Debra Messing accuses director Alfonso Arau of demeaning her

Director Alfonso Arau is dismissing Debra Messing’s charge that he demeaned her on the set of her first film, A Walk in the Clouds.

He accused the Will & Grace star of “following fashion” with her accusation but that it had “nothing to do with reality.” He added that she owed him her career because he picked her from “many, many” actresses.

Messing spoke up in February about her experience on the movie, a romance released in 1995 co-starring Keanu Reeves.

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.”

Arau spoke Wednesday at the premiere of Disney-Pixar’s Coco. The 85-year-old actor and director voices the character of Papa Julio in the film.