Newcomer Alfre Woodard (Betty Applewhite) said in an interview recently that the reason she had never seen Desperate Housewives before taking the role was because she herself has been a busy housewife.

"I really am a housewife and a mom, I don't get to watch television," Woodard told Philadelphia Daily News. "Literally, you know. When your children are in school, and then they do all that stuff at the end of school, and you get home with them at 6:30, they've got homework, you feed them, you do their homework with them, then you have one hour to yourself from 10:30 to 11:30, you go to sleep after that, you've got to get up for work in the morning."

Because of her busy schedule, she said TV is on the back burner. "I don't get to watch anything... So I got told [about Desperate Housewives] by all my relatives, my nieces and nephews who're between 25 and 40... They all swear by it, and they watch it with friends every week. So I knew it had a grip on people that I thought were smart and interesting and funny, so that made me curious when Marc [Cherry] called."

Now she joined the show, Woodard and her on-screen son Mehcad Brooks (Matthew Applewhite) are the first black castmembers. But Woodard doesn't think too much should be made of matters of race in the show. "Wisteria Lane is a parallel universe. I don't think people should look for politics in Wisteria Lane," she said. "I don't think on Wisteria Lane, race is an issue for anybody. They haven't mentioned it. I think there's too much dysfunction to even get to race."

The full interview can be found over at Philadelphia Daily News.

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