Welcome to desperately devoted Join us as we explore the human experience through the lens of the iconic show Desperate Housewives. I'm Terry Hatcher, I'm Andrea Bowen.
And I'm Emerson Tunny.
We are so glad to be back because this week we are getting to hear from someone with more memories from the street where it happened. This week, we have an incredibly talented actor who you'll know not only from Housewives, but from shows like Madmen and Homeland. You might think his character is creepy, but stay with us because the real man behind the gun and the shovel and the tranquilizers, well,
he is a total sweetheart. Please welcome Mark Moses. So I guess, like, as we talk to you, this is going to be interesting sort of spoiler alert, because Emerson has not actually seen the show.
This is my first time. I mean, I've watched the pilot, but this is my first time watching the whole show all the way through.
So I think, like, they're like, you'll probably remember a big thing much later in the last season that happens between Mike and Susan, But like, I'm not saying those things because I don't want to give it away, and I don't know.
I don't know, but if it gets given away, I will just I'll just forget it.
I'll just forget it.
So we're going to I don't think I would know anything that happens between Mike and Susan anyway, So.
That let's start with that.
I know a little bit about it, vaguely seeing it again for the first time in so many years. Just now. Actually it's great now because the commercials are shorter, and that it was just it was. It was really enlightening about what a great show it was. I mean, from everything from the graphics to the opening, to the how quickly the plot moved, which I'd forgotten about. It really moves quickly.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I felt like the first thing, the first like thirty seconds, I was like with Steria Lane is a star like I could not believe the way it was shot, the way it was edited, the lighting. What you're saying about how quick it moved and how much story got revealed so quickly, how it just pulled you in. It was it's it stood the test of time, don't you.
Think I think it's I look at it now and go, wow, they are not making serious that good anymore interesting.
We will.
I thought about it back then, I thought it was well done, and now I look at it and go, wow, it really was a good show. And I'm glad there's a whole new audience like Emerson to watch it. Yeah.
Yo, Yeah, and your character Paul Young is so integral.
You know, everybody's having so much fun and there I am like gloom and doom in the dark Shadows across the Street. Third episode with Zach and then he comes in and he's so good.
Yeah, he's great.
It was so well cast. And we did miss we did miss missus Hubert Christine Esterbrook. She was such a good busy body.
Yeah, I agree with you. Like the cast was so great, the writing was so great, the way, I mean, just the whole It kind of brought up a sense of pride of like, wow, I was actually in this, you know, because I had sort of forgotten and I hadn't watched it probably in twenty years whatever, And yeah, it really was kind of stunning actually to just like the pilot, especially I mean the opening with Mary Alice and Brenda Strong and I mean you never saw stuff like that on television.
No, and I was always surprised that there wasn't a copycat show until Maybe Empire came out. I mean really, I thought the other nighttime well, it was a little bit of a nighttime soap opera, but a funny one.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, Actually, speaking of Terry mentioning the whole thing with Mary Alice, you know, starting the series off with someone dying by suicide, and you know how that relates to you informing your character and your care's journey and the whole mystery that we don't really understand what's going
on with you and what your relationship was. I had a question for you about did you and Brenda talk about what your relationship was like even though we don't see that much of it playing out on screen.
No, okay, next question.
Okay, we didn't really talk. I mean we we got along, we talked, we met, we talked about. One of the reasons we didn't was because I don't know if Mark cherry knew exactly where it was going all the time. Yeah, that's I mean, I think I think it developed as we went and I don't even think at the beginning
anybody really understood what the Young Family was about. I mean, it sort of just started that way and then it was a sort of dark, and then it got a little darker, and then they'd say, no, just keep playing it this way, and so it's sort of evolved. I think some of the other characters and some of the comedy that Mark wrote was more in his ballpark. But I think that storyline was a little bit like what are we going to do with this? And will it work?
And then but you know that toy chest, you know.
Yeah, I'm curious, do you do you remember reading the pilot for the first time and how much of that story, I mean kind of what you were saying, like was there or did you feel like you invented for yourself to have motivation as an actor?
Well? I read the pilot and then you know, you thought, Okay, why am I digging up the pool? What's going on?
