Speaker 1: Welcome to desperately devoted.
Speaker 2: Think of us as your favorite neighbors as we chat
Speaker 2: about life and relationships, all.
Speaker 3: While we revisit the iconic show Desperate Housewives together.
Speaker 2: I'm Terry Hatcher, I'm Andrea Bowen.
Speaker 3: And I'm Emerson tunny Mery Christmas.
Speaker 1: In certain little jingle bell sounds. You ever say Terry Christmas?
Speaker 2: No, we never do.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I'm going to We're.
Speaker 3: Gonna start now.
Speaker 2: But we're gonna start now. We're going to add that
Speaker 2: to the traditions. Okay, Okay. On Christmas. On Christmas Morning,
Speaker 2: I'm usually so exhausted because I've thrown a gigantic sit
Speaker 2: down dinner for like twenty six people on Christmas Eve
Speaker 2: where I make all the food and then we stay
Speaker 2: out late and we exchange presents in white Elephant game.
Speaker 3: And I make this amazing Christmas cocktail that we call
Speaker 3: Winter in California, and it's a tequila chai maple simple
Speaker 3: syrup and lemon juice.
Speaker 1: And is it served warm?
Speaker 3: No, Okay, it's shaken cold, okay. And I make the
Speaker 3: chi simple syrup the night before and it's kind of
Speaker 3: become my specialty. I mean it for years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And chai simple Chai simple syrup is actually pretty
Speaker 2: simple because you just simple syrup is just one to
Speaker 2: one sugar water.
Speaker 3: So it's just sugar, and then your chai tea.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, and then you add like usually like a
Speaker 2: whole box of oh, because I like to have very strong, yeah,
Speaker 2: really strong if you want to do that, and then
Speaker 2: you just boil it for not that long like the
Speaker 2: sugar melts, and then you let the tea bags sit in.
Speaker 1: It and you have that Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're hungover now by the time when you get
Speaker 2: to Christmas morning, uh, where we are like lagging. And
Speaker 2: so what we had the tradition we have is that
Speaker 2: Emerson and myself and my mom I always get matching pajamas.
Speaker 2: This year, I've gotten them from a company called print Fresh,
Speaker 2: which I'm a huge fan of, and they sent us
Speaker 2: red silky pajamas with gingerbread all over them. So there's
Speaker 2: like ginger red houses and gingerbread men, and they're so
Speaker 2: cute and so comfy and so silky. And so then
Speaker 2: the other thing we do is, since I'm so fried
Speaker 2: from the Christmas Eve, I do no cooking on Christmas morning.
Speaker 2: We get in advance bagels and locks and all of
Speaker 2: the cream, cheese and scones and muffins, and then we
Speaker 2: do what's called a blind champagne tasting. So I will
Speaker 2: go out and get a cheap champagne, a medium price champagne,
Speaker 2: and an expensive champagne, and I put them in brown bags.
Speaker 2: And then all morning while we're opening presents, we keep
Speaker 2: trying the different champagne. And then by the end of
Speaker 2: Christmas Day afternoon, we're either too drunk to know or
Speaker 2: we do know which one is the expensive champagne and
Speaker 2: which one is the cheap sampagne. So that's what I'm
Speaker 2: doing on Christmas.
Speaker 3: That's a fabulous tradition and a fabulous tradition. And this
Speaker 3: Christmas we are opening a version of our own presence
Speaker 3: together the three of us. What your questions from you
Speaker 3: are desperately devoted listeners.
Speaker 1: We're so excited to get some of these questions that
Speaker 1: you guys have been sending in and we appreciate you
Speaker 1: so much for going on this fun journey with us,
Speaker 1: and as our little Christmas gift to you, we wanted
Speaker 1: to do this special episode where we get to some
Speaker 1: of those burning questions.
Speaker 3: So well, I want to dive right in because the
Speaker 3: first question is to you mom. Oh, this question comes
Speaker 3: from Gene okay, and Jane says, Emerson talked, that's me.
Speaker 3: Emerson talked about how she remembers how you felt coming
Speaker 3: home after Mike's death scenes, Terry, can you remember that
Speaker 3: day and how your body reacted even though you knew
Speaker 3: it was just acting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I remember us talking about that a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I mean I was actually surprised that and touched
Speaker 2: and also like a little bit like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: I hope that wasn't a bad memory for you, remembering
Speaker 2: that like so viscerally. But I'm you know, the physical
Speaker 2: thing that I recall coming up a lot. Actually that
Speaker 2: was a really dramatic example of it. But whenever Susan
Speaker 2: had to cry, So when I cry in real life,
Speaker 2: when my body cries, whether or not I am acting
Speaker 2: or it's just my personal life, I have the structure
Speaker 2: of me. I get really puffy under my eyes and
Speaker 2: it is like really puffies, and then when I go
Speaker 2: to sleep, then it's even worse the next morning. So
Speaker 2: if you're shooting a show and one day your character
Speaker 2: has to be sobbing crying, and then the next day.
