What The Cast Of Desperate Housewives Looks Like Today

In 2004, "Desperate Housewives" premiered on ABC and quickly became a monster hit for the network. The show centered around a group of women who lived on Wisteria Lane, a pleasant suburban street that concealed a number of crimes and misdemeanors. The juicy primetime soap featured more murders, betrayals, affairs, and backstabbing than anyone could hope to count, all performed by an aspirationally-attractive cast that kept viewers tuning in week after week. The show's creator Marc Cherry has since revealed the real reason "Desperate Housewives" ended after Season 8. "I was determined to end the show before America stopped caring entirely," Cherry told Fast Company. "You don't want to be one of those shows that people look at one day and go, 'Is that still on?' So I think we got out just in the nick of time."

Speaking of time, "Desperate Housewives" was a show that loved to jump around. "We occasionally do little time jumps – I think we did a six-month time jump and a one-month time jump at the beginnings of seasons," he told Assignment X. Season 5 started five years in the future. "The five-year jump, I really kind of took a risk on that and for me, artistically, it paid off beautifully and it really reinvigorated the show." In the spirit of "Desperate Housewives," which has influenced current TV dramas and loved to look at all the ways people's lives can change over a span of time, let's take a look at where the cast of "Desperate Housewives" is today.

A lot of characters on "Desperate Housewives" did terrible things, and many residents of Wisteria Lane served time behind bars. Lynette Scavo managed to avoid jail time like her neighbors, with most of her storylines focused instead on her family. The actor behind the character, on the other hand — Felicity Huffman — is so far the only "Desperate Housewives" actor to spend time locked up in real life. Huffman went to prison for her role in the so-called College Admissions Scandal, having pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud after she was involved in a scheme to get someone else to help her daughter take the SAT. "I was so stupid and I was so wrong," Huffman said in court (per USA Today) " ... I have done more damage than I could have ever imagined." She was sentenced to 14 days in jail and was ultimately released a few days early.

After she was released from jail, Huffman kept a low profile for several years. She appeared on an episode of "The Good Doctor" in 2023, setting up the release of "The Good Lawyer," an upcoming spinoff that she will lead. In a behind-the-scenes interview, she said, "I guess what I'm hoping for when people watch 'The Good Lawyer' is an hour of great television." 

On "Desperate Housewives," Eva Longoria played Gabrielle Solis. During the show's first season, Gaby infamously slept with her hunky, teenaged gardener, played by Jesse Metcalfe. One year, unlike several of her co-stars, Longoria was not nominated for a Golden Globe for her work on the show, which she later said hurt. "I wasn't devastated but the press made it a bigger deal than it was between the four of us actors and that did affect me a bit," she later wrote in a letter to the court in support of her co-star Felicity Huffman. In addition to comforting her after she missed out on nominations, Huffman reportedly also stopped an unnamed co-star from bullying Longoria behind the scenes.

Since the show ended, Longoria has continued acting. She starred on "Telenovela" and even played herself on both "Jane the Virgin" and "Devious Maids." She's also extended her career as a personality rather than just an actor, hosting the CNN series "Looking for Mexico."

These days, Longoria has stepped behind the camera and turned to directing. Her debut film, "Flamin' Hot," hits Hulu in June 2023. The movie, about the invention of Flamin' Hot Cheetos, was intended as a biopic; however, an LA Times investigation revealed that the subject of the film did not, in fact, invent the product. Longoria dismissed the revelation, telling the outlet, "That story never affected us. Feels like LA Times would have better resources dedicated to more important things." 

On "Desperate Housewives," Teri Hatcher played Susan, a single mom who falls in love with the hunky Mike Delfino (James Denton) down the street. Reportedly, Hatcher didn't get along with her co-stars behind the scenes, proving that the backstage drama was just as delicious as the drama playing out on the sidewalks of Wisteria Lane. Nicollette Sheridan reportedly told creator Marc Cherry (via The Hollywood Reporter) that Hatcher was "the meanest woman in the world."

Since the show ended, Hatcher has been working here and there. She teamed up with Denton, her "Desperate Housewives" love interest, for Hallmark Christmas movie "A Kiss Before Christmas." She then starred in a romcom for the channel called "Mid-Love Crisis," and it sounds like her time on the movie was much friendlier than the "Desperate Housewives" set. She told Media Village, "It felt like being at camp because we were together for the whole day. Everyone was lovely and supportive of each other."

