The actress on the seminal ABC series plus comparing DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and MELROSE PLACE

If a take on the set of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES is interrupted by a ringing cell phone, you may be sure that the offending sound will not be the fault of actress Marcia Cross. Not that she won’t pick up – you just won’t hear it first.

“Mine’s on silent and I answer it,” the actress laughs. “It doesn’t have time to ring.” This may be because in real life, Cross is the mother of two young children and, like most working parents, wants to be no more than a phone call away if they need her.

Cross, a native of Massachusetts, has been on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES from its 2004 beginnings as the prim and proper Bree Van De Kamp Hodge, who finally has begun to let her hair down socially and sexually as the years progressed.

Like her colleagues, series creator Marc Cherry and actresses Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman and Eva Longoria, Cross has bittersweet feelings about the end of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, which airs on ABC Sundays at 9 PM, after eight eventful seasons. Among the things she’ll miss, Cross points out, is proximity to Cherry. “He lives right next door.”

This is almost literally true – the Wisteria Lane set, an actual cul-de-sac constructed at Universal Studios in North Hollywood, is walking distance from Cherry’s home.

Cross will also likely miss the hot romantic scenes she got to play as Bree. Recalling her onscreen romance with Brian Austin Green, who played Bree’s hunky blue-collar boyfriend Keith in Season Seven, Cross first says jokingly of Cherry, “He made me do it!” Regarding Green, she adds, “I started blushing whenever we acted together. Seriously. We did a scene and I was just like, ‘He’s touching me …’ I’m like,” she indicates blushing and re-enacts a nervous, “Hunnh.”

As far as what Cross would like to do in the last episode, she says, “I made a joke that I wanted to walk around in a bikini.” She looks pointedly at Cherry. “But it was a joke, so do not put that one in there, thank you.”

The actress isn’t particularly keen to talk about the end of the series before it occurs. “I know,” Cross agrees when Huffman notes that discussing the finale ahead of time is like having a funeral before a death.

Cross is, however, willing to compare DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES to her previous gig on MELROSE PLACE, the nighttime soap in which she played the unstable Kimberly Shaw from 1992 through 1997. She uses famous artists as an analogy. “I’ve always said – what comes to my mind, and I don’t know if this is legitimate or not, but I thought of MELROSE PLACE as like Andy Warhol and I think of this as like [the paintings of Wassily] Kandinsky or Francis Bacon. One [MELROSE] was like pop art – not that Andy Warhol wasn’t a genius, but it was like of its time and very famous, but this [HOUSEWIVES] is much more complicated and rich and interesting.”

Twins! That’s what makes Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross’s life all the more sweeter. She’s been through a lot, but her family is stronger than ever. Marcia and her husband, Tom Mahoney, have been married since 2006. Mahoney is currently receiving treatment for cancer. Their 2-year-old twin daughters, Eden and Savannah, have helped them get through those tough times.

Marcia, who in real life is nothing like her character Bree, made time in her busy schedule to talk to me about motherhood!

Cafe MichelleL: Tell me about your daughters.

Marcia Cross: My daughters are the blessings of my life! The difficult thing about having twins is making alone time for each of the girls. I try to make time for Eden and Savannah, one-on-one time with just mommy.

CM: What’s a challenge for you, as a mom of a twin girls?
MC: I feel guilty sometimes, when I try to spend time with just one of the girls. I love them both so much, it’s hard to choose! But I know that it’s important to have alone time with me. I need to work on this.

There are so many good things about being a mom of twins. No matter what, they have each other. It’s beautiful to watch them, they are so different in so many ways but so alike, too.

CM: How do the girls sleep?
MC: The girls are both pretty good sleepers. But when one of them gets sick..that’s when they have trouble sleeping. It goes in phases.

CM: What do you do when the girls are sick and can’t sleep?
MC: I take Eden or Savannah, whoever is can’t sleep, into our guest bedroom. We call it the peach room, and I sleep in this room with the sick baby.

This works pretty well but sometimes the girls ask for “the peach room” at bedtime and I have to tell them that’s just for when they are sick. It’s so sweet and I love waking up with my kids, they are so precious, especially in the morning.

CM: What has surprised you most about being a mom?
MC: (Laughs) Everything! I feel so lucky. Tom and I are so glad we have the girls, it’s been amazing.

