Marcia Cross Reveals that she Never Saw "Desperate Housewives'" Series Finale

[JamesG]

Marcia Cross Still Hasn’t Seen the Last Episode of "Desperate Housewives", but She is Ready for Next Iconic Role
by Marta Balaga
March 21, 2023


After playing Kimberly Shaw in “Melrose Place” and Bree Van de Kamp in “Desperate Housewives”, Marcia Cross is ready for her next iconic role.

“I always assumed that after ‘Desperate Housewives’ there will be a third act. It has not happened yet. That’s the double-edged sword of being an ‘icon.’ Everybody thinks you are that character and by the time they forget about it, you are not on anybody’s list anymore,” she said at Series Mania in Lille, France.




“I am at this funny crossword: I am this incredibly ripe human and yet Hollywood is not particularly interested. We are tackling LGBTQ+ issues, although there is still a long way to go, we are talking about people of color, but – and I hate to say it – we don’t love to see older women. We were 40-year-old women doing ‘DH’ and that was a big deal. Now, I want to see 60-year-old women.”

Especially the ones who are complicated. “That’s my favorite thing. I will leave it to the writers, to figure out something fabulous.”




Cross, welcomed with a standing ovation, admitted she still hasn’t seen the last episode of the show created by Marc Cherry, which ended in 2012.

“And I won’t! I was exhausted [back then] because I had worked all these years, I gave birth to twins, my husband had cancer for a little while. I crawled to the finish line in terms of my physicality. But I remember that night, sitting with the girls and Marc. It was terrible.”




Cross was interested in the part of Mary Alice at first, ultimately played by Brenda Strong.

“I wanted a family and I didn’t have a partner. I wanted to adopt a baby and be at home with [the child]. Marc hasn’t really seen ‘Melrose Place,’ which was probably a good thing, and said: ‘I want you to read for Bree.’ It changed my life, for sure,” she said, recalling the exact moment when she knew the show was a hit.

“I was getting on a plane to do ‘Oprah.’ That’s when you know.”




The complicated relationship between Bree and her son Andrew turned her into a “gay icon,” observed the moderator.

“I am very proud of that,” said Cross.




She is also proud of her role as the anal cancer spokesperson, the role that nobody wanted.

“What are the odds that I am playing the most uptight character on TV and then I get the kind of cancer that nobody wants to talk about?! I wish I could say it was bold, but I felt like I didn’t have a choice: I am sure that people are alive because of me or my friends who started the HPV alliance,” she noted.

“I can go on about the anus, how important it is, how great it is. You can either cringe at it or you can laugh, but I felt like it was put in my lap for a reason.”

https://variety.com/2023/global/news...es-1235560732/