And being off the show because of the writers strike has been particularly hard given Housewives -- derided by critics for losing its way in Seasons 2 and 3 -- was enjoying a comeback this year.
"In a big, big way," agrees Longoria Parker, who has a new movie, Over Her Dead Body. "And the audience and the ratings and the critics and everybody was just loving it and we loved it and then the strike happened."
And while Parker Longoria supports the writers -- she even hit the picket lines with Housewives creator Marc Cherry -- she misses her castmates and crew.
"We all e-mail and talk and everything. I just talked to (co-stars) Felicity (Huffman) and Marcia (Cross). It's an odd time. It feels even weird promoting a movie. Hollywood feels like a ghost town. The studios are empty, nobody's working, it's weird. Awards season's dying."Longoria Parker says her production company had three TV shows in development at VH-1, ABC Family, and ABC, respectively, that were all at the pilot-writing stages, but they're now all shelved.
"I welcomed (the strike) at first because I've been working for five years non-stop so for someone to go, 'Stop working,' it's been nice. But now I'm like, 'Okay, enough vacation,' " she says.