Of course you’re familiar with Bree Van De Camp from Desperate Housewives, but if you loved to hate the psychotic Dr. Kimberly Shaw on Melrose Place,you are a true Marcia Cross fan. We recently had the good fortune of chatting with the refreshingly real Marcia about surviving her demanding shooting schedule, the daily dramas of life with twins and somehow finding time for friendship.

It sounds so corny but really – how do you do it? How long are your shooting days – are the twins on set? Do you get to put them to sleep most nights?
Oh goodness. There really is no typical day in the life. There are so many moving variables. The schedule changes every ten days. Some days I will be home all day and able to get them up, be with them and put them to bed. When I have those rare days, I want to just be with them – I feel too guilty to even see a friend or go to the gym. Because set days often last 12 or more hours a day. I am always feeling guilty about something. The producers are flexible – to a point. When you aren’t with them it is really hard. They do come to the set. And they are really good when they are there. There are fussy moments, though, when I have to rehearse with one of the twins on my hip.

We’ve always wanted to ask a high profile mom how it feels to have her kids in national magazines all the time. Does it make you proud to see them referred to as beautiful kids – or do you just wish you could keep them out of the public eye all together?
I personally have never arranged to have them photographed. But the paparazzi do capture them from time to time. I guess that’s just part of the deal. Most of the time I don’t even notice that a picture is being taken. And I have to admit that I love looking at other people with their kids in the magazines.

Given the consistent schedule and its local nature, is your hope to always work in series television?

God no. The one hour drama is the hardest schedule out there. A half-hour sit-com is much better. Even film work you can take a break from. This has to be the most grueling job an actor can have.

I am sure you have been asked this often — but how much crazier is it with twins?

I guess I don’t really know if it is crazier — because it’s the only thing I’ve ever known. I do wish I had more alone time with each of the girls. I always feel guilty trying to take one twin somewhere without the other. That part is really hard. You end of battling with yourself about which one to spend time with first and then you just forget it and all stay together.

Now that you have kids, do you feel drawn toward “mom” character roles – or are you offended by the notion that because you are a mom, you should play one?

I guess I never really thought about it before. It seems natural when you get to a certain age to play the part of a woman with kids. But I played moms before I had kids too.

One of the themes that our writers and readers consistently touch on is the need for women to spend time with similarly situated empathetic friends as often as they can. That kind of time is what can keep us sane. What kind of support network do you rely on?

I do talk to Felicity Huffman on the set — she is a great one to talk to about parenting issues. I have a lot of other mom friends — but so little time. When I catch one of them on the phone on the fly — I will ask them to call our mutual friends to catch everyone else up on any news. I always do feel recharged and revitalized after speaking with my friends.

You’ve teamed up with Mott’s and Feeding American for a very worthwhile cause — tell us a little big about your involvement and the “WAKE UP CALL.”

Motts came to me with a great idea — a great program with a mission to feed America’s hungry children. By simply visiting Motts.com, people can send a wake-up call from me to themselves, or to a friend, for free. For every call placed, Mott’s will donate one dollar to Feeding America. It really is a wonderful program

The actress and mother of two talks about Desperate Housewives, raising her girls and her love of people-watching.

Earlier this month at the New Museum, infant brand Bright Starts honored its 2011 Pink Power Super Mom, Mary Ann Wasil Nilan, who was nominated by her two daughters for her braveness while battling breast cancer. After the event, Time Out Kids sat down with guest speaker Marcia Cross, mother of four-year-old twins Eden and Savannah, to chat about her seven seasons of Desperate Housewives, adjusting to motherhood and her endless fascination with New York City.

What are your favorite things to do when you visit the city?
I travel a lot. And even though L.A. is my home, I love New York. I feel like a fish, and I’m in the right water. I don’t need to be kept busy. I can literally walk down the street. I love to go to museums and I love to shop, but I’m completely fascinated by people-watching and architecture. Everything that’s happening on the street is so interesting. L.A. is so…L.A.

Did you bring your girls with you this time?
I looked at Time Out Kids before I came because I thought I was bringing my girls, [but] I didn’t and I’m going to get in trouble for it! I really want to figure out what to do with them. I want to do it properly. I want to show them everything. They’re four, so I really need to make sure I plan the whole day.

You’ve been playing a mom on Desperate Housewives since long before they were born. How have your views on motherhood changed since then?
They change daily. One minute I have it figured out and the next I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s intensely enjoyable and intensely hard. I’ll say that I need a break, but then I get a break and I miss them.

