WITH AN EYE ON . . . : ‘Ned and Stacey’ wasn’t exactly a walk in the clouds for Debra Messing

Debra Messing knows she hasn’t done too badly.

The co-star of the new Fox sitcom “Ned and Stacey,” which premieres this week, hadn’t even set foot in front of a camera until July, 1994. And that was opposite Keanu Reeves.

Nope, not too shabby at all.

She seems as surprised at her good fortune as anyone.

“The movie premiered last night,” she says of “A Walk in the Clouds,” the romantic film in which she plays Reeves’ ambitious wife Betty. Fresh out of NYU’s graduate acting program, Messing landed the role that bookends the movie. “It was a great experience,” she says, munching on a chopped salad, pirogis and curly fries at Jerry’s Deli in Marina del Rey. A comment on a literal and metaphoric full plate is too good to pass up.

“Yeah, it’s been amazing, how much I’ve worked this year,” she adds between nibbles. In person, Messing’s less manic, her voice far more resonant than her film Betty and sitcom Stacey.

Messing, 26, acknowledges that while she was thrilled to land both roles, neither came to her easily.

For “A Walk,” she recalls with a big smile, “I was so excited to be there, to be a part of that film, but I had no idea, really, what I was doing.”

Messing leans forward, fork poised in midair as she describes her first scene with director Alfonso Arau. “I was doing a scene with Keanu and the cameras started to roll, and he yelled, ‘Cut! Debra, you’re missing your mark.’

“So I said, ‘Sorry!’ We shot it again.

“ ‘Cut! Debra, you’re still missing your mark.’

“ ‘I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.’ ”

The actresses pauses, then whispers, “ ‘What’s my mark?’ ”

A reporter and Fox representative laugh with her. She knows what a mark is now. (It’s a piece of duck tape “that you’re supposed to hit so that the camera and light are just right.”)

Messing actually lost the part of Stacey, the young woman who finds herself in a marriage of convenience with mercenary ad man Ned (“Wings’ ” Thomas Haden Church). “They told me, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ basically,” she says.

But then, Messing explains, she demonstrated just how well she could be Jewish and neurotic. “I did an audition on tape from New York [where she was living]. Fox casting asked me to come to L.A. At that meeting they asked what kind of role I’d like to play. I said, ‘Well, actually, you have a pilot I really liked, but I didn’t get the part.’ ” That comment got her a meeting with “Ned and Stacey” creator and executive producer Michael Weithorn who she says told her, “ ‘Oh, you can’t be Stacey! You’re too wholesome. Stacey is Jewish and neurotic.’ And I said, ‘Hey! I am Jewish and neurotic.’ ”

Another audition, with the suggested added twist, and she landed the role.

Weithorn’s glad he gave her a second chance. “She’s a wonderful actress, a real TV star, with great presence,” he says. “She’s pretty and appealing. The chemistry between her and Tom is wonderful. We were lucky enough to catch her on her way up.”

But Messing credits landing the role of Stacey to a particularly winning guest-star turn as Dana Abandando, Donna’s (Gail O’Grady) man-stealing sister on ABC’s popular cop drama, “NYPD Blue.”

“Oh I know,” Messing says with a big smile, reaching for a glass of water. “I’m so lucky. I’ve got this great job, I’m madly in love and I live near the beach. It’s going to be hard to top all that.”

“Ned and Stacey” airs Mondays at 9:30 p.m. on Fox.