Trivia / Desperate Housewives

• California Doubling: The series was meant to be set on the East Coast but was obviously filmed on a set, Universal Studios Hollywood's Colonial Street more precisely.
• Creator Backlash: After Felicity Huffman was sentenced to only two weeks in jail for her part in the Varsity Blues college admission scandal, Ricardo Antonio Chavira angrily called it the same kind of "white privilege" he saw during the show's entire run, though he didn't go into any specifics.
• The Danza: Rex's bastard son Sam Allen (season 6) was played by and actor named Sam Page.
• Dawson Casting:
  • John, the gardener in season one who only just turns 18 that season was played by the 26-year-old Jesse Metcalfe.
  • Inverted, thanks to the Time Skip. Danielle and Julie are now several years older than their still-teenage actresses.
• Directed by Cast Member: Tony Plana, who plays Alejandro Perez, directed the season 8 episode "Witch's Lament".
• Fake Nationality:
  • Fake American: Jonathan Cake is an English actor and played American police Detective Chuck Vance.
  • Fake Canadian: Gale Harold is American. His character, Jackson Braddock, is revealed to be Canadian.
  • Fake Russian: Irina Korsakov (season 6) was played by Helena Mattsson, who is Swedish.
• Follow the Leader: The idea for the series is said to have been inspired by American Beauty. (What's funny is in that movie, the story is told from the husband's POV.)
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Teri Hatcher did not get along well with her co-stars, and it got to the point that her name was absent on the stars' farewell gift to the crew. When Eva Longoria got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in April 2018, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman were there, but not Teri.
  • In April 2010, Nicollette Sheridan sued Marc Cherry for twenty million dollars on charges of assault and battery, gender violence, wrongful termination, and "intentional infliction of emotional distress". She said that Cherry created a hostile working environment, and behaved unprofessionally towards her on and off-set.
• Irony as She Is Cast: While Gaby in the show is depicted as a bad cook, Eva Longoria in real life published a cookbook in 2011. The inverse is the case with Bree: Bree is a talented cook, whereas Marcia Cross has said that cooking is one of her weaker spots.
• Life Imitates Art: In the Series Finale, cancer claimed Karen McCluskey — as it would Kathryn Joosten (who played her) a few weeks after it aired.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The series originally started off as a comedy pilot, and was rejected by every network, including Lifetime and HBO. ABC expressed an interest, and it was retooled to its trademark format of a dark comedy and drama.
• The Other Marty:
  • Sheryl Lee portrayed Mary Alice Young in the original pilot for ABC, but she was replaced soon after and the pilot was reshot, when the producers decided she was not right for the part and chose Brenda Strong instead.
  • Michael Reilly Burke portrayed Rex Van de Kamp in the original pilot, as Steven Culp was unavailable at the time. It was when the pilot was reshot that Marc Cherry was able to give the role to Culp. In spite of this, Burke can be seen in the background of some scenes in the final cut of the pilot.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Bob Hunter is played by Tuc Watkins, who came out of the closet in 2013.
• Recycled Set: The whole backlot street set built for the series, Colonial Street, has been reused for plenty of productions, from TV shows to films, with modifications to remove the "essence" of Wisteria Lane.
• Star-Making Role: The series helped raise the profile of several people, including Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman and Andrea Bowen.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus was considered for Susan Mayer. Courteney Cox was also considered, but Marc Cherry didn't ask her, because at the time she was pregnant with her daughter Coco, and had expressed interest in taking some time off to raise the baby.
  • Jeri Ryan was considered for Gabrielle.
  • Susan was almost written off the show in season 5, due to Teri Hatcher's Hostility on the Set with pretty much everyone.
  • After Season 5, Marc Cherry briefly considered making a Spin-Off series that would star Karen McCluskey and her sister Roberta.
  • Michelle Rodriguez turned down the role of Gabrielle in this show, to do Lost. When Ellen DeGeneres asked her why on her chat show, Rodriguez joked: "Because if you're not a housewife, then what's the point?"
  • Miranda Richardson turned down a significant guest part in the second season.
  • Alex Kingston auditioned for the role of Bree.
  • Carlos was originally going to be paralyzed by the tornado rather than blinded, hence the ominous shot of his legs in a vulnerable position after he’s knocked out.
• Write What You Know: When Bree learns that her son Andrew is gay, she tries to convince him she's fine with it by telling him "I would love you even if you were a murderer." This is what the show's creator Marc Cherry was told by his own mother when he came out of the closet to her. Moreover, Bree herself was heavily inspired by Marc's own mother.

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