And we're wondering that too?
Well, I thought it was I just thought the image was so great at the end of the first of the first show, where he's in this pool chopping it up. I mean, it didn't really matter what I pulled out of there. It just was a great visual image and it set up to suspense and I'm not sure that was the initial plan. I was told that initially that storyline wasn't there and put in there. That's what I was told. It's true. Not maybe Mark Cherry can chime in, but you know, he uh, I'd known Mark for a
long time. That was the fourth show I did with him. And it's probably well, what are the shows?
What have you done with him?
Well, the first show was when he started off writing, and he was a Back in the day, they had a spec script, like you like, they wanted to get writers involved with shows, so every show had to have one or two spec scripts, and Mark wrote a spec script for Golden Girls. I was Rue mcclanahan's illegitimate child. That was the name of this.
Oh that is the best trivia piece of trivia I've ever heard.
Was introduced to Golden Girls and then ended up I think being the head writer on Golden Palace years later. And you know, to tell you the truth, there isn't a male flight attendant that hasn't seen that episode of Golden Girl.
Wow.
So so that happened, and then he opened up another show, which was The Crew. I did a guest star on that, and then the next show is five minutes buchanans and I was Beth Broderick's husband. So by the time Desperate Housewives came up, the only thing Mark said to me was, how come he didn't go up for who's Dug Savon's character's name?
You know what I mean?
Why does go for Tom? And I said, because you didn't bring me in. So that part sort of like opened up afterwards, and then.
That was the Paul opened up a.
Well, I think so, because from what I was told he was writing, the script wasn't oh gosh, that wasn't selling. He lost his agent. Mark was a very loyal guy and a great funny writer, as we all know, but he lost his agent so he had to switch agents. And the agent said, you know, this is a great story, and he handed it to someone who I think ran melrose Place and Charles Charles, and he said, you need to put a mystery in it. And Mark wasn't really thrilled about it, but that was an added miss and
then it's wow. Yeah. So I think initially it was just the comedy and the four women in the cul de sac and the antics that happened, and then that was an added feature, and I think that's.
And that's what and that's where that role came.
Well, that's amazing, but that sort of was well that sounds right.
I mean the pieces that add up to me is that I know that there was a producer and I think it was either Chuck or Charles. I mean, it's horrible that I don't know who this is, but it was like Mark, this guy Chuck Pratt, I think is that yeah, yeah, so Chuck and Michael Edelstein and and I remember hearing that Chuck had come in with more of the structure, which is probably lends itself to like
serial television. And I know that Mark had written it on spec and it had been around for a while as opposed to kind of going through a normal developmental pilot season. So that adds up that I think. I think we both have the same perception. Do you have memories of like the read through or your first day on set or being up on Wisteria Lane at Universal, Like do you remember.
Remember remember we had read throughs, and very big shows do have read throughs. I mean mad Men had read throughs, but this show had to read through and it was great. We all got together read it and I think it helped. I think they could lesh out certain jokes that worked and maybe some that didn't. I have to I have to tell you right now on the third episode, I laughed out loud on the dinner table and you break the ice Breezeline, breeze line. I was on the floor,
the floor with breeze line. Yeah.
No, it's just it's classic. I mean, it's it's just brilliant and she was. It was brilliant delivery on Marsha's part and an amazing line. No, but but sometimes too, you look at stuff like that when you think about comedy and you think about the setup. You know, that was a minute and a half setup to that joke that all of us played our little part in, you know, digging away to make it to set up, and then she just came with her bat and just like knocked
that out of the park. And I really do think it's a great example of that kind of collaboration comedy. There's just nothing better.
And and set pieces, really good set pieces in it, like when you obviously you lose your towel and then you know you're naked outside your house, or just little pieces with Lynette with driving her kids locking them out and it just set up, set up, pay off. It was. It's a series worth watching.
Yeah, that's so great.
I look at you now, Andrew, and I just go, oh my god, she's this beautiful own woman now and she's just like you were. I don't know what thirteen theneen.
Yeah, yeah, wasn't she great?
Oh gods?
Great, thank you?
Thanks. Yeah.