Hatcher has also been dipping her toe into the stand-up comedy world, including appearing on a Showtime special called "Even More Funny Women of a Certain Age." She discussed her career pivot with Variety, noting that she first started telling stories on stage because of encouragement from "Ted Lasso" star Brett Goldstein. "I feel like maybe I could make other women feel less alone," she said. "I could make the entertainment by my own self-deprecation. The goal is to just unite aging women."

Shawn Pyfrom was 18 when he was cast on "Desperate Housewives" as Andrew Van De Kamp, Bree's troubled son. Andrew came out as gay, slept with Bree's boyfriend, was homeless for a while, joined his mother's catering company, eventually settled down, and struggled with alcoholism. Speaking with Starpulse in 2007, Pyfrom said his character represented a different view of gay people than what was usually on television. "A lot of times gay characters can be portrayed as the flamboyant and weak stereotype," he noted. "Andrew is sociopathic and narcissistic and doesn't get along with his mother, and he is also gay. Your sexual preferences doesn't define you as a person." He added, "I'm heterosexual but that doesn't define me as a person."

Pyfrom appeared less frequently in the final seasons of "Desperate Housewives." A few years later, reflecting on the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, Pyfrom wrote a blog post discussing his own experience with addiction. "I chose to share this about myself because I could not hear of another person being robbed of their life, due to addiction; knowing that I stayed quiet about mine," he wrote.

In the years since "Desperate Housewives," Pyfrom has continued to act sporadically; in 2022, he appeared on an episode of "The Rookie." In his Twitter bio, he describes himself as: "Actor. Artist. Writer. Director. Photographer. Creative Director. Fashion Designer. #NFT Collector/Enthusiast." So many accomplishments! Bree would be proud.

On "Desperate Housewives," James Denton played Mike Delfino, a private investigator undercover on Wisteria Lane as a plumber. He was accused of murder, arrested, put in a coma, suffered from amnesia, got married to Susan, was involved in a car crash, and more. (What a show!) He was once called "the hottest man on TV," and years after the show ended he told Australian talk show "The Morning Show" (via The Independent) that it made him uncomfortable. "I spent most of my career playing bad guys until 'Housewives,'" he reflected. "I had never been hunky. I was happy to be there, don't get me wrong, but it was uncomfortable. It follows me forever, that shirtless shot in the front yard."

After "Desperate Housewives" ended, Denton spent 75 episodes on Hallmark's hit show "Good Witch." His character is a doctor, which he poked fun at during an appearance on "Today." "Luckily, I moved up from being a plumber to a doctor, so I got an extra degree," he joked. "But, it's just great being on Hallmark. We have the best time on the show."

He reunited with his "Desperate Housewives" love interest Teri Hatcher in "A Kiss Before Christmas," which he also produced. He told Entertainment Weekly that, sharing a bedroom scene with Hatcher, it was tough not to slip back into Mike Delfino. "I felt like I went right back to that quiet, reserved, stoic plumber guy with her," he said.

Doug Savant appeared on 175 episodes of "Desperate Housewives" as Tom Scavo, Lynette's workaholic husband who had a mid-life crisis and opened a pizzeria. Eventually, Tom and Lynette split, a development that bugged Savant. He told Wendy Williams (via The Huffington Post), "I hated that idea. I so adore Tom and Lynette, I'm so passionate about them as a couple, and I thought that they were a great representation of a good marriage on television."

Now that the show is over, Savant still works regularly on television, popping in for an episode here and two episodes there on a number of procedurals. He's been on "Rizzoli & Isles," "NCIS: New Orleans," "SWAT," "Dirty John," and "The Rookie," among many others. Most recently, he showed up in the first episode of an ABC spy show "The Company You Keep," playing a megachurch pastor.

Along with his wife Laura Leighton, Savant appeared on "Stars in the House" to discuss "Melrose Place," which they both starred in back in the day. Savant revealed that he got his start acting onstage in Los Angeles. "I have never worked in the New York theater," he said, "but it is certainly on my bucket list. I love the theater and I want to be there."

Before Dana Delany joined "Desperate Housewives" in its fourth season, she was already a primetime legend for her work on "China Beach." She told The TV Addict that she loved getting to play around on "Desperate Housewives." "I thought it was great material and so much fun to do," she said. "I think what Marc [Cherry, the show's creator] discovered early on that with the Katherine character, you could go through a little more odd stuff with her because she wasn't really as iconoclastic as the other characters."