Do you think Eden and Savannah will end up in show business when they get older?
One of them might end up doing something musical, but I don’t really know. I want them to do whatever they want to do.

How do you balance working and being a mom?
I always say that there isn’t a balance.

It sounds like you’re very busy with motherhood, acting and charity work, but if you could add one more thing to the mix, what would it be?
My friends. When I signed on for Desperate Housewives, I never thought I’d be doing it so long. But it’s been seven years.

There’s been some talk about the show ending after season 8. How would you feel if that happened?
It’s been a great run, and I don’t have a complaint in the world.

Actress Marcia Cross is enjoying life, marriage, and a successful career. She’s probably best know for the role of Bree Van De Kamp on “Desperate Housewives.”

Marcia is also a migraineur who was kind enough to spend some time talking about migraine disease, how she handles her migraines, and why she thinks it’s important to be properly diagnosed and treated.

ABOUT: Thank you for being willing to share your experiences with migraine disease. How frequently do you have migraine attacks?

CROSS: I’ve been really lucky lately. I haven’t had any since I’ve been pregnant. I feel like I’ve gotten them down to three to four a year. So I’m really doing well, which was not the case in the beginning. I really watch stress, and my trigger foods, and all the things I need to do to stay migraine-free. I just cannot stand that pain. For me, I just have to go home and get in a dark room and wait for it to pass. But waiting for it to pass still involves some pain.

ABOUT: Have you been able to manage your migraines with trigger management and abortive medication, or do you use any over-the-counter or prescription preventives at all?

CROSS: No preventatives, but I carry medicine with me at all times.

ABOUT: From your holiday tips, it’s really obvious that you place a strong emphasis on trigger management.

CROSS: Well, yes, because that’s the time of year when everybody stresses. Needlessly, I might add, because it’s really not the point of the holiday. You know, if you don’t have the perfect present, or if the turkey’s a little overcooked. It’s not worth getting a migraine over as far as I’m concerned.

ABOUT: Absolutely. Your family wants you, and what good are you with a migraine?

CROSS: None. You’re not there.

ABOUT: What are your triggers, Marcia?

CROSS: Oh, gosh. Red wine, chocolate, cheddar cheese, oranges. Those are my mainstays that I just really don’t touch. And then being stressed out … I work really hard now [so] that I don’t stress the way that I used to. I’m not as internally tightly wound as I used to be. (laugh)

ABOUT: Don’t you think migraines teach us a lot about ourselves?

CROSS: Yeah, they do! And sometimes what would happen to me in the old days is that I would go through something incredibly stressful … and I wasn’t taking care of myself. And after it was all over was when I’d get just a searing migraine. It would kind of wait until the stress peaked, and then when I let go, I’d get the migraine. And I’d be like, gosh, I didn’t even realize that I’d been stressing so badly. Now I don’t let that happen.

ABOUT: Did you do an elimination diet to identify food triggers, or were they so obvious that you didn’t need to do that?

CROSS: I just wrote them down, so if they were more than once, they seemed pretty obvious over time. But I didn’t do that for a long while … I wish I’d started earlier, but it’s that kind of thing where you’re just kind of a victim to something, and then you sort of say, “Now I’ve gotta do whatever I can to be my own health advocate and change this.” I think that’s one of the reasons it’s good to speak out, because people can do things to be healthier and feel better. Even just getting diagnosed and having medication. I have a friend who would suffer with them and then the husband would run over for my medication. I’d be like, “It’s too late! Go to the doctor. This happens every two months.”

ABOUT: Part of it is that people don’t want to look at migraine as a disease, whereas they wouldn’t hesitate to do something if they had thyroid disease or diabetes. So you wonder why they hesitate to do something about migraine disease.

CROSS: I think it’s because they get confused that it’s just a headache, a really bad headache. I think when people get that in their heads, they can say, “Oh, it’s a bad headache.”

ABOUT: Maybe partly it’s because it’s an episodic disease. It doesn’t affect them every day.

CROSS: Right. So a little time will pass, and who wants to go to the doctor? So I think it just slips by.

ABOUT: Other than avoiding your triggers, what lifestyle methods do you use to minimize their impact?

CROSS: I really think that having done a lot of work on my inside has really helped, too … as you get older, you sort of take life with a little more ease. So, any sort of work you do to just kind of be at peace with your own day and your own situation is helpful. Having that threat around really keeps things modulated because, is it really worth it when you start getting tense or uptight about something? I think that really has made a difference. Keep things in perspective. A lot of it has to do with how we view whatever’s going on with us. One can work oneself up into that amount of stress. Nobody is really doing it to you. You can look at a situation in a completely different way that takes that [stress] out of the picture. I do yoga, love to hike, just let things go.

