With Desperate Housewives back after its winter break, John Byrne meets Wisteria Lane star Felicity Huffman on the show’s Hollywood set, where she’s grateful for her success after years of struggling and admits, “As an actor, you can fall off the map”.
Hollywood stars aren’t all the same. The cliché is that Tinseltown folk are a bunch of rampantly egotistical, pampered and demanding brats – and for some this is certainly true. Then there are the celeb/star couples who are never out of the news, off the red carpet or anywhere else but in your face.
She may be a star on one of TV’s biggest shows on the planet – ‘Desperate Housewives’, as if you don’t know – but Felicity Huffman and her husband, fellow actor William H Macy (currently starring in the US version of ‘Shameless’, on RTÉ Two), are the opposite of a high-maintenance Hollywood couple.
Sure, you’ll see them snapped at the odd awards’ night and the occasional glitzy Tinseltown soirée, but generally speaking they’re the kind of couple who get up, go to work, come home and spend as much time as they can together and with their family.
In the flesh, Huffman appears every inch the star: smartly dressed, hair perfect, she also looks healthier than an Olympic athlete – in other words, quite different, on an aesthetic level, to her Wisteria Lane character, the often dishevelled everymom, Lynette Scavo.
We’re on the Desperate Housewives’ set, in Universal Studios, northwest of downtown Los Angeles and just north of Hollywood.
Felicity is a big fan of her fictitious Wisteria Lane alter ego as it helps to keep her feet on the ground. When asked if she’s prefer a more glamorous part than the ‘normal’ Lynette, her response is immediate and emphatic. “Oh, normal”, she says, with that furrowed, serious look that is typical Lynette. “Absolutely normal. That year [for example] that I had cancer”, she recalls of season four. “No hair or make-up. I would come in, put a scarf on my head. For me, it's confronting to try and pull yourself together, you know, because that little voice inside your head keeps going, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ But when you are just trying to be normal or in your sweat pants or big and fat because you're pregnant, it's not as challenging.”
Like Lynette, Huffman is also quite open and honest about the difficulties of being a working mother with several children. Although her own family is much smaller – she’s got two, daughters Sofia Grace (10) and Georgia Grace (8), instead of the Scavos’ five – she readily admits that it’s no party trying to balance things out between work and family.
“I mean, I have to tell you, now that my kids are older, and it's not just hard, it's not just hard all the time”, she says. “It's great, they're fantastic, and I love them, and they're fun to be with, and it's not just kind of fixing them when they fall and changing their diapers. I see what it can become. And I know that's me.
“Some people love babies and are great with that whole zero through three age. But, yeah, I think I'd feel the same way as Lynette. ‘Oh, my God, I'm so old and I'm going to ruin my life, and Bill's going to leave me because he doesn't want any more babies’. I think I would have the same kind of dilemmas.”
She and Macy were married back in 1997 and are regarded as one of the more ‘normal’ couples on the Hollywood scene. Both have had their ups and downs in an industry that’s infamously fickle and unpredictable.
Pointing out that, at any given time, as few as 5% of professional US actors are working, and that only 50% of that 5% are earning a decent wage, it just shows how precarious a career path it is. “I'm not talking about the people who make 500 grand a year”, she insists. “I'm talking about the people that make 75-to-100, with a family. And there's no job security. You know, you train for years and become a doctor. God willing, you're going to have an office next year. You're going to have patients. As an actor, you can fall off the map. It's the nature of freelancing.”
Huffman got involved in acting quite late, taking it up in her early 30s and after establishing herself on the stage, she gravitated towards movies and TV, gradually developing her career until she hit the big time when she landed the Lynette Scavo role in 2004. Naturally, she recognises and values where she’s come from and what she’s gone through to be here.
She recalls times when “the business knocked the stuffing out of me. I had times when I didn't work for a year. And so when you actually do get a gig like this, you're very appreciative, and hopefully you hold on to that appreciation; although I feel like it's kind of like a virus, that if you have a strong constitution in this scenario . . . you kind of survive it OK and you come out the other end. And if you don't have a strong constitution, it can just mess you up forever.”
For example, she recalls a phone conversation about her lunch preferences. On set, everyone – actors, crew, etc. – eat the general catering food available on site. But at other times, stars get preferential treatment. “There was a photo shoot, and they called up saying, ‘Where would you like your lunch ordered from?’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘What restaurant would you like your lunch ordered from?’ I started going, ‘Hang on’ and Bill grabbed my hand and went, ‘Just eat catering. Just eat catering’. ‘Oh, Just catering. That's fine for me.’ So, you know, it's odd.”
Then there’s the everyday pampering that comes with being on a show as successful as ‘Desperate Housewives’, that can lead to inflated egos. “You come in in your pyjamas and someone does your hair, and someone does your make-up and does your clothes, and asks you if you would like a cup of tea and sets up your seat for you. You know, you do that for a couple of years and you're going to start going, ‘It's because I'm special’, as opposed to, ‘No, it's just your job’.”
Having a husband who’s also an actor helps. William H Macy has been pretty high profile since appearing in the Coen brothers’ 1996 movie ‘Fargo’. So, yeah, they talk about work. A lot.
“Our one rule is we can't talk about it in bed”, says Huffman, with her characteristic grin. “So oftentimes I go, ‘You know what I was thinking?’ Oops, we both get up.” Laughing, she adds: “I call him all the time. I call him all the time about how to do a scene or what I should do.”
With time running out, a quickie. Is Felicity Huffmam a fan of reality TV? The answer’s a resounding no. “Well, God, I'm an actor”, she says, looking aghast at the mere mention of the genre. “Of course I don't like the reality shows. I hate them.”
Life on the Lane
As Desperate Housewives has been off our screens since before Christmas, here’s a recap of the last episode shown – remember the riot? – and where things take up.
Where we left off . . .
The mid-season break came after a dramatic episode that saw Wisteria Lane become Hysteria Lane as resentment towards Paul Young's opening of a halfway house on the street for ex-cons just out of prison led to a riot. In the middle of it all, Susan got trampled on and Paul got shot – but who pulled the trigger?
We also saw Gabrielle try to cope with losing her biological daughter, Grace, and struggling to regain Juanita’s trust after the truth was discovered. Then there’s the complicated history between Tom and Renee; Bree asking Keith to move in with her (after she gave his dad a red card); while Lynette did the right thing by helping Lee when he was nearly lynched by the rioters for being duped into selling his house to Paul. Phew!
. . . and what’s happening next
In the aftermath of the riot, the fate of Paul Young – who’s been an excellent villain since his return to Wisteria Lane – is revealed. But one important question remains unanswered: who shot him?
Meanwhile, Susan's life hangs in the balance after she got trampled on by the rioting mob, and Gabrielle finds it difficult to purge all traces of the departed Grace from her life in order to rebuild her relationship with Juanita. Renee wrestles with telling Lynette the truth about her past liaison with Tom, while Keith moves in with Bree but is shocked when her ex-husband Orson pays a surprise visit.
John Byrne
