'Will & Grace' is turning 25 but remains timeless

It took a bottle of vodka and a drunken evening for producers to convince Debra Messing to read for the part of Grace Adler on "Will & Grace." She was tired and overworked, but once she did, she knew the script was special.

"We shot the pilot like two months after Ellen DeGeneres was fired when she came out as gay," Messing said in June at "PaleyImpact: The Impact of Will and Grace: 25 Years Later," moderated by Isaac Mizrahi. "I just remember going two episodes, maybe three until we get canceled."

It aired for 246 episodes before ending in 2020, 11 seasons after debuting on September 21, 1998 in a television landscape that looked much different for the LGBTQ+ community than the one that existed when the show's reboot ended - inarguably, a shift that was, at least in part, thanks to "Will & Grace."

Created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, the series was part of NBC's Thursday night Must See TV lineup and told the story of two co-dependent best friends - Messing's interior designer character and lawyer Will Truman (Eric McCormack) - who live together as roommates in New York City.

The duo's friends included Grace's assistant Karen Walker (Megan Mullally), an alcoholic socialite whose husband was in jail, and actor Jack McFarland, played by Sean Hayes. Its depiction of single, urbanites - some gay, some straight - was considered groundbreaking at the time.

"I was conflicted at that time," Hayes, who is gay and whose character was gay, told Jake Tapper in 2017. "I don't have the DNA to be a spokesperson of any group of people. It's just not who I am."

He admitted, "at that time, I was too young to know how to handle any of the pressure and anxiety that was thrust upon me."