ABOUT: I know you’re involved in a campaign encouraging people with “frequent bad headaches” to see their doctors for diagnosis. In your own words, why is this so important?

CROSS: I guess because it’s been so awful for me, it was so terrible. It’s been such a painful journey, especially in the beginning when I didn’t know what was happening, and I would have those early symptoms of my fingers tingling or that weird peripheral vision thing. I remember not being able to remember my friends’ names or phone numbers when I was with them. It’s absolutely terrifying. You feel like you’re having a stroke or something. I think finding out about it, getting medication, learning to take care of myself — it puts you in an entirely different place from being a victim of something that’s happening to you.

ABOUT: I love so much of what you’re saying because we no longer have to be controlled by this disease. We can control it, instead of it controlling us. Have you found that attitudes people have about migraines are changing?

CROSS: I hope so. I hope people are getting much more educated today about the difference between a migraine and a headache, and the fact that there are things you can do. Certainly when I was younger, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know to get diagnosed. I didn’t know there was anything I could do about it. Hopefully, just the information getting out there and people taking care of it sooner, then that will help.

ABOUT: So it was a colleague you worked with on “Melrose Place” who told you about the abortive medications?

CROSS: Yes, and it was right after that I went to the doctor, and I started taking the pills. So that was a life changer. You really want to try to not even get to that point because it’s just better not to.

ABOUT: I’ve read that your husband is really understanding, that you told him about your migraines early on, and he’s super hubby. He’s supportive and takes care of you.

CROSS: He said to me, “What does a headache feel like?” because he’s never had a headache. Forget about a migraine, he’s never had a headache.

ABOUT: It also sounds like you’ve had fairly good luck with doctors, with them taking you seriously.

CROSS: Yes, but it took me a long time to get to one. I also have a very classic case with migraines with the aura, so it was easily diagnosed.

ABOUT: Do you actually go ahead and start your treatment when you notice the aura instead of waiting for the headache?

CROSS: Absolutely immediately, yes.

ABOUT: What is the worst symptom of the migraine for you? Is it the headache?

CROSS: Well, certainly that’s the most painful, but the most frightening really used to be the loss of my short-term memory or the ability to think. They don’t start that severely any more. They just start with the aura, but it used to be that would just terrify me. It’s a different kind of pain, and there’s the fear and that terror that you’re losing your mind.

ABOUT: If you were to speak directly to our readers, is there anything else you would say to them?

CROSS: I would just say not to be a victim and to be your own health advocate, and to take it into your own hands. You actually can affect the number of migraines you have and your quality of life, and it’s worth the effort. It will increase your entire healthy lifestyle and reduce your migraines, so it’s a win-win situation, I think.

ABOUT: Thank you again for your time and being so open with us.

CROSS: Oh, you’re welcome.

From Melrose Place to Wisteria Lane, actress Marcia Cross has charmed audiences with her impeccable style, sharp wit and that gorgeous red hair. But behind her Hollywood shell, Marcia is a wife, spokeswoman, and most importantly to us, mom!

A favorite here at CBB, Marcia is seen out regularly with her adorable two-year-old twins, Eden and Savannah, playing in the park, running to the grocery store and just enjoying life.

Marcia recently took a few minutes out of a busy visit to New York City to talk to CBB about life as a mom and her daughters’ budding personalities.

You always look like you’re having so much fun – you’re always at the park! You’re definitely a site favorite.

We do have a lot of fun. I’m a happy mom!

We asked our readers to send us their questions for you. Reader Callie asks, since you are out so often, we see you photographed a lot. How do you keep paparazzi from interfering with your lives?

I realized that there was nothing I could do about it. Being upset about the paparazzi would put me in a cranky mood and ruin my time. I decided I didn’t want that to happen, so I’ve just ignored them.

There have been a couple of times when I’ve gotten upset, usually when boundaries are crossed. There’s a certain protocol that even the paparazzi seem to follow, and when that’s broken then I get a bit outraged. But for the most part if they keep their distance, my children don’t really know what’s going on, so I’m fine with that.

I just block it out. I don’t look up, I try not to think about it, and I get on with my life and enjoy my day.

What do you do if that line is crossed?

My “mother fangs” will come out. But I usually don’t talk to them if I’m at the park or going about my day.

