She’s back this week. Well, strictly speaking, they’re all back: Gabrielle, the adulteress; Lynette, the struggling mother; Edie, the nymphet estate agent; Susan, the flaky single mum. But it’s Bree Van De Kamp that we have missed the most over the past seven months. Bree, undisputedly the most desperate of Wisteria Lane’s Desperate Housewives. Bree, whose tortured, controlling personality seemed the most implausible at the start of the series, yet, by the end, had us hooked and rooting for her all the way. Bree, who is no laughs and has by far the dullest wardrobe (twinsets and slacks, accessorised with ironed cherry-red hair and velociraptor expression), but is no less compulsive viewing for that.
The last time we saw her, she had just taken a phone call from the hospital informing her of her husband’s death, after which she calmly, mechanically, finished polishing the family silver and then, and only then, allowed herself to break down. “I guess that was my favourite scene of the series,” says Marcia Cross, the 43-year-old actress who plays her. “You see the depth of her grief, and that she could only do that alone.” Now Bree, the career wife, is a widow, and anything is possible.
Playing a character such as Bree comes with a set of responsibilities that don’t normally apply in the regular course of acting. Bree is a woman who, it transpires, an awful lot of women relate to (more of which later) — and it probably doesn’t help that Cross is one of those unusual actresses who is, in real life, every bit as vivid as her on-screen character.
Almost without exception, famous people disappoint in the flesh: they are generally half the size you imagine, mere slips of things who look as if they are waiting for a team of professionals to colour them in and bring them to life. So I arrive at the photo studio expecting Cross to be the sepia-tinted poor relation of her Desperate Housewives character, but instead I’m met by a tall, striking woman, striding across the room on 4in heels, shoulders back, red hair bouncing (yes, it moves). It’s Bree, only less praying mantis. Bree minus the hard veneer. Liberated, modern Bree.
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Still, you can instantly see why Cross was chosen for the part. There is something regal about her, besides the deportment and ultrapale complexion — a frisson of ladylike reserve. You know how Bree holds her head, with her neck poker-straight and chin tucked down? Well, Cross does that. And that direct, penetrating gaze is hers, too. Don’t get me wrong: she is warm and co-operative, but you sense that here is a woman who might panic if you flung your arms around her.
“I’m not like Bree at all,” says Cross, giving me a less tight version of Bree’s “welcome to the neighbourhood” smile. “I’m actually fairly low-key and casual. But yes, as an actress in LA, I identify with her need to present a good front all the time. It’s not just actresses, either. I think all women are taught from a young age to fit into this box.”
This struggle to maintain face at all costs is the key to Bree’s character; it is what makes her intriguing in a way that none of her fellow Housewives are. On the one hand, there is something 1950s about her (those half-aprons and eggnog recipes, not to mention the repressed sexuality). And yet, beneath all the cookie-baking and counterpane-smoothing lies a message that is as true now as it ever was, as Wife Swap reminds us most weeks: there are plenty of women living lives of domestic enslavement, often voluntarily, who have lost sight of who they are and why they are clinging to those routines in the first place.
“Are there women as extreme as Bree out there?” asks Cross. “Absolutely. And they reveal themselves to me more and more — or their husbands do. There are a lot of women trying to be the perfect everything and trying to hide what they perceive to be their failures.” Cross, who has a degree in psychology, believes this is the secret of Bree’s popularity. “She hides behind the domestic stuff and being perfectly coiffed. She diverts her feelings into obsessive behaviour and trying to control her exterior world.” And, on some level, we all identify with that.
Obsessive behaviour doesn’t only manifest itself in sparkling kitchen surfaces and cookie presentation baskets. What about the yummy mummy in the 4x4 who runs her family like a military operation? Or the mother who dominates her children’s playtime and insists on them being stimulated every waking moment? Or the woman who waxes twice a month and hasn’t eaten carbs since last century because she’s terrified of losing her looks? And which of us hasn’t forgotten that the recovery of a sick friend is more important than the screwing-up of a dinner-party seating plan? Bree is not so much weirder than many of us on a bad day.
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Even so, playing her is tough in some ways. “When people come up to me and say, ‘You’re my favourite Housewife’, my response is, ‘Why?’” says Cross. “I thought she was the least likeable and the hardest to sell. She’s such an odd duck in so many ways. It’s hard because sometimes you just want to have fun.”
Then there’s the fact that her personality has leaked into Cross’s private life. Remember the rumours circulating last year that Cross was a lesbian? What was that about, if not confusing the sexual issues surrounding Bree with the actress’s own life? “Actually, I thought they pinned that one on me because I was single and older. In fact, I was already seeing the man that I am now marrying [47-year-old stockbroker Tom Mahoney], but I wasn’t going to use that.”
That said, when Bree appeared on Desperate Housewives wearing red La Perla underwear, the set sold out immediately, and if you do a rough poll of fortysomething British men, a surprising number would step over Gabrielle and Susan to get to Bree. “I heard that,” Cross says, genuinely amazed. “Is it like that undressing the librarian kind of thing? I think maybe the British appreciate Bree’s covered sexuality. I should wear glasses next year and really drive them crazy.”
Cross is not about to let on what will happen to Bree in the new series. Maybe she will get a job (God, if anyone needs one, it’s her). Maybe she’ll get another man (or woman). One thing is certain: “Her coping mechanism is not entirely working. She’s having to let down her defences. I personally love someone when they are falling apart, and I guess I am loving her more and more.” Perhaps, I venture, Bree just needs a good dirty weekend to sort her out. “Ha!” Cross throws back her head and laughs. “Yes. She does need a good dirty weekend. You can quote me on that.”
Desperate Housewives returns to Channel 4 on Wednesday at 10pm