Teri Hatcher is taking over the role of Miranda Priestly in the West End production of The Devil Wears Prada musical, stepping into the part played until now by Vanessa Williams, her former Desperate Housewives co-star and close friend. Hatcher, 61, joins the show from October 20 at London's Dominion Theatre.
"The role is going from friend to friend and from diva to diva," said Williams, 63, with a laugh. "I'm not seeing it as leaving the show, it's more that I'm passing it on. I do believe I had something to do with Teri getting the role. Well, I told the producers it should be her!"
Miranda Priestly, the fearsome fashion magazine editor at the centre of the story, is widely understood to be based on Vogue editor Anna Wintour and was played by Meryl Streep in the two Devil Wears Prada films.
Hatcher said London holds few memories for her. She was last in the city 28 years ago, pregnant with her daughter Emerson, while filming the 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies opposite Pierce Brosnan. "I hardly remember it," she said. "It was so long ago, and I was only here for about two weeks."
Desperate Housewives friendship and tension
Hatcher and Williams have known each other since they appeared together in an advertising campaign around the turn of the millennium. Williams joined the cast of Desperate Housewives in 2010, alongside Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria, Felicity Huffman and Nicollette Sheridan, but the show's atmosphere in its early years was reportedly toxic.
During a Vanity Fair cover shoot, a row broke out over the suggestion that Hatcher might be positioned at the centre of the photograph, with Cross said to have "screamed" at the show's publicist over a perception that Hatcher was hogging the limelight. Longoria, Huffman, Cross and Sheridan were said by some to form a clique from which Hatcher was excluded, and Longoria later described Hatcher as a "loner" and spoke of being "bullied" by an unnamed co-worker on set, prompting speculation the tension involved Hatcher.
When the show ended after eight seasons in 2012, Hatcher's co-stars left her name off a leaving present for the crew. "I don't really know who gave or did what," Hatcher said. "I know what I did and I can look in the mirror in a good way about the people I worked with and how much respect I had for them."
Hatcher praised Williams warmly. "Can you believe how gracious Vanessa is? She takes care of everyone and everything. Not everyone is that way. Some women just can't find it in themselves." She added that the pair bonded over motherhood: Hatcher was a single mother and the family breadwinner during Desperate Housewives, following her split from second husband Jon Tenney in 2003, while Williams was raising four children between her second and third marriages.
Taking on the musical role
Hatcher called the West End part a dream come true, saying she is a huge fan of the original film. "I love it. My daughter and I have watched it three times a year for years. I probably know every line by heart." It is not her first musical, having previously appeared in Cabaret and The Addams Family.
"You don't want to repeat what anyone else has done; the fun is finding where it connects to you personally," she said of preparing to play Miranda. "The exciting thing for me is to stay within the range but try to find touches of myself for audiences that have seen it before."
Hatcher takes over the role for five months, and Williams is compiling a list of the best restaurants, sights, hairdressers and skincare experts in London for her.
Dating life after seven years single
Asked whether she had found any interest during her two years in Britain, Williams, who has been largely single since her third marriage ended in 2021, said: "No! I found no one." Hatcher added that she has not been on a date in seven years, to which Williams replied, "Same here. Seven years."
"There aren't a lot of good guys, and older men often want to date younger women," Hatcher said. "I'm tired of framing my life through the lens of a man. I've made my own life. I take care of my parents, my dad has dementia. I travel, I exercise. I'm not saying I wouldn't go on a date, I'm just not pining."
Hatcher said she once tried the dating app Hinge, only to find her account removed. "I went on Twitter and said, 'Hey, Hinge, what happened to my account?' And they said, 'We kicked you off because we got complaints from people who thought you were pretending to be Teri Hatcher.' I thought, 'I don't think I need to do this any more.'"
Hatcher said she shares little with the character she is about to play. "I know I could not have had my career without being a confident professional, but it's not my nature. Miranda is feared, a diva, she walks into a room with a grounded sense of confidence. That does not come easily to me. I'm more of a domestic diva, given the choice I'd spend my days reading at home with my cat."