Sometimes they’re nice – they’ve given me pictures, or they’ll give me privacy for a day. There are all kinds of photographers.

Reader Jane asks, what else do you do to make sure Eden and Savannah have normal childhoods?

Well, they are having normal childhoods! They don’t know where they are, or who I am on TV. I’m just their mom and they’re just growing up. As they get older, if I’m still in the public eye, then we’re going to have issues to deal with, but right now it’s just completely normal.

Do you plan playdates with other moms and their kids?

We have lots of playdates! Most of my friends had kids quite a while ago, so their kids are in the 10ish age range, so these are new friends, kids from the park, kids from “mommy and me,” people I’m meeting now, people in the neighborhood. We play with lots of twins! There are three sets of twins in our neighborhood.

You’ve talked about the girls being very different – sometimes people forget twins aren’t identical people! Reader Christine asks how are Eden and Savannah most different, and how are they most alike?

They’re kind of most alike in that they’re both very happy. They have happy spirits and temperamentally, they’re very good-natured. They’re different in that one seems to be incredibly empathic, and the other is more inclined to see how things work, and figure them out mechanically.

I’m also really careful not to stick labels on them, because one is more extroverted in social situations, but these things come and go and change. So I think of them as very malleable. I’m seeing them as who they are. One tends to be a little more introverted in public situations, but I don’t ever say she’s shy in front of her, because I don’t want her to take that on, because maybe she’s not comfortable in that place but somewhere else she is comfortable. I just want to let them develop.

Reader Lisa asks, what are some of their favorite things to do with you?

One of their new obsessions is, “Go in the front back seat mama!” They like to get in the car, and I’ll pretend we’re driving to Santa Barbara, and they’ll walk all around the car, open the glove compartment, hit all the buttons. They have a blast!

They love to go to the park, and one especially loves reading books together. They love the backyard, the swings. There are just so many things to do.

And now – this is a reflection of their mother – they say, “Go to a café mama?” They love to go out with me to have lunch or get a cup of coffee. They tease me for my coffee drinking.

Do your daughters enjoy role-play such as cooking or dressing up?

They like to help! If I’m making pancakes they want to stir. I let them get involved. I see them doing that with their dolls – mimicking me.

In fact, we were coming down the stairs the other day, and one sat down and said, “Let’s talk about it!” I thought, “Who says that?” And I realized, “It’s me!” I’m sure every mother has that moment where they realize their children are repeating things they say. If they get upset or whatever, I say, “Let’s talk about that,” so now they’re saying it.

Every mom knows that working and being with your family means being organized and on a schedule. Readers Amy and Editorjax are interested in how you keep work and family balanced. What are some of the little things you do to simplify your life?

I try to be present when I’m with my girls, which is probably why I look like I’m having so much fun. I try not to multitask, or be on my phone when I’m with them. I bring them to work sometimes, which isn’t easy, but necessary. It’s stressful but important.

This is a particularly hard week because I had three full days before I left, and now I’m in New York. The girls aren’t with me; I was working 12-hour days before I left. When I come back I only work two days in the next episode [of Desperate Housewives], so I’ll have lots of time to be with them. But when it gets unbalanced, like now, I don’t have any solution for the time problem. I mean, my kids are fine. They’re happy; dad’s been with them. I have a little Web camera so I can see them at home, which is a brilliant gadget. It helps to have that connection, to have that camera and see and hear them.

Motherhood is never one emotion! If you have kids, you’re with them and 80 percent is so happy to be there and 20 percent of you wants to get your nails done and have a cup of coffee. You have to know that that’s normal. When you’re not with them, you think you should be totally carefree and have a moment to yourself, and part of you is missing them and aching for them. It’s never just 100 percent of everything.

Despite claims that the long-running drama Desperate Housewives would run until 2013, the show’s creator Marc Cherry recently announced that the upcoming eighth season would be its last. How are the actresses going to cope away from Wisteria Lane?

We caught up with Marcia Cross, best known for her portrayal of neurotic redhead Bree Van de Kamp, to find out…

How much will you miss Bree when Desperate Housewives finally ends?
“I will miss Bree immensely. We’ve been through so much together. We’ve tackled marriages, babies, deaths, cancer… It’s been a long, interesting journey on Desperate Housewives, so it’s going to be difficult to say goodbye. She will be like an old friend that I will miss dearly, although as an actor you always look forward to doing new things. I guess it’s bittersweet.”

