ending a scene. “Her nose is ruining my movie! … I can’t do this! Look at this!”

Fox had no comment, and representatives for Arau and Zucker Brothers Productions have not responded to TheWrap’s request for comment. But Arau’s rep told TooFab that the claims are “false” and “inaccurate.”

Messing said she “felt ugly, I felt like garbage, and I felt deep shame.”

The actress said that on the second day of filming, Reeves was supposed to find Messing’s character in bed with another man. Messing says she wasn’t told she would shoot a nude scene and approached Arau about feeling uncomfortable.

“Are you kidding me?” she said he told her. “Your job is to get naked and say the lines, that’s it. You should be grateful to have this part. Get out!”

Messing said she was distraught and ran to the producers, and asked them about why she was told there would be no nudity in the movie.

She said they responded that they promised her no nudity in the domestic release, but not the international release.

Messing said her agents told her, “you can say no and they fire you or you can do it and you keep your job.”

After pondering the situation, Messing decided to do the scene. The director apparently wanted to “set the sheet” when Messing laid down on the bed.

“He lifts it, scans my naked body, then drops the sheet on top of me like a used Kleenex. He walks away without a word,” she explained. In other scenes, she said, he walked around her and told her to cover both her nipple and her “a–.”

“It turns out, after all this trauma, the only part of my body that is seen naked in the film is my back,” she said. “The whole thing was a power play, a game. And the goal, to demean me, to strip me of my power and make me feel on a cellular level his dominance over me.”

She added, “I told my agents I would never work with that a–hole again.”

[From The Wrap]

In her speech, Messing explained how she experienced prejudice growing up Jewish but that Barbra Streisand inspired her as a child. Later she saw Dirty Dancing with Jennifer Grey and thought “there might be a place for me in Hollywood.” It’s clear that her experience with Arau was demeaning and abusive and that it changed her career. She switched from film to theater and TV after that because she thought she “didn’t have the look” for the movies. When she first started on Will and Grace she was made to wear chicken cutlet-type breast enhancers in her bra. After three weeks she complained and learned that order to wear the fake boobs came from the president of the network. However she persisted, said she would talk to the president although she never did, and she was allowed to take the enhancers out. (NBC had no comment to this.)

At the end of her speech, Messing said “I have a strong nose, I have small breasts. There’s something wrong with Hollywood and our culture’s painfully narrow definition of what a beautiful woman looks like. I’m a f-king original. My nose and I have come this far, and like Barbra Streisand I’m defiantly keeping it.” Good for her and good for her for telling her truth. Note to abusers: we remember and we will tell. Maybe not now, maybe not next week but it’s coming.