The Wife Next Door

Felicity Huffman Has a TV Hit and a New Movie, but She Keeps It Real

NEW YORK So Felicity Huffman is a bit giddy about the gorgeous dress she's got on ("Dolce & Gabbana!" she says, with a little hand flourish), but her feet are bare and tucked up on the couch, and she's just admitted that she missed her own show -- the wildly popular "Desperate Housewives" -- the night before because, well, since she has kids she needs toothpicks to keep her eyes open after 8:30. (She TiVos.)

Anyway, she's about to turn 43, and she's on her first real press tour, complete with morning-show and late-night appearances, and interviews and photographs (hence the dress) in the requisite hotel suite overlooking Central Park. Other actors might disdain this stuff; she's having a blast. She won an Emmy earlier this year and last week got Golden Globe nods for her performances in "Desperate Housewives" and the independent film "Transamerica," for which she already has significant Oscar buzz. And that's why she's here, of course -- film promotion. But let's get to that in a minute.

The truth is, sitting around with Huffman makes you think she could walk right into your kitchen on Friday night, when the moms are drinking too much wine and the kids are running wild in the yard, and she'd be right at home. In fact, hanging out with her is probably a lot like being neighbors with the woman who plays Lynette Scavo. So, yeah, it would be a little freaky living next door to anal-retentive Bree (Marcia Cross), and you'd have to hide your husband from Gabrielle (Eva Longoria), but Lynette? She seems so funny, so honest, so down-to-earth. And so, too, we happily report, is Felicity Huffman. She's witty and warm, she tells hilarious stories about things we unfortunately can't print in a family newspaper, and she's prone to saying things like "I've got to say, if men were the primary caregivers, there would be groups called 'Boy Does This Suck Anonymous.' "

Sure, she's married to a Famous Actor, but it turns out she's even got a husband to like. The talented William H. Macy -- known for shrewdly playing the odd bird -- is almost dorkily sweet when he calls about a week later from their home in California to put in a plug for his wife and her new film, which he's executive-produced. Parents of girls ages 3 and 5, the Macys have been together for 20 years now, but he can still relate, in detail, how nervous he was the first time they kissed. How he misses her during filming. How he knew he was a goner the first time they met. He's just in the middle of talking about how "gobsmacked" he was by her performance in "Transamerica" when there's a beep in his office and then the familiar, slightly nasal voice of his wife breaks in:

"Hi. I'm sorry," she says. "Dinner's ready when you are."

You can't help but wonder if it's been made in a microwave, and you are absolutely certain Huffman would be entirely unapologetic if that indeed is the case.

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She went Oscar-ugly for "Transamerica," (see Charlize Theron in "Monster," Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry" and Nicole Kidman's nose in "The Hours"). Her character, Stanley "Bree" Osbourne, is a transsexual on the verge of a sex-change operation when she discovers she long ago fathered a son. (As Huffman puts it: "I was a woman playing a man becoming a woman.") In the film, she looks older, with bad hair and intentionally awful makeup. Her hands seem enormous.

"It really was something of a relief not having to try and be glamorous," says Huffman, arguably the least glam of the housewives, but in the Dolce & Gabbana she has on now, she sure ain't no slouch. Then again, unlike most of the big-time actresses who occasionally allow mere mortals to dip their toes into their lives, she doesn't make you feel like a total slouch, either. Which is yet another reason it would be okay if she moved in next door. It's entirely possible to imagine her with jam smears on her shirt.

"As Anthony Edwards once told me when I was complaining about not being pretty enough and not being something enough," she continues (referring to the actor best known for his role on "ER"), " 'Oh, baby, that's not your gig.' I mean, I'm fine-looking enough, but I'm not a beauty, so it's not like I was risking."

And it's not like she was about to turn down an opportunity for her first starring movie role 20-plus years into her career. When writer-director Duncan Tucker cast her in his film debut, Huffman wasn't even a Desperate Housewife yet. For those who don't follow theater -- Huffman started her career onstage -- she was just that woman who always had the bit parts in TV shows or movies, save for one small-screen lead turn in Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night."

She was at the first table-reading for the "Desperate Housewives" pilot when she got word that Tucker had chosen her to play Bree. (An odd coincidence that the character name matches that of one of her TV co-stars.) In the film, she seeks out her teenage son (Toby, played by Kevin Zegers) and ends up bailing him out of jail. The two embark on a cross-country road trip where Toby slowly gets to know the awkward, conservative "church lady" he believes has come to help him and, eventually, the secrets she keeps.