Speaker 2: Your character has to be like, you know, doing a
Speaker 2: fashion show at a modeling thing, you know, my makeup.
Speaker 2: An artist and I would really work on what can
Speaker 2: we do so that I can show up at work
Speaker 2: the next morning without baggy eyes, like it was a
Speaker 2: real thing. And that's just something that I recall about,
Speaker 2: you know, the physicality of like I can know that
Speaker 2: I'm pretending, but my body doesn't know that I'm pretending,
Speaker 2: and so I still end up with puffy, tired eyes
Speaker 2: for like a couple of days. Like when I have
Speaker 2: a good cry, you know, it doesn't lead to good results.
Speaker 3: I inherited that from you. I've been told that I'm
Speaker 3: a pretty crier in the moment, and I've always said,
Speaker 3: well just wait till you see me the next day.
Speaker 3: I'm not able to open my eyes.
Speaker 1: Well, Emerson, I'm going to pivot to a question that
Speaker 1: I'm reading here for you, which is from Margarita, and
Speaker 1: she asks, from a writing perspective, what is an aspect
Speaker 1: of ensemble storytelling that you find most compelling and how
Speaker 1: have you seen this depicted in the episodes you have
Speaker 1: watched so far.
Speaker 3: Wow, this is a great question, Margarita. Thank you. I
Speaker 3: think on Stumble. Storytelling is probably one of the most
Speaker 3: difficult types of storytelling to embark upon and to take on,
Speaker 3: and Desperate Housewives does it so successfully and this first season,
Speaker 3: I feel like we've really seen to me. I think
Speaker 3: the hallmark that I feel whether it's a feature film
Speaker 3: or in TV, and I'll use Desperate Housewives as a
Speaker 3: jumping off point of really successful ensemble storytelling is the
Speaker 3: ability to balance distinct identities and voices in the dialogue
Speaker 3: of each of the characters while letting their lives overlap
Speaker 3: and interweave. And I think as a writer, I just
Speaker 3: finished writing a draft of a movie that's an ensemble piece.
Speaker 3: It's for lead girls, and it was something I was
Speaker 3: really checking in with with myself as I was writing,
Speaker 3: of how am I making sure that each of these
Speaker 3: girls has a really distinct voice. So I'm the writer,
Speaker 3: I am writing all the dialogue. My voice is Emerson's voice,
Speaker 3: But how am I not making everyone sound like me?
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of that comes from creating
Speaker 3: really strong backstories. I think in Desperate Housewives, all of
Speaker 3: these women have come to Wisteria Lane and come to
Speaker 3: this moment in their lives with a rich backstory.
Speaker 2: Although I had noticed, and I would challenge everybody to
Speaker 2: go look at this. I noticed that many of the
Speaker 2: characters use the word sweetie. Oh interesting you know, Oh
Speaker 2: do you like, oh sweetie, come here to do this
Speaker 2: sum And I remember thinking why, why do you know?
Speaker 2: And maybe some maybe it would be maybe some actors
Speaker 2: took it out. I think I took it out, like
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't think Susan uses the word
Speaker 2: sweety all the time.
Speaker 3: Right, But that's really smart acting on your part to
Speaker 3: be in tuned to that.
Speaker 2: But I think Mark Cherry uses the word sweetie, and
Speaker 2: I think that's why it made it into so much
Speaker 2: of the dialogue. And I will say as a I
Speaker 2: really respect that. As a writer, it is the number
Speaker 2: one thing when you're reading a bad script. You know
Speaker 2: it's bad because all the characters talk the same. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they use the same language, they use the same rhythm,
Speaker 2: they use the same words like, and you just go,
Speaker 2: this is really bad writing. Yeah, because there's no differentiation
Speaker 2: between who these characters are. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I pride myself on dialogue being my favorite thing to write.
Speaker 3: For that, Ye, you're very good at it, well, thank you.
Speaker 3: But and sometimes though to an extreme extent, like if
Speaker 3: I'm out in public, which is I typically go out
Speaker 3: of my house when I'm working on a script, and
Speaker 3: i will be talking to myself because I'm trying to imagine.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not an actor, but I have amazing
Speaker 3: actors I know, like you too, and I'm trying to
Speaker 3: imagine how an actor would embody this character and deliver
Speaker 3: their line as I'm writing it so it feels authentic.
