Mr. Television
05-21-2008, 08:42 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-05-19-bowen_N.htm
For Andrea Bowen, the neighborhood's changing
HOLLYWOOD — "Would you all please just shut the (expletive) up!"
That's not what Andrea Bowen screamed to producers of ABC's Desperate Housewives upon learning her character would be eliminated when the series jumped five years into the future.
Rather, the ever-perky 18-year-old, who played Teri Hatcher's daughter, Julie, is rehearsing a scene for the play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenaged Blockhead. It's a raunchy update on Charles Schulz's thinly disguised Peanuts characters with Snoopy having died of rabies, Charlie Brown questioning his sexuality and other favorites facing mental illness and suicide. The play opens June 7 at L.A.'s Hudson Backstage Theatre with Bowen heavily hyped in the role of Charlie Brown's foul-mouthed, pot-smoking sister.
Dog Sees God was intended to be Bowen's summer project before returning for her fifth season of Housewives. But Sunday's closer sent Julie off to Princeton.
"This is a huge change for the show, and I believe there are two ways it can go," she says. "It can either make the show better than ever or start the show's decline."
When she first heard rumblings of the five-year jump, Bowen was worried she might be asked to cut her hair to age Julie's appearance. She realized it was more when series creator Marc Cherry went through what the advance would mean for every character, and Julie wasn't included.
Bowen believes TV mom Susan's happily-ever-after fairy-tale wedding in the woods to Mike that capped Season 3 may have led to the family's demise. "As beautiful and touching as that moment was, I think it happened a few years too soon," she says. "You never really want your favorite characters to end up together until the final moment. You have to milk it."
Hatcher is devastated by the loss of her TV daughter. "I love and adore her," she says. "She is somebody who I have done the majority of my work with for four years. I've watched her grow up from 13 to 18, get a driver's license, and I can't begin to tell you the depths of how impossibly hard it is for me to think about her not being there.
"This is a totally producer/network decision that I have nothing to do with, and I guess I can go out on a limb and say I don't support."
The last day on set ended with Bowen collapsing in tears into Hatcher's lap. Hatcher had brought her daughter, Emerson, 10, and her parents to the set to bid Bowen adieu. Then, discovering that no plans had been made to mark the occasion, Hatcher says she told the producers, " 'You've got to get a cake and some flowers, and you've got to get down there on her last day because this is huge.' "
Bowen received "the most adorable" gift bag from Emerson, filled with all sorts of teenage doodads.
The youngest of six children born to Peggy and Guy Bowen, a composer, Andrea got her start in musicals. She appeared at age 6 in a Broadway production of Les Misérables, followed by a 21/2-year run as Marta Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She has composed five songs for an album she hopes to record and has been approached about appearing on Dancing With the Stars.
But her time on Wisteria Lane may not be done for good.
Cherry says he "assured both Andrea and her parents that she will continue to be a part of the show for as long as there is a show. She's the anti-showbiz kid — so grounded and normal. We'll have her back at some point. Maybe when she's older, who knows? She might get married and become a desperate housewife on the Lane."
Says Bowen: "That excites me but also freaks me out."
For Andrea Bowen, the neighborhood's changing
HOLLYWOOD — "Would you all please just shut the (expletive) up!"
That's not what Andrea Bowen screamed to producers of ABC's Desperate Housewives upon learning her character would be eliminated when the series jumped five years into the future.
Rather, the ever-perky 18-year-old, who played Teri Hatcher's daughter, Julie, is rehearsing a scene for the play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenaged Blockhead. It's a raunchy update on Charles Schulz's thinly disguised Peanuts characters with Snoopy having died of rabies, Charlie Brown questioning his sexuality and other favorites facing mental illness and suicide. The play opens June 7 at L.A.'s Hudson Backstage Theatre with Bowen heavily hyped in the role of Charlie Brown's foul-mouthed, pot-smoking sister.
Dog Sees God was intended to be Bowen's summer project before returning for her fifth season of Housewives. But Sunday's closer sent Julie off to Princeton.
"This is a huge change for the show, and I believe there are two ways it can go," she says. "It can either make the show better than ever or start the show's decline."
When she first heard rumblings of the five-year jump, Bowen was worried she might be asked to cut her hair to age Julie's appearance. She realized it was more when series creator Marc Cherry went through what the advance would mean for every character, and Julie wasn't included.
Bowen believes TV mom Susan's happily-ever-after fairy-tale wedding in the woods to Mike that capped Season 3 may have led to the family's demise. "As beautiful and touching as that moment was, I think it happened a few years too soon," she says. "You never really want your favorite characters to end up together until the final moment. You have to milk it."
Hatcher is devastated by the loss of her TV daughter. "I love and adore her," she says. "She is somebody who I have done the majority of my work with for four years. I've watched her grow up from 13 to 18, get a driver's license, and I can't begin to tell you the depths of how impossibly hard it is for me to think about her not being there.
"This is a totally producer/network decision that I have nothing to do with, and I guess I can go out on a limb and say I don't support."
The last day on set ended with Bowen collapsing in tears into Hatcher's lap. Hatcher had brought her daughter, Emerson, 10, and her parents to the set to bid Bowen adieu. Then, discovering that no plans had been made to mark the occasion, Hatcher says she told the producers, " 'You've got to get a cake and some flowers, and you've got to get down there on her last day because this is huge.' "
Bowen received "the most adorable" gift bag from Emerson, filled with all sorts of teenage doodads.
The youngest of six children born to Peggy and Guy Bowen, a composer, Andrea got her start in musicals. She appeared at age 6 in a Broadway production of Les Misérables, followed by a 21/2-year run as Marta Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She has composed five songs for an album she hopes to record and has been approached about appearing on Dancing With the Stars.
But her time on Wisteria Lane may not be done for good.
Cherry says he "assured both Andrea and her parents that she will continue to be a part of the show for as long as there is a show. She's the anti-showbiz kid — so grounded and normal. We'll have her back at some point. Maybe when she's older, who knows? She might get married and become a desperate housewife on the Lane."
Says Bowen: "That excites me but also freaks me out."