Director denies demeaning 'Will & Grace' star Debra Messing on set of her first film

Director Alfonso Arau has dismissed actress Debra Messing's claim that he demeaned her on the set of her first film, 1995's  A Walk in the Clouds, telling the Associated Press that her complaint had "nothing to do with reality."

He accused the Will & Grace star of “following fashion” with her accusation, although it's worth noting she made it back in February, months before Hollywood's current sexual-harassment crisis reached a fever pitch.

The 85-year-old Arau, who was doing red-carpet interviews at Wednesday's premiere of his current film, Disney-Pixar’s Coco, added that Messing, now 49, owed him her career because he picked her from “many, many” actresses.

A Walk in the Clouds, a romantic drama set after World War II that co-starred Keanu Reeves, was only Messing's second onscreen credit after a guest arc on the ABC detective drama NYPD Blue. 

She had said that Arau and producers had surprised her with a nude scene that she hadn’t agreed to in advance. When she complained, she says he told her, “Your job is to get naked and to say the lines. That’s it.”

In the finished film, only her back was exposed.

"The whole thing was a power play, a game," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "And the goal: To demean me, to strip me of my power and make me feel on a cellular level his dominance over me."

List: All of the Hollywood power players accused of sexual assault or harassment

Contributing: Associated Press