Linda Dano is a busy woman. She guest starred on Desperate Housewives, she taped an episode for a WB sitcom, she’s guest hosting on Soap Talk this week beginning February 13th, and she’s gearing up to audition for pilot season. Soapdom was lucky enough to catch up with the busy soap legend while she was in between tapings of Soap Talk.
For starters, we had to ask Linda Dano about her on-screen son’s untimely demise on Desperate Housewives. Apparently, she didn’t know before hand what was in store for creepy George, your eerily friendly neighborhood pharmacist. She wasn't clued in until the show aired.
“I knew that night when I was watching my episode. You know, they don’t tell you anything at Desperate Housewives. I was so shocked when he bashed [the therapist’s head] against the bridge. Oh my God! I thought, ‘Oh dear, that doesn’t look good.’” Needless to say, “I wasn’t surprised when [George] died.”
Even though that pretty much ends her time on Wisteria Lane, Dano is going strong. On February 17th, she’ll pop up on the show What I Like About You, starring Jennie Garth. “I play Dan Cortese’s mother.” A role she seemed to have taken great pleasure in doing. “That was great fun. I enjoyed that a lot.”
Since she’s done both drama and comedy, Soapdom wanted to know if she preferred one to the other. Dano let us know she doesn’t discriminate, “I really love all of it, really. It depends on the role -- if the role has something you can get your teeth into.” As an actress, she may not prefer one genre to the other, but as a busy working woman she prefers comedy. “I love doing sitcoms. It’s easier with the sitcoms than the dramas because it’s sort of like doing Summer Stock. You really only shoot at the end of the week. It’s easier time wise.”
Ultimately though, she just wants to work. “Right now, it’s all about keeping busy,” she confided. Hopefully with her being in L.A. to audition, her dance card will remain full. But even though she admits “I haven’t been through pilot season in thirty years,” she has no fears. “I started in the business doing primetime. I’ve done three pilots in my life when I first began in the business. So now we’ll see if I can get a pilot this year.” We here at Soapdom will definitely keep our fingers crossed!
But while waiting for her next project to be decided, Dano is filling in for dancing queen Lisa Rinna on Soap Talk for a handful of episodes. Her co-host, Ty Treadway, was gracious enough to open the doors of his private dressing room and sit down with Soapdom as well to share what he has planned for his future.
First of all we had to know if he will be following in his co-hosts dancing shoes. Treadway joked, “I’m kind of with the dancing outreach program.” However, “If Master P can make it a bunch of weeks, I would try it, sure.” Perhaps we’ll have that to look forward to in season three!
Treadway went on to praise Rinna’s dancing ability. “I think Lisa’s doing a great job. I could never be as good as she is.” He also let us in on how she was selected for this season’s show. “They asked her to do the first one and she didn’t think it was going to be a huge hit. So she turned them down on the first one and I said ‘Wow, it’s a good thing you dodged that bullet.’” After the first season was proven to be a hit, “They did come back and ask her a second time and I think she pursued it a little bit as well. And it’s a perfect fit, she’s great at it.”
So with all of the pilot season talk and Rinna doing outside projects, Soapdom wanted to know if Treadway was interested in doing any primetime gigs himself. Apparently so, as he filled us in, “I just did an episode of Rodney on ABC and I went ‘You know what? This is a fun way to make a living, to just basically joke around all day.’ Which is kind of what we do at Soap Talk, but yeah, I would love to do a sitcom.”
While he’ll put himself “out there” during pilot season, it may create a scheduling conflict if he lands one. “I’d run into a little bit of a problem because [Soap Talk] shoots on Fridays and a lot of sitcoms shoot on Fridays.” However, as there are some sitcoms that film on Tuesdays, he playfully added, “So I have a narrow focus of who I can go after, but hopefully they need a type my size.”
In the meantime, Treadway has his 500th episode of Soap Talk to gear up for. While they haven’t set anything in stone yet, viewers can probably expect “A little something special. A little flash back of the five hundred episodes is going to be done and I’m sure we’ll probably have a few people come on that have been our guest a few times.” While no airdate was confirmed, viewers can look forward to this milestone sometime soon.
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