(Lille) Unforgettable Bree Van de Kamp in Desperate Housewivesactress Marcia Cross is still hoping for an iconic new role, 11 years after bidding farewell to Wisteria Lane, aware of Hollywood’s cruelty, especially to middle-aged women.
“I always thought there would be a third act, that hasn’t happened yet,” noted, without pathos, the soon-to-be 61-year-old star, in front of the 1,400 people who came to attend his master class on Tuesday. Lille, at the Series Mania festival.
“You are going to make me cry”, had launched the actress, after receiving a standing ovation and before indulging for more than an hour.
The next day, this charismatic redhead was once again surprised to see a crowd of journalists “take an interest in her” during a round table.
She is however well aware of her status as an icon of the small screen, which was for her both a “blessing and a curse”.
“It was painful, because if you play an iconic character, people have to forget about it and that takes time,” says the one who has long been associated with “Crazy Kimberly”, the madwoman of Melrose Place In the 90s.
It was this villainous role that revealed her to the general public, after forays into series like Cheers, Western coast Or Arabesque. And who held her back.
“I couldn’t find any more work, I almost stopped everything” to become a therapist, said the actress, a graduate in psychology.
However, “my work was very good, I can say it now because I am older”, considers this victim of the “stigma” linked to soap-operas, after having re-watched sequences of Melrose Place.
In particular this striking scene where his character Kimberly, who was believed to be dead after an accident, reappears, takes off her wig, discovering a huge scar on her skull.
“Taboo”
In 2004, she landed the role of Bree Van de Kamp in Desperate Housewives.
“Originally, I wanted the role of Mary Alice (voice-over from the series that we see very little on screen)” but Marc Cherry, the creator, decided otherwise. “And it changed my life.”
Bree Van de Kamp, the conservative, uptight housewife of Wisteria Lane, took her to the top for eight years and… not much since.
“It was a revolution to have heroines in their forties in Desperate Housewives “, but despite progress in terms of diversity, the question of older women remains, according to her, “taboo” on American television.
“With a movie star like Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon or Meryl Streep (starring in the series Big Little Lies), you can mount something”, but “for people like me, there is not much”.
She also regrets not having satisfied her theater dreams. After joining the Juilliard Conservatory in New York at the age of 18, she began by treading the boards before turning to TV to “get noticed”, on the advice of her agent.
Marcia Cross uses in any case its notoriety for the good cause, claiming loud and clear to have had cancer of the anus caused by the papillomavirus. “No one wants to hear that word, but I had to talk about it to raise awareness.”
She also salutes French-style activism, while demonstrators against the pension reform have a little heckled her coming to Lille, and says she prefers “trash cans in the street to the problems we have in the United States”.
And “would love” to return to France to play against Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu in Emily in Paristhe new hit series from Darren Star, the creator of Melrose Place. On good terms…