How did you receive the news of the end?
“My manager called and the network called and Marc called… Everybody called! I feel like I knew the end was coming because there were a lot of rumors, but I’m glad that the news is finally out there. Now, we can enjoy this last year on the show and make it really fantastic. I feel good because we are all on the same page for the last year and we can really enjoy it together.”

Did you speak to the other Housewives about the news?
“I had said to all the girls, ‘They are making an announcement about the show and they don’t make an announcement unless there is something to announce’. I don’t know why, but everybody else was in denial. However, I was very clear this news was coming. I immediately texted Felicity Huffman as soon as it was confirmed. She actually found out the news through my text.”

How special is it for all four of you – Teri Hatcher, Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman and yourself – to be there for the end of the show?
“I couldn’t imagine it any other way. You know what? Marc Cherry didn’t want to keep going without all four of us because he thought the quality of the show would suffer, so I think this is the perfect moment to say goodbye. As I said before, it’s bittersweet – but we’re looking forward to another year of fun before we finally say goodbye.”

How do you think the show will end?
“Marc has always said that he knew how he was going to end the show. He reveals a lot of his ideas to us, but he’s never revealed this news. I know it’s going to be a wonderful finale and I’m excited to see how he envisions it, but I have no idea what the end entails.”

Is there a specific storyline you want to see resolved before the final curtain falls on the show?
“To be honest, I just leave everything to Marc. I’m happy to do whatever he says. He’s had eight wonderful years to think up an ending for us, so I’m excited to see how he’s envisioned the next few months. However, I would definitely love to see all of Bree’s men again. She’s had a lot of fabulous men over the years, from Steven Culp to Kyle MacLachlan to Brian Austin Green and Roger Bart. I’d love to see them all return before we finish.”

How has life changed for you since you joined the show?
“How didn’t it change? During the show I got married, I had twins and I took care of my husband at one point when he was sick. I went from thinking I was giving up my acting career to working on a hugely successful show. I’ve been working so hard for the past eight years and I’m tired – but I’m also deliciously tired because what a wonderful life I’ve lived. I’m looking forward to having a rest and being able to give to those I haven’t been able to see.”

Do you still get excited when you go to work?
“No matter how tired I get, driving through Universal lot is always amazing. It’s such a thrill. I’ve had such joy and a sense of privilege that I have had this great job. It feels wonderful to belong here, and it makes me weepy to think that there’s only one year left after season seven.”

What will you do when the show ends?
“I’m not going to think about things like this right now. I’m not really a planner, which is very different to Bree. I’m sure she has everything mapped out for the next five years, but I like to see how things evolve. It’s going to be very different to have time on my hands, but we’ll just have to see what happens.”

Will you keep any souvenirs from the set?
“I’d like to keep a nice set of Bree’s signature pearls. That’s what I’d like to keep. But that’s all. I don’t need anything else. I’ve got loads of wonderful memories.”

Would you consider a Desperate Housewives spinoff?
“A spinoff would be fun, but I don’t think that will happen in a million years.”

What about a reunion in ten years?
“I guess people will want to see us together in the future. I want to be Betty White! Perhaps we’ll sort something further down the line, but let’s just focus on the final season for now.”

She doesn’t cook, and she isn’t well organized. She laughs easily and likes hanging out in cargo pants. No one would describe her as high-strung. In fact, Marcia Cross is pretty much the antithesis of Bree Van De Kamp, the fierce, tightly wound perfectionist she plays so convincingly on Desperate Housewives. While Bree finds solace in her carefully polished silver and artfully arranged peonies, “I really have to force myself to tidy up around the house,” Cross says with a laugh. “I wish I could do all the things Bree does. But those are not my strong suits.”

Here’s another difference between the two: At 44, Cross is pregnant with twins, having married money manager Tom Mahoney, 49, last June in a church wedding that included 240 guests, seven flower girls, and a five-foot-high wedding cake layered with roses and lilacs. The babies are due at the end of April, just as Housewives stops shooting for the season.

Cross’s pregnancy is not being written into the show — the plotlines were established too far in advance — which means her burgeoning belly has to be hidden from view. She’s been wearing more sweaters on camera, though now “we’re just shooting chest and above,” she says. Adds fellow Housewife Teri Hatcher: “We have a lot of jokes about what to hide Marcia’s pregnancy with. A few days ago, we used an entire gingerbread house.”