After "Desperate Housewives," Delany bounced around on television for the next decade. She first left Wisteria Lane to jump ship to another ABC show, "Body of Proof," which she led for several seasons. She dropped in on "Bull," anchored the cast of Amazon Prime's "Hand of God," and in 2019, she starred on the short-lived CBS procedural "The Code." For the latter show, she spoke with AARP about how lucky she's been to work consistently. "I've been very fortunate. I've never had a lull in my career," she said. "I attribute that to just [loving] what I do."

Delany currently plays Margaret Devereaux on the Paramount+ hit "Tulsa King," from the creator of "Yellowstone." She teased to Collider, "I just say she's a horse lady because that's how we see her from the beginning. She really likes horses. As it progresses, there's more going on than we realize there."

Marcia Cross was a primetime soap icon before she starred on "Desperate Housewives," having played Dr. Kimberly Pierce on "Melrose Place." Cross was at the center of one of the show's most iconic moments — the scene where Kimberly dramatically takes off her wig to reveal a very large scar on her head. Cross later told The Hollywood Reporter that she was acting in a Shakespearean play at the same time she was filming "Melrose Place," and she didn't quite understand the soap's hype. "After that twist, and seeing how people went a kooky for it, I realized, 'Oh god, this is real!'" she recalled. "I didn't really understand what was going on for a long while until then."

On "Desperate Housewives," Cross played Bree Van De Kamp, a neurotic housewife obsessed with keeping up appearances. In recent years, the actor had an arc on the Netflix hit "You" and appeared on several episodes of FOX's country music soap "Monarch." She told Variety that she is still waiting for her "third act," and that her post-"Desperate Housewives" career hasn't taken off the way she hoped. "That's the double-edged sword of being an 'icon,'" she said. "Everybody thinks you are that character and by the time they forget about it, you are not on anybody's list anymore."

Tuc Watkins, who joined "Desperate Housewives" in Season 4, is no stranger to soap operas. He played David Vickers on 276 episodes of "One Life to Live," which overlapped with his time starring on "Desperate Housewives." His "DH" character, Bob Hunter, moved to Wisteria Lane with his partner, causing commotion on the street because the neighbors were largely unfamiliar with gay people. Watkins is gay in real life, too, and he told Thrillist that he's had to navigate his sexuality throughout his career. "I feel like I was caught in a catch-22," he reflected. "I was a gay actor who shouldn't play gay roles if I wanted to play straight roles. But I was also a gay actor who they weren't hiring to play the straight roles because they knew I was gay. It's amazing that I got any work."

Watkins has been on a number of shows in the past few years, including putting in a memorable turn on "The Other Two" and playing Eric's father on "The Sex Lives of College Girls." He also appeared on "Uncoupled," a Neil Patrick Harris-led show that moved from Netflix to Showtime. Watkins spoke with The Queer Review about the ways that gay representation on television has changed over the course of his decades-long career, noting, "We're finally at the point where we can be flawed, and funny, and more three-dimensional."

In the fifth season of "Desperate Housewives," the show jumped forward five years. This meant Lynette and Tom's troublesome young twins were suddenly teenagers, presenting their harried parents with a whole new host of antics. From Season 5 onward, Preston and Porter were played by real-life twins Charlie and Max Carver. Charlie later told Collider that the brothers enjoyed their time on the ABC soap, giving a particular shout-out to the actors who played their parents. "It was such a good experience there, having such good mentors on set, with Doug Savant and Felicity Huffman, who we worked with the most," he recalled.

After "Desperate Housewives," the Carver twins found roles on "Teen Wolf" together, playing alpha werewolves Ethan and Aiden. They were on "The Leftovers" together and have also worked separately. Charlie came out as gay in a 2016 Instagram post, writing, "So now, let the record show this- I self-identify as gay. And does that really matter anymore? As a young man, I needed a young man in Hollywood to say that- and without being a d*ck about it, I owe it to myself, more than anything, to be who I needed when I was younger." He later starred as the love interest in Ben Platt's music video for "Ease My Mind."

In 2022, the Carver twins played villains in "The Batman," the Robert Pattinson film about the caped crusader. Clearly, the Scavo boys are all grown up!

The inciting incident that kicked off "Desperate Housewives" was the death of Mary Alice Young, a housewife who once killed a lady and buried her in the backyard. Mary Alice's death drove much of the storyline of the show's first season, paranoia and suspicion running rampant on Wisteria Lane. The character was played by "Starship Troopers" veteran Brenda Strong, and even though she died in the opening minutes of the series, Strong continued to narrate the show in voiceover for the rest of its run. She told PIX11 News, "When I came in for the audition, [creator] Marc Cherry said, you know, 'I hope you don't mind, but we're all gonna close our eyes.' ... So, it definitely was the voice that they were looking for."