I relate to Terry watching it and feeling like I can't believe I was a part of this, you know. I mean, it's probably different for her than it is for me thinking that, but really, I you guys are all so good, and the fact that I got to grow up witnessing such talented actors on a daily basis is something I am so grateful for.
Well, you were thirteen, and when you finished, how old were you?
I was twenty two when we wrapped.
Yeah, yeah, I mean because I just worked with Melissa Gilbert who was on Little House in the Prairie. We to play in New York and you know, from nine to nineteen. Yeah, absolutely, same experience and for her it was a great experience, and it was for you as well. Right.
Oh yeah, yeah, I was very fortunate and I consider it to be an incredible place to have grown up. Yeah, and look, I mean, look at the relationships formed that are still in my life. You know, I've watched Emerson grow up and Terry I was like twenty plus.
Years yeah, seven when the show started.
I mean, we really do think of ourselves as like, you know, like second mom and siblings'. You know, Andrew has come to our house for dinner over the years, and like I said, I was at the wedding and it's it is sort of amazing to have maintained that connection. I'm so proud of who she grew up to be and was proud of her then too. It's a pretty special relationship, it is, for sure. So back to the show. So, I'm sure you never found yourself at the bottom of
an empty cement pool before or since, did you? It started to strike us. I guess around episode three that we really felt like the husbands started to land in their own lanes, which we didn't really remember, Like like Carlos seems a little more abusive than we kind of called him.
I didn't, I didn't remember him being so coarse. Yeah. But however, it was a good thing because otherwise she would have probably hated Eva and have ever affair. But it was you know, it was kind of the spiciest little topic on Desperate Housewives right off the bat with a gardener. Yeah, so you didn't remember that. And also I looked at it and thought that Doug Savant as a guest star in episode three. Yeah, you don't even really know about their relationship. Although he probably was in
the pilot. I didn't really watch the pilot. He probably was in the pilot.
Yeah, he was in the pilot, but sort of briefly. I mean he was in the pilot, but I think he was mostly an episode away on a business trip, So yeah, he was kind of maybe.
Just then you get the idea when it comes back with a crazy house, so she's living in and you get a little piece of their relationship and so it's sort of unfold. Let's face it. It wasn't called Desperate Husbands, right, it was called Yeah, but did take no longer to establish characters, But that's because we had less to do.
Yeah, it's true, but so did that Like, was that weird to be a husband on the housewife show? Like out in the world.
You know, we knew that we could only take so much time on the set, you know, except for except for one of the husbands who took more time than the other ones and he ended up dying.
But Okay, said I think I do know this spoilers.
You know, we we all we all talked about, you know, most most of we've talked about who's going to die? Yeah, and who's gonna who's gonna stay on the show, you know, because we would get together and go, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know. And then eventually we got to all the parties the first year because it was such a big hit, and Mark Cherry sat down and said, Okay, Paul Young dies, and I'm saying with him, we're just going, well, well, yeah, but I've got a great I've got a great idea for for second season. I'm going to chain this guy up with the basement and blah blah blah blah blah. Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's go back to Paul Young. Yeah, let's go back to that.
And so you really Mark Well with the behind the scenes if he was telling what.
I was a fellow writer he was, I was like, wait, he said, wa wa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wah, I'm playing Paul Young. I don't want him to die. So I was saved by Stephen McPherson.
Ah Steer.
I think he said, you're not killing our j R. Ewing.
Wow, these were such great moments. Yeah really, and so.
I then the second season happened and I was eventually sent off to prison, and then I come back, and then Mike goes to prison and then you know, so I had that sort of stuff going on. But yeah, we all wanted to be on it for eight years at that time, but you know, I got to do other stuff. But I mean, you know, yeah, we all, we all.
I was watching mad Men episodes over the weekend because I just wanted to be reminded of how great you were in that show too. That was another really iconic show.
You know, if one thing doesn't happen in the business, then you get an opportunity to do that, which I wouldn't have had an opportunity to do. Ed off to prison.
Thank God for prison.
You know, it's funny you mentioned that not wanting to die thing, because you know, as the show continues, we'll see and you know, experience the shock of different characters dying throughout. And I always thought in the back of my head. I think Julie will be safe because she's a child. I think, you know, I think my character will be okay. But you know, none of us knew ever who we were going to open up in that episode and see who was.
