Teri Hatcher's Desperate Mom

Actress Lesley Ann Warren joins Desperate Housewives on Sunday (9 pm/ET on ABC) as Susan's mom, Sophie Bremmer. It's perfect casting since Warren, 58, and Teri Hatcher, 40, look like they really could be mother and daughter. Their striking resemblance will be alluded to in each of Warren's five episodes this season. "In the script," she delightedly tells TVGuide.com, "they are always saying to Susan, 'She is too young to be your mother.'

"Sophie is wild," Warren continues. "I get to be inappropriately sexy, drinking, vulnerable and volatile. Sophie has been married four times, is a hopeless romantic — and a loving mother, but she can't get it right, just like most of us."

Spoiler alert! If you don't want to know any more about Sophie's scandalous stay on Wisteria Lane, read no further. This week, Sophie moves in with Susan after the breakup of her abusive relationship with the owner of a pancake house, played by 75-year-old TV icon Bob Newhart. In a wacky twist, it turns out he's less of an abuser than Sophie herself.

"I end up beating him up," Warren laughs. "Newhart was so much fun he told me to 'go at it,' so I took my bag and bopped him on the head. He was grabbing me and I was biting his arm."

Warren scored the role thanks to her son, Christopher Peters (whose father is her ex-husband, Hollywood film producer Jon Peters). Christopher, she says, dropped her name to two Housewives producers of his professional acquaintance, John Pardee and Kevin Murphy.

"He kept telling them, 'You should put my mom in your show.' A few nights later, my husband [actor Ron Taft] and I were at a restaurant when this man comes over to the table and says to me, 'I am a huge fan of yours, but your son is a bigger fan. We have come up with a wonderful character for you. Will you come and play with us? My name is Marc Cherry."

Her response to the DH creator's invitation? "All I could say was, 'Oh my god.' A week later, I was shooting my first episode." Warren adds that Cherry has dropped some strong hints that she'll be invited to return to Wisteria Lane in the fall.

Her initial encounter with her TV daughter was also a pleasant surprise. "The first time I met Teri, it was 5 am and I was sitting in the makeup trailer," Warren recalls. "She came in bleary-eyed, as we all are at that time in the morning, and when she saw me, she lit up and made a bow. She gave me a beauty basket with a note that said: 'You are the most perfect mom I could hope for.'"

For more exclusive Desperate Housewives scoop — including the latest buzz on their diva behavior behind the scenes — come back and read Monday's Insider.