Expressing Myself

WHEN Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry wanted a new killer Bree-type character, he turned straight to Dana Delany. It’s difficult to imagine anyone playing Desperate Housewives’ Bree Van de Kamp as convincingly as Marcia Cross. Cross is perfect as tightly coiled Bree, who’s renowned for running a dysfunctional household and having a tortured relationship with her children. It comes as something of a shock to learn Dana Delany, an Emmy Award winner for her role in China Beach, was Housewives creator Marc Cherry’s first choice for Bree.

Cherry’s pursuit of Delany, however, did not end with her Bree knock-back. Four seasons into the show, Cherry was knocking on Delany’s door again, this time trying to woo her with the role of prickly Katherine Mayfair, a character Cherry promised would ‘‘out-Bree” Bree.

‘‘I was offered the role of Bree and it just wasn’t what I wanted to do at the time,” Delany says in a barely audible whisper. ‘‘When Marc called this spring and said ‘are you ready to come on now’, I said ‘sure’. I thought what he’d done with the show was amazing. ‘‘He said he saw me as sort of the uber-housewife. Marc is very smart and clever because I think he sort of was playing on the fact that I’d been offered the role (Bree) and that kind of thing. He’s smart to work that in so that there was this dynamic already set up. ‘‘And also I think it was really clever to have Katherine having already lived on the street 12 years ago, so she already was a part of Wisteria Lane.”

Delany, 51, has an extraordinarily long resume, suggesting she’s rarely considered signing long-term TV contracts. Apart from her cult-spawning performance on acclaimed Vietnam nurse drama China Beach, she’s never been in one workplace for long. There have been roles in less-than-successful TV dramas Presidio Med and Pasadena and films Live Nude Girls and Exit to Eden — a highly embarrassing bondage comedy co-starring Australia’s Paul Mercurio.

So comfortable does Delany feel on the set of Housewives that she’s hoping producers will want to keep her for the duration of her six-year contract. ‘‘For me it’s always the writing, and I think he’s (Cherry) really done a remarkable job of setting a tone that a lot of people have tried to do and not pulled off — that combination of comedy and drama.

“Marcia and I just shot a scene yesterday where it’s almost slapstick, and then immediately we move into another room and it gets really serious. That’s a great challenge as an actor. I adore Marcia. I think she’s just a really loving person. So it’s fun for us, we just giggle, really.”

Delany (right) is also acutely aware Hollywood is notorious for its ‘‘ageist” attitude towards casting women in lead roles. When that rare opportunity comes along to play a strong, mature woman, Delany says you must have a good reason not to grab it.

She believes there are more opportunities for women to flex serious acting muscle in TV than in feature films. ‘‘I did China Beach when I was 30 and it spoiled me because that was such a fantastic three-dimensional character,” Delany says.

‘‘I have to say almost all my best work has been on television just because the roles were more interesting. Television has always been a great medium for women, and the fact that Desperate Housewives offers these great roles for women over 40 is such a dream, you know. It gets harder the older you get.

‘‘I’m here as long as they want me. Television is such a funny thing because you sign a contract, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be there the whole time. It’s kind of up to them.”

Delany, however, seems unlikely to slip into the cliched life of a highly paid TV drama star. She’s not interested in investing heavily in Los Angeles real estate, is rarely seen at opening nights and flies below the radar of the paparazzi.

‘‘I live a very simple life, actually,” she says. ‘‘I like to keep things to a minimum. I’m a big traveller, so I have a very small house and I have an apartment in New York. I have no husband. I have no children. I have no pets. I have no plants.

‘‘So I can just lock the door and go. And that’s my favourite thing. I just like to have new experiences. I’m very curious. I don’t like to stay in a routine, I think that routine is death. So I’m constantly trying to shake things up.”

So has she consciously avoided marriage?

‘‘If I had met the right person, I’d be with him,” she says. ‘‘But obviously I wasn’t ready. I just never saw marriage as anything important to me. You know, I like variety. But now, for the first time in my life, I’m ready.”