Yeah, look, you know you've already grown up, so they didn't replace you.
Yeah. She was just at the right age to be able to age with the show and not not start off too young and then suddenly have to do the five year jokes.
I would have been so devastated. Yeah, just a couple of hair changes and then we could sell it.
Well.
Is there anything do you keep in touch with, like Cody or anybody that like from I haven't.
I haven't talked to Cody in a while. I've seen Ricardo in New York.
He's done. Yeah.
I wanted Jamie Denton sometimes and Jamie. We ran into each other, I think a number before I left Los Angeles. We got together a dog I've not seen in a while. Marcia. I you know, you know, I knew Marcia beforehand. Uh huh, lay together down at the Old Globe. We did Two Gentlemen of Verona before.
That's cool.
And that's when Marcia was going to quit acting and become a.
Therapist, right right, right, and instead she got to use all that knowledge and channel it into this complicated character.
I'm so curious. I mean, we've talked about this a lot. With my mom's character Susan. How so many people think of her now as Terry Hatcher being Susan. You know, she's they think she's not a good cook, They have certain ideas about her as a mom. I'm curious, did you, because Paul is such a kind of notorious villain on the show, what was your experience like with fans or with people who've met you who are fans of the
show and then meet you in real life. Did any of that kind of get mapped onto you and the way it did with my mom's character.
Well, I think it does when it's on, and I'm sure your mom could tell you this when it's on, it's not more often with it, and now that it's rerunning, oftentimes people come up and they've seen it again. But in terms of your mom, I mean, you know, I remember your mom is a bond girl in Lois You were just born then, but I knew her from other stuff as well, and so no, but you know it.
I know, you sort of see actors and people go through different roles and stuff, but this was obviously a big one for everyone in the show, and I think everyone really made their mark on the show. And I'd also like to add, at the time this show was made, there weren't too many women over the age of forty. Yeah, you know, it was like you hit forty and your
career was over. Well, I think Desperate House was one of those shows that really showed people are watching women get older, except for Eva, who was young, but yeah, a little more mature. I look at it now and I go, God, we were babies.
Don't you feel that way? I feel I totally agree. I go like, wow, we were just such babies. But I didn't feel like a baby then, But I, oh, we really weren't.
I mean, you know, it really was older women with kids and you know, but not but still everyone was very attractive.
You know, yeah, I a good looking street.
I used to say that if the network had actually been allowed to ask our age, you know, if that had been legal, they would never have cast four women over forty to lead a show at that time. I just I think they didn't realize I think they probably thought we were all thirty five or something, you know, because we didn't discover how old we all were until in the scene in the pilot where we're sitting around having coffee after Mary Alice has killed herself, and it's
like that first scene together. And when we were shooting that actually on the set, we were just getting to know each other because nobody had really known each other before, and so in between takes, you know, people would say like, well, what you know, what's your story? How old are you? What do you e been? You know whatever, And as we went around, somebody was like, I'm forty two, I'm forty one, I'm just about to turn forty, I'm forty three, and it's like wait what And then evens of course
I'm twenty nine, right, you know. But I remember sitting at that table and thinking, wow, they cannot possibly have realized we were all over forty. Yeah, So it really was at first, and I think happened so I don't know, organically like a like a marriage with the writing and with these sort of stereotypical versions of women, you know, the perfectionists, the vulnerable, desperate one, the sort of high strung you know, and then the sexy one. It it.
But I think the reason it's lasted and there's so much nostalgia around it is because I think people still see themselves in these people, even though that's a weird thing that Paul like has this secret in the pool and then and it's all this creepy thing. This idea that people put forward a face that's happier than what's really going on behind the scenes is still I think so common and relatable that I think that's one of the things that continues to resonate about the show.
And I think that, well, I know that Mark fought for that title becase any I think the producers wanted to change the title many times. He said no, And he had the whole story about his mother, his mother, you know, watching the the mom drive the van into the lake or something with the kids, right mother, mom said, I get that, Oh my god wrote this.
