Meet the Ladies of ABC's Mistresses

Judging solely by the title Mistresses, you might assume that the four leading ladies of ABC's new primetime soap play man-hungry home wreckers. Not so fast! Alyssa Milano (married attorney Savannah "Savi" Davis), Yunjin Kim (psychiatrist Karen Rhodes), Rochelle Aytes (widowed shopkeeper April Malloy) and Jes Macallan (Savi's realtor sister, Josslyn) want you to know there's a lot to love about their characters.
TV Guide Magazine: What was your initial impression when you were first pitched Mistresses?
Kim: I thought it was going to be the same old story.
Milano: Me too. I just hope people give us a chance beyond the title, because the show is so much more than that.
TV Guide Magazine: Then why call it Mistresses?
Macallan: It's based on a BBC show called Mistresses.
Aytes: And each of us in some way is dealing with infidelity. Either we are a mistress or we know one.
Macallan: Rochelle's character, for instance, is a single mother whose life is ruined by her dead husband's mistress. So we're not all women running around scandalously wrecking people's lives. That's just my character. [All laugh]
Milano: My character does have an affair. She has a "mister-ess" who's giving her a feeling of sexuality that she's lacking in her marriage. But she's a likable person who just does a really bad thing.
TV Guide Magazine: Yunjin, your character is being pursued by the son of her dead married lover, whose suicide she assisted by prescribing...
Milano and Macallan: A lethal dose of morphine! [All laugh]
Macallan: We can't stop saying that line from the show.
Kim: She crossed a huge line, yes, but she's so courageous. She did it all for love.
TV Guide Magazine: What's been your sexiest scene?
Aytes: When I finally give it up to my boyfriend in a most familiar and public place.
Kim: For me, there's an awkward goodbye when a guy leans in for a kiss, and it turns into something totally unexpected.
Macallan: Joss experiences [sexual] tension with everyone she meets, both male and female.
Milano: The cheating scenes with Jason George [who plays Savi's lover, Dominic] are so uncomfortable, so I'd have to pick a scene where she reconnects with her husband.
TV Guide Magazine: Are all of you married in real life?
Aytes: All except me.
TV Guide Magazine: How have your husbands reacted to the show?
Macallan: My husband and I got married the day before we shot the pilot, and then I went off to work and tied some guy up.
Kim: My husband's a guy's guy, and he really likes it.
Milano: Mine said, "Why is your husband such an a--hole?"
Mistresses airs Mondays at 10/9c on ABC.
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