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Will & Grace has added another guest star to its roster for the final season, and this one is extra special.
Billie Lourd will be playing Fiona Adler, the granddaughter of Bobbi Adler, who was played by Lourd’s real-life grandmother Debbie Reynolds, NBC confirms.
Reynolds played Bobbi from 1999 to 2006, and one of the first episodes of 2017 Will & Grace revival featured a tribute to the character. She died on December 28, 2016, just a day after the death of her daughter and Billie’s mother, Carrie Fisher.
Fiona is the daughter of Grace’s older sister, played by Mary McCormack, and will be reconnecting with her “cool aunt” Grace in an upcoming episode, according to Deadline.
“The episode is especially meaningful because of Billie’s relationship to the show,” co-creator and EP Max Mutchnick told Deadline. “We’re thrilled to have Billie. And best of all—she’s really good.”
Entertainment Weekly describes Fiona as “an edgy, self-confident modern woman who’s outspoken and irreverent.”
Lourd is currently starring as aerobics lover Montana Duke in American Horror Story: 1984, which debuted last night on FX.
Ryan Phillippe will also be joining this season playing himself, and it was previously reported that Demi Lovato will appear as a guest star, playing Jenny, a guarded woman who comes into Will’s life in an unexpected way.
Lourd shared a few screenshots of Bobbi Adler’s appearances on the show on Instagram and revealed that she was obsessed with the show as a child.
“So getting to watch my grandma play Grace’s mom was one o’ the coolest things to happen to my young willandgraceobsessed self,” she wrote. “Next week I get to play my real life grandma’s on screen granddaughter on one of my favorite shows and there are not enough happy adjectives in the world to convey the excitement I feel.”
Todd Fisher, Debbie’s son and Billie’s uncle, said Debbie would “love” Billie’s new role.
“My mother really loved playing that part. It was so fun for her. In a lot of ways when she was playing Bobbi, she was playing herself,” he tells E! News exclusively. “So what would Debbie think about Billie playing this part? She would love it! She would be so proud. When you asked Debbie what she was most proud of, my mom always said her children and her grandchildren, and she meant it. As the uncle, I love to see it because my mother always talked about how Billie was a lot like her. She always thought Billie was a lot more similar to her than Carrie was. “
Will & Grace is saying goodbye after a third revived season, which was a mutual decision between cast and creators, according to Mutchnick, David Kohan, and James Burrows.
“We think of the Will & Grace reboot episodes the way Karen Walker thinks of martinis – 51 is not enough, 53 is too many. That is why, after consulting with the cast, we all have decided this will be the final season of Will & Grace,” they said in a statement.
Will & Grace will return to NBC in 2020.
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