A valuable piece of real estate is about to open up along America’s most popular cul-de-sac — and I’m not referring to Dana Delany’s possible departure: Drea de Matteo is leaving “Desperate Housewives” in May.
Series creator Marc Cherry, however, insists tabloid talk that the Emmy-winning Sopranos vet was fired because she wasn’t clicking with the cast is not true. “When I heard that stuff, I was stunned,” confesses Cherry. “We adore her. She is the sweetest gal in the world.”
The reality is, de Matteo’s stint on Housewives was never intended to go beyond this season, according to Cherry. “Part of the deal when we hired Drea was she was only interested in doing one season,” he explains. “She has a baby and is eager to get back to her life in New York.”
It’s fair to say de Matteo won’t be terribly missed by “Housewives” fans, many of whom never warmed to her icy character, fugitive matriarch Angie Bolen. But Cherry believes that has less to do with the actress and more to do with the nature of her story line. “We shielded parts of her character because of the mystery,” he says. “As we build toward the end and we start undoing the many layers of [Angie], everyone will get how brilliant she is.”
Cherry declined to reveal how Angie will exit Wisteria Lane (body bag? plane ticket?). Instead, he teases that the arrival in April of Torchwood’s John Barrowman as the man she has been on the run from will build to “an explosive finale,” during which “all the mysterious parts of her past will be revealed.”