Speaker 3: But the result is if you were to look at
Speaker 3: me from across the coffee shop or wherever I am,
Speaker 3: is me assuming different like body postures and mouthing whole
Speaker 3: sentences to myself and being like and I'm and this
Speaker 3: is not going to translate well to the podcast, but
Speaker 3: I do look a little okay, Okay. Another question, which
Speaker 3: I love is from Abby and it's to me. She says, Emerson,
Speaker 3: you've all talked about your mom being an amazing cook
Speaker 3: and having great food around the house all the time.
Speaker 3: What is something she makes that is your favorite? Okay,
Speaker 3: so there's a bajillion answers I could have to this question,
Speaker 3: but since it's Christmas, I want to make this a
Speaker 3: kind of holiday themed response, and I can think of
Speaker 3: two dishes that to me really typify Christmas in the
Speaker 3: Hatcher household. And one is her I Love You a
Speaker 3: Lot eggplant castle. This involves really thinly slicing layers of eggplant,
Speaker 3: salting them, letting them sit so all the bitter water
Speaker 3: comes out of the eggplant, and then grilling them on
Speaker 3: the griddle in olive oil. And then basically she layers
Speaker 3: the grilled rounds of eggplant in a cast iron skillet
Speaker 3: with a homemade tomato sauce that she makes from woodfire
Speaker 3: like roasted in the oven tomatoes and caramelized onions and
Speaker 3: sometimes anchovies or sometimes capers and olives, and it is
Speaker 3: just delicious. It is so umabi. And yeah, she layers
Speaker 3: that the eggplant and the tomato sauce up and up
Speaker 3: and up until it fills up a whole cast iron skillet.
Speaker 3: And then you can put basil on top, you can
Speaker 3: add parmesan cheese, you can make it vegan. It really
Speaker 3: is just delicious. And then the next dish is also
Speaker 3: kind of a cast iron skillet layered into oblivion dish,
Speaker 3: and that actually might have to be my number one
Speaker 3: favorite dish. It's a sweet potato ana, which is basically
Speaker 3: you could make it. I mean, you could look up
Speaker 3: the recipe for regular like a potato ana. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a classic French dish, I believe. But we use
Speaker 3: white sweet potatoes, and so you mandolin them on a
Speaker 3: mandolin really really really thin rounds, wayh thinner than the
Speaker 3: eggplant from the I love you a lot of eggplant dish.
Speaker 3: And then you basically just layer those, you know, raw
Speaker 3: shaved circles of sweet potato again in a cast iron skillet,
Speaker 3: and you do like a circle of layering the sweet potatoes,
Speaker 3: and then you brush it with melted butter and put
Speaker 3: a little bit of salt, and then you do another
Speaker 3: layer of sweet potatoes and brush it with butter and
Speaker 3: do more salt, and you build that up and up
Speaker 3: and up until it fills up the whole cast iron skillet.
Speaker 3: And then you just bake that in the oven at
Speaker 3: around like three seventy five four hundred, maybe even three
Speaker 3: point fifty. Play with your temperature, mom, correct me, and
Speaker 3: then you just let it cook in there for like
Speaker 3: an hour hour and a half until it gets so
Speaker 3: caramelized and the edges get crispy and almost a little burnt,
Speaker 3: and the sweet potatoes just get gooey and yummy, and
Speaker 3: oh I could eat that all the time, except it
Speaker 3: takes so long to make I only ever really eat
Speaker 3: it around Christmas. Yeah, okay, well, thank you for that question, Abby.
Speaker 3: I am salivating now. I am so excited to eat that.
Speaker 1: That's a great question.
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas to you guys.
Speaker 3: Happy holidays.
Speaker 2: I hope you got all the goodies that you put
Speaker 2: on your list for Santa. I hope they brought you everything.
Speaker 3: I hope your house smells like pine and chimney smoke
Speaker 3: and just delicious, yummy things.
Speaker 1: And we are so grateful that you have stayed with
Speaker 1: us through the first season of watching Desperate Housewives and
Speaker 1: all of the conversations we've had. We love reading your
Speaker 1: messages and hearing your comments and your feedback, and we
Speaker 1: are just so desperately devoted to you as always. And
Speaker 1: Happy holidays.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go make yourself Christmas in California. Cocktail.
Speaker 2: I feel like we need to like jingle Bell our
Speaker 2: way out of Yes.