Four-time Emmy award winner and Oscar nominee Alfre Woodard has signed a deal to join the regular cast of Desperate Housewives next season.

According to trade paper Variety, Woodard will make her first appearance on the show as a guest on the DH season finale, currently expected to air on the 22nd of May. Starting next year, she will be added to the opening credits as a main cast member; the second regular cast addition following the promotion of Doug Savant (Tom Scavo, story).

Variety was able to reveal few details about Woodard's role, beyond the fact she'll play a "seemingly normal" woman who moves into Wisteria Lane together with her son. However, this would seem to indicate Woodard will be playing the deeply religious, controlling mother that Get Desperate! sources recently revealed would be moving into the cul-de-sac. According to these original spoiler reports, the family was forced to move to Wisteria Lane after the son had an altercation with some girl, making the mother so protective she's hardly allowing her son out of her sight.

Woodard is a 52-year old actress whose long career has spanned over 70 film and television projects. She first became famous through a three-episode guest stint on Hill Street Blues, which earned her an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. She went on to win three more Emmy awards, including most recently one for a guest-starring role on The Practice, making her the most honored African-American actress in Emmy history. Her previous work includes a stint as a regular cast member on St. Elsewhere, and roles in films such as Star Trek: First Contact, K-Pax and Beauty Shop.

The Desperate Housewives role won't completely take Woodard out of the movie business. Variety today also reported the actress has signed to star opposite Antonio Banderas in the new film Take The Lead, in which Banderas plays a former professional dancer volunteering to teach dance in the New York public school system.

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