James Denton as Mike Delfino in “Desperate Housewives.” YouTube
Desperate Housewives fans weren’t thrilled with the episode where Mike Delfino got shot but James Denton actually had a blast filming his character’s death.
Denton, 61, was asked his favorite episode of the series, to which he told People on Sunday, December 29, “The one where I got shot. It’s always fun to get chills on camera.”
During season 8 of Desperate Housewives, Mike was killed in a drive-by shooting in front of his fictional home on Wisteria Lane. Denton broke down what went into bringing that scene to life, which included special effects and a tubing rig to emulate blood.
“You have one tube up one leg of your pants that has the blood to your chest, and you have a wire running down the other leg. This guy is out in the bushes with a detonator to set the blast off,” he recalled. “And you can only do it about two or three times and that’s the whole day.”
Related: Eva! Teri! Felicity! ‘Desperate Housewives’ Cast: Where Are They Now?
Apples up! Desperate Housewives premiered in 2004 — and hooked fans into the drama surrounding the women of Wisteria Lane. The Marc Cherry-created mystery comedy-drama made its debut on ABC October 3, 2004, with main cast members Teri Hatcher (Susan Mayer), Felicity Huffman (Lynette Scavo), Marcia Cross (Bree Van de Kamp) and Eva Longoria (Gabrielle Solis) […]
Denton credited his scene partner — and onscreen love interest — Teri Hatcher for helping sell the moment. (Mike pushed Hatcher’s character, Susan, out of the way to save her life from a loan shark’s bullet.)
James Denton as Mike Delfino and Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer in “Desperate Housewives.” YouTube
“Teri was so brilliant in that scene,” Denton continued. “I was lying in her lap, you know, bleeding out from the big crane shot up above. It was before there were drones, obviously. She’s just sobbing uncontrollably. And she did it all day long. And it was so hard for me not to break up and cry because she was so heartbreaking.”
Desperate Housewives, which aired on ABC from 2004 to 2012, followed a group of women living in the fictional town of Fairview as they weathered a slew of personal issues over the span of 15 years. Hatcher, 60, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria and Nicollette Sheridan made up the main cast.
While Mike’s death hit hard, he was one of countless characters killed off during the show’s eight-year run.
“It was a lot of death,” Denton noted. “The guys joked the entire run, ‘Who was gonna get killed?’ because for all of the talk about Housewives being so salacious, there wasn’t that much sex — but there was a lot of murder. We killed 56 characters.”
Denton appreciated creator Marc Cherry consulting with him on Mike’s death since the show’s stars never received full scripts during Desperate Housewives‘ final season.
“[We] were always joking about who was gonna be the last man standing,” the actor revealed. “‘Can we just survive another season?’ [Then] they actually called me in to talk about killing Delfino off — which I thought was very respectful of them — and said, ‘We wanna do something big before the finale that doesn’t involve the women.’”
Denton was ultimately “very happy” with Mike’s “big send-off,” adding, “I love that [fans] are really sweet, almost everyone I talk to comments on the fact that they cried when Delfino got shot, but it was set up brilliantly by the writer Matt Berry and Marc. [They] really set up people emotionally, which is not very fair.”
Despite Wisteria Lane experiencing so much death, Cherry, 62, hasn’t ruled out a return — with a twist.
“I would probably want to do the idea maybe in an earlier decade. Because the character I miss writing the most is actually Wisteria Lane,” the producer told People last month. “That was the most fun playground anyone in the history of television has ever had, because we owned the whole street. “I know that street like the back of my hand. When someone shoots a commercial on that street, I know it instantly, because I know all those houses, I know the geography. It was such a fun place to write for.”
Related: ‘Desperate Housewives’ Behind-the-Scenes Drama Over the Years
Desperate Housewives captured the attention of the public for eight seasons — but the behind-the-scenes drama has kept people talking. The ABC series premiered in 2004 and was created by Marc Cherry. Starring Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria, the show followed a group of women living on the same fictional street […]
Cherry teased that ideas have come to mind since wrapping up Desperate Housewives.
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“I feel like if I ever got a chance to do that show again, I’d be better at the job. I learned so much,” he explained, before going on to reveal that thousands of people have asked him about a potential reboot. “The truth of the matter is that I have a couple of ideas to do it. There is still stuff that needs to be said.”
Cherry added: “If you do a reboot, you have to have a really good artistic reason to do it. And at some point, I’ll sit down with someone and go, ‘OK, let’s talk about if there’s a good enough ‘why’ to do it.’”
Desperate Housewives is currently streaming on Hulu.
