Dead serious
February 27, 2005
So what was the terrible secret that Mary Alice was dying to keep?
TV WEEK talked to her alter ego, actress Brenda Strong, to try and find out
Brenda, have you always known why Mary Alice committed suicide?
I do now, but I didn’t back in the beginning. Series creator Marc
Cherry and I were at a Christmas party and he took me aside and said,
"I think that you’re ready to hear why we did it." I have
to tell you that it was much nicer when I didn’t know, because
ignorance is bliss. It’s a huge responsibility knowing the kind
of inner weavings of the secret, of why this story is as twisted
as it is.
Were you impressed?
I was very impressed! I had no clue that that’s where it was going.
There were little tiny tidbits, but I didn’t guess the whole puzzle.
So how long before the rest of us find out?
That’s a really good question for Marc Cherry. I’m not sure when he’s
planning on letting it out, but I will be there for it, I guarantee!
Hopefully, it’ll carry over into season two.
Your voiceover has a certain wry, detached, even sardonic quality.
Is that intentional?
There is a little "sardonic" in there. I think that Marc
actually said, "In a way, you’re above it all. And you have this
sense of irony - you wish that you could tell them what you know now."
So there’s a little bit of a sardonic twist to the voice, and I
definitely enjoy those lines.
Are you laughing at them a little from wherever you are?
I really don’t want to laugh at the characters, because I think that
Mary Alice ultimately has great compassion for the characters and
their humanity. But I think she’s laughing with them a little bit,
and certainly with the audience.
Is there something in your voice that says, "I know something
they don’t know, and I’m not telling"?
I hope so. I hope there’s a bit of a secret there, a bit of "I’m
withholding and I’ll tell you when I’m ready". I think Mary Alice
definitely holds a lot of the secrets, I think she’s the keeper of the
secrets in certain respects, and she’ll be the revealer of certain
intimate secrets as each episode progresses.
Do the other actors know your secret?
I don’t think any of them really know what happened to Mary Alice,
and I think that’s good because their characters don’t know either.
So as these plot lines unfold they get to be surprised as well, which
helps the whole story along.
Why is Mary Alice so important to the show?
It’s like she’s the one centre of their lives, and once she’s taken out,
it’s like the centre of a wheel. When you miss that centre, all the
spokes go flying and that’s really what Mary Alice was.
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