Debra Messing (Kristina Bumphrey/Startraksphoto)
Debra Messing stepped out for the first time with new boyfriend Will Chase at the lavish premiere of NBC’s “Smash” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s dramatic Temple of Dendur.
Barely a month after announcing a split with her husband of 11 years, Daniel Zelman, Messing partied with her “Smash” castmate Chase, who split with his wife, Stephanie Gibson, this month. They lounged in a VIP area with her parents.
Perhaps intoxicated by the setting of the moodily lit temple built in about 15 BC, transported to New York from Egypt in 1963 (and cornered by four open bars) — or perhaps enjoying the 700-strong crowd packed with stars — Messing wasn’t leaving without a fight.
At midnight, museum security approached her crew multiple times to inform them the party was over. The actress responded, “What? It’s 9 p.m.” She turned and chuckled to a friend, “[Bleep] you,” dismissing the fleet of uniformed party cops.
Her “Smash” co-star Katharine McPhee stayed on the arm of husband Nick Cokas. Uma Thurman sat in a VIP area with Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica
Parker, who was celebrating stepping into the role of feminist icon Gloria Steinem in the biopic “Lovelace,” replacing Demi Moore.
Markus Schenkenberg, who will play Thurman’s boyfriend in a later episode, attended. Meryl Streep’s daughters Grace Gummer, who appears later in the series, and Louisa mingled with the TV crowd.
Some speculated that the Cinema Society and Volvo-sponsored bash cost more than $500,000 — and an army of security guards were dispatched make sure well-lubricated guests didn’t touch any of the priceless artifacts on display. A spy added, “As the show’s director, Michael Mayer, was leaving, he saw a single empty wine glass atop a sarcophagus, and remarked it looked as though it were ‘an offering to the gods.’ ”