Yeah, that is where that you So you're sort of confirming that that is where the initial idea kind of came from for him, because we'd heard that.
That's what he said. That's what he said was his idea about housewives and how desperate they were, and and you think about it and the whole, the whole Mary Alice story of shooting herself and how desperate could you be? Then it reflects on all the women in the cul de Sac. Yeah, and I think that's relatable. And I also think that marked an incredible job developing the characters.
Like you'll see shows sometimes and you go, you know, it was okay the first three or four or five shows, and then by the six or seventh the characters start to define themselves. I would say the characters right off the bat were well defined.
Yeah, and we feel that way almost.
Immediately who they were, what the issues were, the crazy mom for for kids, and and you know, your character divorced one who has a loving daughter, and Eva and Marcia and the perfectionist, and they were all it was all really well put together. Yeah, I agree, And you know then I think we were foils off of it, and maybe they developed how we would be after that. I look at Tom and I go, well, thank god I didn't play Tom, because Doug was so good at it.
Yeah he is.
He's so lovable, so I'm not at least going Paul was probably a great part for me, but you know, but Doug is, and he was so good in that part.
Oh well, Mark, it was just an honor to like share that journey with you, and how amazing to get to see you and reflect back on it, and I just I mean, I feel like my takeaway of just so grateful to have been a part of it and a part of a show that has resonated for generations. I mean it really has, don't you think.
Well now a new generation now I'm since watching it.
Yeah, I know, no, And it feels it feels relevant even even today. I feel like I know one thing that we have been asking each other when we do our episodes is what what is something in your life right now that is making you feel desperate? Obviously it's Desperate Housewives, and we focus around a lot of female characters, but I think men experience senses of desperation in their
life too. I'm curious either how it relates to your character in the show and your dynamic with Zach or now currently in your life, are you having any desperate moments in your life right now?
Desperate actors, Yeah, that counts.
They're all desperate or.
Any way any way you do it. It's such a it's such a hard profession that everybody's slightly desperate. And I did joke about, you know, all of us wondering who's going to die, and we did handle it like guys, but I think everybody was concerned about who is going to die? And you know it. You look back at this show and today you get show and it gets, you know, a blip on the radar screen and it's a big hit. This opened to like thirty million people.
It doesn't even happen anymore. So it was a huge, huge hit and it was quite a ride for all of us.
So what do you said, You just finished a play? What are you working on now?
I finished a play in New York in January called Still. It was a two hander. I hadn't been on stage for like fifteen years, so wow, lost like fifteen pounds. It just got my god, the curtain, you know, the curtain goes up and you can't take.
Too Yeah, that's amazing.
Working home again except without another take. And then I did a short small film down in New Orleans about Bridge of all things. So we'll see what happens with that. But other than that, I'm heading off to Scotland to Edinburgh and taking a trip with Annie.
So we're I was just there, were there and yeah at the end of March. Yeah, I know, maybe I'm the pole. I was in at the end of March and early April.
I was there at the end of March.
Wow, well, we didn't know we could have overlapped. I did the West Highland Way hiking trail and I highly recommend it if you were into hiking.
Well, we're doing a hiking through the Caswalts.
Oh, oh my gosh, amazing beautiful.
I mean, next time that one.
But yeah, I do have one more question for you that I hope to make a thing that we do, because there seems to be a lot of confusion around this. How to put you on the spot? How do you pronounce Susan and Julie's last name.
That's interesting. I pronounced it Bowen and Hatcher.
Oh okay, I didn't. Yeah. It was clever, very well done, Very well done.
The mystery continues. Yes, thank you so much for joining us and being here.
Good luck. I think it's going to be fun. I think people are gonna if they can, if they can watch this while the show goes on.
Yeah, yeah, that's our hope. And we like the idea of like We really do think that the neighborhood and all of the things that Mark wrote about and the things that the different characters are struggling with does sort of resonate into people's real lives and can be sort of a jumping off point to, you know, talking about what it's like to be human and live in a community and but not but also how great the show is.
So thank you for sharing so many great fun stories with.
Us that we didn't know, so many behind the scenes takes.
I love it.
Thank you, thank you, Bye bye.