Strong has had a robust on-camera career since "Desperate Housewives." She starred as Ann Ewing on the "Dallas" reboot (with former "Housewives" co-star Jesse Metcalfe), dropped in for a few episodes of "Scandal," played Lillian Luthor on 24 episodes of "Supergirl," and starred on Hulu's "UnPrisoned" alongside Kerry Washington. 

Audiences may also recognize Strong from her arc on "13 Reasons Why," where she played the villainous Bryce Walker's mother Nora. Though her character was most prominent in the show's third season, Strong took on a new role in Season 4: Director! "I'm very excited to get to play with these young actors whom I admire so much," she told Entertainment Weekly.

For eight seasons of "Desperate Housewives," Ricardo Chavira played Carlos Solis, Gaby's husband. His character went to jail, committed some hate crimes, slept with the maid, was blinded by a bump to the head during a tornado, and more. Again ... what a show! Chavira told "Good Morning America" that he was newly out of grad school when he signed on, and he initially wasn't sure whether it was going to be a hit. "I was just thankful to have a job," he reflected. "I'm like, the show's either gonna do really, really well, or it's gonna tank really bad."

Luckily for Chavira, the show did not tank. After it ended, he went on to appear on many other hit shows. He played Frankie Vargas on 15 episodes of "Scandal," starred as Bruce on "Jane the Virgin," showed up on Apple TV+ drama "Truth Be Told," and played Dan Palmer on cult Netflix fave "Santa Clarita Diet."

Perhaps most notably, Chavira played Abraham, the father of iconic pop star Selena Quintanilla, on Netflix's "Selena: The Series." He told TV Insider that the role was close to home, and he tried to find inspiration in similar people he knew in his own life, like his father and uncles. "What does it mean to be a Mexican American patriarch of the family that you are trying to provide for in South Texas?" he asked himself.

Kyle MacLachlan joined the cast of "Desperate Housewives" toward the end of Season 2. He played Orson Hodge, a mysterious dentist who moved to Wisteria Lane and eventually married Bree Van De Kamp. Their marriage was a tumultuous one, involving car accidents, plane crashes, wheelchairs, and a stint in prison. On a press tour, he joked, "The difference between me and Orson is absolutely nothing. We are identical. That's why I was cast." 

MacLachlan has worked consistently since "Desperate Housewives." He's been on everything from "The Good Wife" and "Portlandia" to both "How I Met Your Mother" and "How I Met Your Father." He also returned to his iconic "Twin Peaks" role in Showtime's "Twin Peaks: The Return." MacLachlan has long been a muse of director David Lynch, starring in "Dune" and "Blue Velvet." He told Deadline that it took a while to bring Agent Dale Cooper back to television, recalling that he used to ask Lynch regularly whether the show would return. "I was always interested," he said.

In 2022, he played the missing husband of the tiger-loving Carole Baskin on "Joe vs. Carole," Peacock's fictional dramatization of Netflix's "Tiger King" docuseries. He told Collider that it wasn't just a retread of the documentary. "Whether you agree or disagree with their point of view or the type of people they've become, we've made it a little more complex," he insisted. "I think it's ultimately a more fulfilling experience."

Any good friend group needs people to exclude, and on "Desperate Housewives," the woman on the outs was the mischievous Edie Britt, played by Nicollette Sheridan. Edie was overly flirtatious with everyone's husbands, eventually sleeping with a few men she wasn't supposed to. Ultimately, the character was electrocuted after one of the show's many car crashes. Sheridan was over it by the end of her character's run, telling TV Guide (via Today) that she thought the show had gotten "complacent" and that she wasn't too upset. Recalling her reaction to receiving the script, Sheridan related, "I said, 'OK, sayonara.'"

However, Sheridan later sued the show, claiming she was wrongfully dismissed after complaining about an alleged incident where creator Marc Cherry hit her in the head. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the lawsuit was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Most recently, Sheridan played Alexis Carrington — an iconic soap character originated by Joan Collins — on 22 episodes of the "Dynasty" reboot. Sheridan told Entertainment Weekly, "I have always been attracted to playing the naughty girl. And for some reason, my audience loves seeing me in that role." Soon, Sheridan may have the chance to play a naughty "Housewife" of a different stripe. In early 2023, she tweeted that producers of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" were the ones acting "Desperate," trying to get her to sign up for the Bravo hit. No word on whether she's considering!