Felicity Huffman Has Arrived

Felicity. The word means happiness. For the actress Felicity Huffman, it would seem to be the perfect name right now. She has a hit TV show, "Desperate Housewives." And she stars in a new movie that is generating Oscar talk in which she plays a man determined to be a woman. But, like most actors, Felicity Huffman remembers the unfelicitous years of struggle and unemployment. And she tells 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl she is amazed at how things have changed.

Does she like it? "It doesn't happen that often," she says. When asked if she can still do an every-day task like grocery shopping, she says "Oh, God, totally."

"At the same time, I was in Barney's and someone came and tapped me on the shoulder and I was like, 'Here it comes.' And I turned around. She goes, 'Could you tell me where the gloves and scarves are, please?' " Huffman recalls, laughing. "And I thought, 'At least I look like I work at Barney's. I'm lookin' good.'"

At 43, Felicity Huffman finds her career finally looking good. She won an Emmy for "Desperate Housewives" last September. She also garnered two Golden Globe nominations last month: one for "Housewives" and one for her movie "Transamerica."

It's the story of a man, Stanley, who's in the process of becoming a woman, Bree, through a sex change operation.

It's a role Huffman tackles with great humanity. She studied for the part by going to conventions of trans-gendered people. And, as they often do, she took voice lessons.

"The hormones don't change your voice," Huffman explains. "When you take estrogen … it doesn't raise your voice. I mean, you can look like Kate Moss and sound like James Earl Jones."

She learned everything she could about the sex change process.

"I learned femininity like a foreign language. You know, it's not this, it's not this kind of walk," she says, demonstrating how a guy walks.

And how does a guy learn to walk like a woman?

"You learn, well, what should I do with my shoulders? Well, hold them back. What do I with my arms? Well, suck them in so they don't look big. And, so, you walk like that," Huffman says, showing how her character, Bree, walks.

All the praise she has been getting for "Transamerica" is sweet vindication for someone who spent a long time as a desperate actress.

In the years before "Desperate Housewives," Huffman was in a lot of TV shows, that she says "died young."

"Great shows that we shot and never went anywhere. So I thought that that was sort of, that I was the … that I was the cursed one," she says.

She starred in "Sports Night," a great show that never found a big audience. Over the years she had cameo roles on, among others, "Law & Order," and "Frasier."

She was never out of work for long, but she was never quite a star, either — until "Housewives" came along.

Huffman admits she was insecure about the show. "I thought I was going to get fired. I really did."

But from the very first episode, Huffman's character Lynette Scavo — with her painful authenticity — touched a nerve with desperate housewives around the country. Her character is at her wit's end dealing with bratty kids and a horny husband.

Lynette's defining moment came when she waded into the pool — at a memorial service, no less — to get the kids out.

"I think Lynette's experience of motherhood parallels my experience of motherhood," says Huffman.

In real life, she admits she is a harried mother.

"Oh, yeah, I'm out of control. I spent yesterday out of control. I spent last night out of control," she says.

Showing 60 Minutes around Wisteria Lane, she may have looked as sunny as her California sundress but the day before had been a long one on the set, followed by a restless night with two cranky kids.

"I have to talk to you today, and I'm gonna be stupid and tired," she says, laughing. "And look old!"

Talking about insecurity, Huffman says she doesn't think she is beautiful. "I'm not sorta, going, you know, 'Poor me,' or being self-deprecating. I think my face is fine," she says. "I mean I like my face and it's done me well, so far, my face. But, you know, I'm not a beauty."

Of course, the bar's pretty high when you work an eyelash away from the likes of Teri Hatcher, Marcia Cross, Eva Longoria and Nicollette Sheridan.

What does Huffman make of everybody assuming that the cast members are going to be in a cat fight all the time?

"You know, they've been saying we were gonna fight since before we started airing," Huffman says. "We'd always open up the rags and go, 'Oh, look, Teri, I'm not talking to you. And Eva's drunk.' "

Huffman denies there is tension among the cast.

"No. The days that we all shoot together are the funnest days on set. Um, I don't think funnest is a word, but if there were, I would use it," she says. "No, it's a wonderful group. Everyone, most of us have been around the block a couple of times, so we're very grateful. We're professionals. We work hard."