Now that Cross is expecting, her face and figure are fuller: Her breasts, she exclaims, are “ginormous.” The extra curves make her look more approachable and vulnerable than the sewing-needle-thin ladies of Wisteria Lane. This afternoon, she’s wearing a black cotton scoop-neck shift with an Empire waist as she sits in a health food restaurant near her home in Los Angeles, sipping chai latte. The snooty, stiff way she holds her neck as Bree — as if she’s just caught the scent of something decidedly unpleasant — is completely absent. Instead, Cross is an intent and careful listener, and unlike Bree, who wears a smile so fake a diamond couldn’t scratch it, she often breaks into peals of hearty laughter. “She does a kind of whoop with her laugh that you can hear all across the soundstage,” says Felicity Huffman, who plays the beleaguered Lynette on Housewives. ”Bree is a master at hiding how she feels; with Marcia, you know what’s going down right away. She wears her heart on her sleeve.”

At one time, that was almost literally true. Before she met her husband, Cross says, she was involved with a string of men who had no interest in marriage or family and who broke her heart. Then, three years ago, “I decided to stop picking the wrong men,” she says. And yet, she adds, “I’d given up on finding the right one.”

Around that time, she also started to feel that her acting career had peaked. Cross had achieved some notoriety as the psychotic doctor Kimberly Shaw on the nighttime soap Melrose Place, which she followed with a role in the TV dramaEverwood with Treat Williams. But she was not optimistic about the future: “I remember thinking, Wow. OK, maybe I’m done. I started to feel like I didn’t want to waste my life if I couldn’t get to a better place professionally.”

With the prospect of two dreams — an acting career and a happy marriage — fading, Cross decided to take action. A few years earlier, she’d begun work on a master’s degree in psychology. “I was definitely heading toward becoming a therapist,” she says now. And man or no man, Cross was determined to adopt a child. She might miss out on marriage, but no way was she going to miss out on being a mother.

Which is why, when she was sent the script of an ABC pilot called Desperate Housewives, she wanted to read for a small part, that of Mary Alice Young, the deceased narrator.

“I thought it would be a great part-time job for a single mom.” Cross flashes a smile and then says, “Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.”

Obviously not. The hit show is now in its third season, and Cross and company are seen by an audience of more than 21 million viewers each week. Suddenly, everything is falling into place for Marcia Cross, in a way so perfect that not even Bree could have planned it better.

It’s taken Cross by surprise, in part because conventional wisdom says these things tend not to happen to women her age. “And I’m getting to be well over 40,” she points out. On her 15th birthday, Cross recalls, she went to one of her sisters in tears, feeling devastated. “I said, ‘I’m 15, and I’m halfway there.’ I thought my life would be over at 30 — when my life didn’t even start until then.”

Cross is reluctant to take credit for her recent run of good fortune. “It’s not like you just put your mind to it and it happens. I was stuck in my acting career. I was stuck in my personal life, and it was painful. I had to look good and hard at myself.” Still, she does allow that if you “take some responsibility for what you’ve created, then you have the power to change it.”

It was her resolve that caught the attention of Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry. And it suggests that Marcia Cross and Bree Van De Kamp may have something in common after all. “When I wrote the character of Bree,” says Cherry, “I thought that her strength is that she’s a woman who says, ‘I’m not going to freak out when my life is falling apart. I’m going to take action and do something.’ Marcia has a similar quality. She’s had hard times, but she’s smart enough to say, ‘I’m going to deal with it and move on.’ I’ve met a lot of actors who are neurotic and let their struggles incapacitate them. Marcia is not the type to be incapacitated by anything.”

The middle of three sisters, Cross grew up in Marlborough, MA, about 40 miles from Boston: “All my friends were, like, ‘When I get married, I’m going to have my bridesmaids wear mint-green dresses.’ But all I wanted was to be an actress and go to New York.”

And so she did, after graduating half a year ahead of her high school class. She got into Juilliard and stayed at a YMCA until she found an apartment with a classmate. “I saw my first cockroaches and hookers,” Cross says. “I was in heaven!” Regional theater, roles on soap operas (The Edge of Night, One Life to Live), and guest appearances on TV series led her to Hollywood, where she landed her breakout role on Melrose Place in 1992.

