James Denton and Teri Hatcher in season 8, episode 16 ofDesperate Housewives.Photo:Ron Tom/Disney General Entertainment Content via Gett
Ron Tom/Disney General Entertainment Content via Gett
ManyDesperate Housewivesfans are still mourning the death of Mike Delfino, 12 years later. But for actorJames Denton, getting shot “was a lot of fun.”
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, the actor, 61, shares his favorite episodes from the ABC comedy drama in which he played Mike, Susan Mayer’s (Teri Hatcher) partner in the series.
“The one where I got shot," he immediately calls out as an episode highlight. “It’s always fun to get chills on camera.”
“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," Denton explains. “And you can only do it about two or three times and that’s the whole day.”
James Denton and Teri Hatcher inDesperate Housewives.Danny Feld/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
Danny Feld/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
There were, of course, a lot of emotions that accompanied filming Delfino’s final moments alongside his costar, Hatcher. In the scene, Mike pushes Susan out of the way, taking a loan shark’s bullet and saving her life.
“Teri was so brilliant in that scene,” Denton tells PEOPLE. “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.”
Mike’s survival until the series' final season was a feat, especially considering that countless characters were killed off during the show’s run. “It was a lot of death,” Denton says.
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“The guys joked the entire run, ‘Who was gonna get killed,’ you know, because for all of the talk aboutHousewivesbeing so salacious, there wasn’t that much sex — but there was a lot of murder,” Denton tells PEOPLE. “We killed 56 characters.”
“[We] were always joking about who was gonna be the last man standing,” Denton recounts. " ‘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.’ "
Mike’s ending felt like a “big send-off,” Denton tells PEOPLE, and he was “very happy with that.”
To this day, Denton says fans still approach him to confess their sadness over his character’s sudden death.
Desperate Housewivesis now streaming in its entirety on Hulu.
source: people.com
