With “Why Women Kill”, showrunner Marc Cherry takes up the recipe that made “Desperate Housewives” successful: women and murders! – CBS BROADCASTING INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
- Marc Cherry, the creator of “Desperate Housewives”, is back on Thursday evening on M6 with a new series, with the ambiguous title: “Why Women Kill”
- The series follows three women, three marriages (and three murders?) At three different times.
- The screenwriter returns for “20 Minutes” to these portraits of women who have fascinated him for several decades
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With Lost, Grey’s Anatomyand Dr house, Desperate Housewives is part of his series for the start of the 2004 school year which revolutionized television, and above all launched the famous “series phenomenon” which is reflected today by
Peak TV. In eight years of existence, the creation of Marc Cherry has not always met with public and critical unanimity, but has managed to impose its housewives as heroines at once complex,
subversive and progressive.
Romance x Betrayal x Revenge
The creator of the legendary series Desperate Housewives is back with a new completely addictive series: #WhyWomenKill ????
???? Thursday March 26 at 9:05 p.m. pic.twitter.com/yaHxHdWJEV– M6 (@ M6) March 14, 2020
Marc Cherry wasted no time and put the cover back on with Devious maids, and a more discreet success, but always the same recipe: women and mysteries. Which is almost the title of his new series, Why women kill, broadcast from Thursday evening on M6 and dedicated to three women, three marriages and three different eras (1963, 1984 and 2019). A playful concept for a multiple portrait of women, which Marc Cherry returns to 20 minutes.
You started your career on “Les Craquantes” and its fifty-year-old heroines… Everything comes from there?
Oh yes ! (laughs) The Golden Girls [originaltitleof[titreoriginaldesCrunchy]was my first experience as a television screenwriter, and it was already a series about a group of women. I loved. A combination of circumstances and opportunities has made me find this model over the years and series: The Five Buchanan Ladies, Desperate Housewives, Devious Maids and now Why Women Kill. I tried to write something else[[Macho man, with Jason Bateman], but the portraits of women suit me best, so I’ve dedicated my whole career to them.
“Women and murders” has become your magic formula, hasn’t it?
I would rather say “women who do things they shouldn’t”. But neither am I trying to apply a formula or a recipe to each series, they come to me in very different ways. For Why women kill for example, I always had this idea of a woman who discovers that her husband is cheating on her and who sympathizes with her mistress, with all the consequences that this implies. Even the darkest ones. I wanted to make a film of it, which I never wrote.
Then Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Television company approached me to think about a new series. They rejected all of my proposals, but I mentioned my idea for a film. They loved it, but they wanted to make it into a series, and I didn’t necessarily have enough material to hold 10 episodes. This is how the structure was born with different marriages and different eras that contrast with each other and show how women and marriages have changed over time … or not.
Did this device allow you to make the ultimate portrait of women, of Women?
This especially allows to multiply the looks. Mine remains that of a middle-aged and conventional man, and I have also put a lot of my parents’ marriage, their lack of communication, in the plot that takes place in 1963. But for the present , and its polyamorous couple, I had to do research to find its dynamics.
From experience, I also know that you have to multiply the voices and the tones, that’s why I called on young authors for this couple both modern and complex. Joe Keenan, who had worked with me on Desperate Housewives and who is known for Frasier, mainly took care of the 1980s, and I wrote the plot and the couple from 1963, because they corresponded to my first idea, to the story that I wanted to tell for a long time.
OMG !!! ????????????
The credits of #WhyWomenKill ! ????♀️????
This new series starts VERY strong! ???? pic.twitter.com/Qm0PMpfR4E– Orpheus (@YannOrpheus) August 16, 2019
And this title “Why Women Kill”… It seems almost legitimate in these post-Weinstein and post #MeToo times.
There is that. But above all, streaming services have become so important, the series so numerous, that we needed a catchy title, which stands out. And of course that accounts for the lives of women today, their anger. Why women kill also suggests the dark and fun side of the series, a characteristic of my work.
How was the casting of the three heroines?
The process was after all classic, with a call throughout Hollywood, more or less known actresses. I had already met Ginnifer Goodwin, I know her from Once Upon A Time, and when I saw her name circulating, I immediately thought she would be perfect for the role of Beth Ann. As for Lucy Liu, I’m a big fan, but I was thinking more of her for Taylor. Finally, she also auditioned for the role of Simone. She was terrified of playing it but got started. Now we had to find our Taylor, and I noticed Kirby Howell-Baptiste in the first season of Killing Eve. And There you go !
Revenge is a dish that is eaten cold ???? @LucyLiu is Simone in #WhyWomenKill, from Thursday March 26 at 21:05 pic.twitter.com/PEJo3BKzWL
– M6 (@ M6) March 18, 2020
Has the idea always been to make an anthological series, with curly seasons?
Yes, I wanted to do something different from Desperate Housewives, its eight seasons and some 180 episodes. Between us, the most difficult was to find a cliffhanger at the end of each season, so that the public can come back the following season. With Why women kill, I have the opportunity to do a full season on the go, and explore new characters and situations the following year. And if there is no new season, it does not matter, and less frustrating for me, the series is held anyway. I got it pitched so on the network, it would both be artistically more fun and there was no reason why I should be bored. I really needed this change.
Are you already working on season 2?
Yes, it will be very different, even in terms of structure. I don’t want to say any more for the moment, but it doesn’t say that I take all three timelines. There will however always be a question of a woman a priori ordinary who discovers a secret about her husband. Ah, and murder.
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