On sisterhood, she's an expert. Felicity, "Flicka," as the family calls her, grew up in Woody Creek, Colo. She was the youngest of eight children. Seven sisters and a brother.

"By the time I came along my mom was so tired," Huffman says, laughing. "Eight children. I mean, I'm losing my mind with two."

Huffman says she was a happy child.

"I think I was loud and obnoxious, which is probably why my mother was like, 'I'm gonna send you to acting camp,' " she says, laughing.

She was barely out of acting camp when she got her first paying job on a TV after-school special. Flicka was 15.

Her real training came on the stage in New York, where she fell under the spell of playwright David Mamet. Today, she's still a key member of Mamet's Atlantic Theater Company.

It was here, 20 years ago, that she met the man she would eventually marry, actor William H. Macy.

"She was a dream girl. She was. I was swept away, literally," Macy says.

Macy knows a thing or two himself about how fame can take its own sweet time.

His breakthrough film was Fargo, which came out when Macy was 45. For 20 years before that, he had knocked around movies, TV and the New York stage, sometimes teaching acting classes to pay the bills.

"Our friend said, 'There's this girl who's gonna be in your class. You're gonna love her. Her name is Flicka Huffman,'" Macy says.

Huffman was his student.

What was Macy like as a teacher?

"He was insightful. Charming. Very empowering. He made you feel like you could do it," Huffman says.

They married eight years ago. At their wedding, Huffman was walked down the aisle by her mother. Her father had died.

"But you know, I wanted my mother to walk me down the aisle," Huffman says. "Um, she really raised me. They got divorced when I was about 1. And my father was a wonderful man, and my mother raised me."

Huffman and Macy have worked together often on TV, in the movies and on the stage.

Are they method actors?

"I think so. I think, yes. Yeah, absolutely. We are," says Macy.

"We are?" Huffman asks.

"Yeah," Macy replies.

"I didn't know that. … You gotta tell me this stuff," Huffman says.

As for her acting in "Transamerica": there's some irony in the fact that body image and the question of what makes us who we are are themes at the heart of the film.

"The first image that you see Felicity in this film is shocking because she is butt ugly," jokes Macy.

In her younger years, Felicity had her own issues with her body. She had an eating disorder, suffering from bulimia.

What was going on?

"Just sort of what's going on with a lot of women and girls that, you know, just can't be thin enough," Huffman says. "Can't be thin enough. Can't be thin enough. Hate my body, hate my body, hate my body. You know?"

But Huffman says she got therapy and "worked it out."

But for her, the movie experience had its darker side too, as she began to relate more and more to her character.

"I think she's excruciatingly self-conscious. I think it's hard for her to wake up in her own skin," says Huffman.

How did she connect with that?

"Oh, come on, I think everyone can connect with that," says Huffman.

"No," Stahl replies.

"Really? You don't think everyone has pain in their lives?" Huffman asks.

"I think everyone has the moments. … But no, I think maybe you connected for some reason, in a deeper way," Stahl says.

"I did," says Huffman. "I mean, I know what it's like to, I know what it's like to wake up and be in agony in your own skin. I do, yeah."

Huffman says she doesn't know why. "It's just the way I am, I don't know."

Huffman has two little girls, but gives a surprising answer when asked if motherhood is the best experience in her life.

"No, no, and I resent that question," Huffman says. "Because I think it puts women in an untenable position, because unless I say to you, 'Oh, Lesley, it's the best thing I've ever done with my whole life,' I'm considered a bad mother. And just when I said no you, you went back."

Does she think she is a good mother?

"I don't know if I'm a good mother," Huffman says.

"You're not there enough or you're not patient enough or …" Stahl says.

"I'm there enough. I don't know if I'm patient enough, though, you know, I don't know if I'm teaching them the right things," says Huffman.

To which her TV character Lynette and millions of real mothers would say: join the club. But as more and more film festival awards pile up for her work in "Transamerica," win or lose the Oscar, she's about to join a more exclusive club of actors who've made it big.

"The fact that the movie's getting this much attention, the fact that you're sitting here talking to me, I'm on 60 Minutes, weird, um … is a win," Huffman says with a chuckle.

By David Browning