A few years before, she had started a relationship with Richard Jordan, a Harvard-educated actor 24 years her senior. Asked about the age difference, Cross says now, “You can always go to the father-daughter thing, and I’m sure that was part of it. But it was a wonderful teaching thing where he got the awe of a young girl and I got the benefit of everything he knew in his life.” Five years after they met, Jordan died of a brain tumor, having been nursed by his daughter and Cross. “He died in my bed,” Cross says quietly, “and I learned a lot about the kind of person I was. And as young as I was, taking care of him the way I did, giving him a good death, gave me some pride that I’d done something good, which I still feel.”

Understandably, Jordan’s death derailed her. After she left Melrose Place, Cross took a break from acting and went back to school in Los Angeles. In 2002, about the time she received her M.A., she had a relationship with a musician whom she declines to name, “a wonderful artist but not a family man.” The interlude led her to do some soul-searching. “Why was I choosing these men who were not interested in commitment?” she asks. “What was I afraid of?”

Over the next year, she dated widely. Without using her own photo or name, she even went on a match.com date — but no luck. Eventually, despairing thoughts began to creep into her head: “For women of a certain age, how do you meet a guy, fall in love, and decide he’s the right man to have children with? Your clock’s ticking, you’re looking at him, and it’s a crazy, pressure-filled experience.”

No crazier than the way she eventually did meet Mr. Right. It was December 2004, in Los Angeles, and, Cross says, “there I was again, all alone for the holidays.” As she was crossing a street near her home, she found herself taken with the stride and demeanor of the man walking in front of her, even though she could barely see his face. “I thought maybe there was some reason why I found him so magnetic, like maybe he was an actor and I’d recognize him as soon as he turned around,” Cross recalls. She followed him into a flower shop, but didn’t get up the nerve to approach him or even get a good look at him before he left with his purchase. Curious, Cross asked the woman behind the counter if the man was anyone famous. No, the woman said, he wasn’t, but did Cross want to leave her number in case he came in again? Yes, she did.

The man, Tom Mahoney, who’d never been married, did return to that shop and got Cross’s number. He called her the day she found out she’d been nominated for a Golden Globe. “He didn’t say anything [about the award],” Cross says with a sly smile. “And I thought, That’s really good; he’s a regular guy. So we went on a date.”

Early on, it became clear that both were interested in starting a family, and the couple wasted no time once they were married. Now that Cross is pregnant, “she exudes this incredible sense of gratefulness,” says Hatcher. “She’s so excited to meet her babies.” But Cross does not want to be seen as a one-woman advertisement for older moms. “We went to a fertility doctor,” she confides, “but it’s difficult on the woman, it’s difficult on the marriage, and not everyone can afford it. I’m glad there are actors like Gwyneth Paltrow and Reese Witherspoon and other 30ish women who are having their kids younger, which is a better example than the way I’m doing it, at the eleventh hour.”

When Cross and her husband listened to an ultrasound and heard two heartbeats, which signaled twins, Cross says they were in shock. Although they tried to keep it a secret, word soon leaked out. For now, though, they’re planning on keeping the gender of the twins private: “We’re going to try to have one thing for ourselves,” she says.

Cross does have one regret: Her own children may not have as many years to share with her as she has had with her own parents (her mother, Janet, 71, is a former math teacher; her father, Mark, 82, a retired personnel manager). “I’ve had the time to go through all the life phases with my parents,” she says, “from being a bratty teenager, pushing them away, to saying later on, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe what you did for me — thank you. I love you so much.’” When she thinks about how she and her kids may not be able to go through some of those stages together, her eyes brim with tears. “But I have good genes in my family,” she says, brightening, “so we’ll see just how long I’ll be around.”

After so many years of being on her own, merging her life with someone else’s could have been tricky. But Cross says she and Mahoney mostly avoided tensions, partly because they both left their own homes and bought a new house together. As for finding each other at this point in their lives, “If we had met in our 20s, we would have been ships in the night,” Cross maintains. “He had his journey to go on, and I had mine.”

She also welcomes their differences: “That’s a real joy for me because he possesses stability and I’ve got an impulsive side. It’s a wonderful combination.” Yet they both come from Irish Catholic families, and Cross believes they have similar values. As the oldest of seven, Mahoney is accustomed to taking on responsibilities, and Cross says it’s the little things he does — arranging lights along the staircase so she won’t stumble if she gets up at night, or bringing her breakfast in bed — that show how much he genuinely cares. One of the first things he did when they married was update his life insurance policy. “Isn’t it nice to have a guy who’s thinking about the future and making sure that you’re OK?” she asks rhetorically. It is indeed — especially when you’ve waited half a lifetime to find him.