Debra Messing Recalls the ‘Painful’ Scene That Left the 'Will & Grace' Audience 'Dead Silent' (Exclusive)

“I felt grateful that the writers gave us the opportunity to do something that had that much gravitas to it, you know?,” Messing tells PEOPLE

Debra Messing is getting candid about the highs and lows of filming Will & Grace.

While attending the Just Jack & Will podcast premiere event on Monday night in New York City, the actress, 54, opened up to PEOPLE about which scene she felt was the hardest to film during the show’s eleven season run.

“I think the big fight that Will and Grace got into during the first run,” she recalls, referring to the main characters’ major falling out during Season 8. “I think that was surprisingly painful to shoot and I think that it really surprised the audience.”

“And they were dead quiet, which we had never experienced in all the years and so we knew that something important was happening,” she adds of the sitcom's live studio audience. “So, that’s a very clear memory for me.”

Related: Debra Messing Recalls How Former NBC President Wanted Her to Have ‘Big Boobs’ on ‘Will & Grace'

The Emmy-winning actress, who starred as Grace Adler on the series, went on to say at the Tribeca Film Festival event that she ultimately was “grateful” that she got to tackle such an emotional scene opposite Eric McCormack, who played her character’s best friend Will Truman.

“I felt grateful that the writers gave us the opportunity to do something that had that much gravitas to it, you know?,” she said. “It’s a sitcom and normally you don’t see that. And so I was just… I was grateful.”

Messing made the revelation to PEOPLE ahead of her guest stint on McCormack and Sean Hayes’ new podcast Just Jack & Will. The Will & Grace rewatch podcast series will feature the pair (and special guests) discussing what happened behind the scenes on he Emmy-winning show.

“It’s a Will & Grace rewatch podcast for SmartLess Media,” Hayes, 52, wrote of the series while announcing it on Instagram.

Related: Eric McCormack on How He Got 'Closer' with Sean Hayes Years After Losing Touch Post-'Will & Grace' (Exclusive)

McCormack told PEOPLE at the Impact of Will & Grace: 25 Years Later event last week that the podcast was cooked up “at a lunch that we were having."

"We started to talk about what would we do if we did a podcast," he recalled. "And I said, ‘We could rewatch the show?’”

The Emmy winner — who also trades Hollywood war stories pal Steven Weber for their Eating Out with Eric & Steve podcast — revealed that Hayes admitted he wasn't much of a viewer of Will & Grace during its runs (first from 1998 to 2006, then in a revival from 2017 to 2020).

According to McCormack, Hayes “said, ‘Yeah, I'd have to watch it [for] the first time. 'Cause I've never really watched it.’ He said, ‘That's the show.’ ”

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Just Jack & Will is slated to launch on June 15 on Amazon Music, and on all podcast services on June 22.

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