There may have been times Orson Hodge looked as if he could have happily buried Bree Van de Kamp beneath her perfectly manicured lawn on Wisteria Lane.
And rest assured, Kyle MacLachlan loved digging into those scenes on Desperate Housewives.
"Coming in and meeting everyone, all really fantastic," the 65-year-old actor told E! News in an exclusive interview, recalling joining the ABC phenomenon toward the end of its second season in 2006. "And Marcia Cross is just so special."
As Orson and Bree navigated courtship, marriage, a murderous mother, jail, infidelity, a fake pregnancy, paralysis, his refusal to say "please" (or bathe), more mysterious deaths than occur on most suburban blocks and oh-so-much betrayal, MacLachlan and Cross were given plenty of scenery to chew.
Which they did, in their respectively classic ways.
"We were both trained through repertory theater, so language was not a problem for us," he explained. "And on the occasion that we had some of those really sharp scenes back and forth, as an actor it's what you live for."
He added, "Doing dialogue like that, with a person like Marcia, was very special. So I felt right at home."
In fact, MacLachlan—who was only supposed to be on Desperate Housewives for a year—was enjoying himself so much playing the dentist who helps Bree escape from a psychiatric hospital and runs James Denton's Mike over with his car, he asked series creator Marc Cherry if his character could stick around.
That was more than alrighty with Cherry, who had the writers adjust the storyline to send Orson and Bree on a marvelously unhinged series of adventures.
"Desperate Housewives was that great combination of serious topics but told just a little bit off the edge of the cliff," MacLachlan said, "and with an edge to it that you never really knew what was going to happen. Anything could happen on that show, it was fair game."
As he tends to do when it comes to much of his cult-favorite-packed career, the Washington native credited his work with Twin Peaks creator David Lynch for putting him in Cherry's sights.
The actor feels "incredibly fortunate to be in things that seem to have struck a chord with people—not everything, of course—but a number of them have," he said, "and it just really warms my heart when people respond strongly."
For some time now his fans have been responding especially strongly to what the star has been getting up to on social media, often with a damn fine cup of coffee or glass of his own Pursued by Bear wine in his hand.
"I like to have fun," he explained the M.O. behind his cheerful social media presence. "I like to enjoy things."
It's his palpable joie de vivre that prompted Arby's to partner with MacLachlan for the return of their beloved Potato Cakes, back for a limited time nationwide starting July 1.
And yet a breakfast item being available all day truly is, as MacLachlan noted, "the greatest thing in the world."
Meanwhile, his assessment of the campaign as "just some giddy fun" could as easily be referring to his general approach to life and much of the work he's been doing for the past 30 years, most recently re-voicing Riley's dad in Inside Out 2 and dispatching marauders on the postapocalyptic Amazon series Fallout.
But he tends to have a grand time wherever he goes. While it was his wife of now 22 years, Desiree Gruber, who insisted he play Dr. Trey MacDougal on Sex and the City ("That wasn't really where I lived," he admitted, "and I was unaware of the response to it"), he knew that Desperate Housewives was the place to be when opportunity knocked.
"That one was more clear to me," he recalled. "I said, 'Oh, this is going to be fun.'"
As for Orson, whose last known activity was trying to exact revenge on Bree, MacLachlan pictures the once-troubled soul happily running an Arby's franchise now.
"He is responsible for bringing back the Potato Cake," the actor quipped. Orson tirelessly supported Bree's catering business, he noted, and "many times he brought up the idea of the Potato Cake to her. Sadly, she didn't use it, but now it has finally happened."
So, obviously MacLachlan is doing splendidly, but keep reading to see what the rest of the Desperate Housewives cast is up to now: