Felicity Huffman Tried to Wear Madonna's Underwear! But, it Didn't Fit
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Here’s a sneak peek of what Felicity Huffman reveals in the new issue of More Magazine:
When Huffman made her Broadway debut in Mamet’s Speed the-Plow in 1988, replacing Madonna in the role, Huffman found a thong buried in a the Material Girl’s former dressing room, so she promptly tried it on: “I was like, ‘This is Madonna’s underwear!’ Of course, it didn’t fit me.”
On audition day for the role of “Lynette” on Desperate Housewives: “I’d just left two screaming kids in the bathtub and it was raining.” (At the time, her two daughters, Sofia Grace, now eight, and Georgia Grace, six, were toddlers.) “I thought I pulled myself together well. Later on, one of the producers said, ‘It was so great, because you were such a mess and so frazzled, and your pants were filthy!’”
Scoring the role of Lynette:
“[The producers] said, ‘Tell us about motherhood.’” Huffman shared an anecdote about being reduced to tears by a group of women when they asked her, “Don’t you just love being a mother?” and she gave this honest answer: “‘No. It’s really hard, and I’m losing my mind.’ The women pulled back from me as if I’d said ‘I eat babies.’ I felt such shame and remorse and humiliation. And I guess that’s exactly what they wanted for Lynette.”
What it’s like to be in a successful “showbiz marriage”: “Ehhh, it’s like anything else. It’s like any other marriage: You sort of stumble along and reconnect and lose each other and reconnect again.” And yet Huffman knows what matters most. “Every time Bill Macy walks into the room, my heart still jumps. That is true to this day.”
Knowing balance is still a challenge: “People ask me, ‘How do you balance being a working mom?’ And I go, ‘I really don’t balance it. It’s a constant struggle, and I haven’t figured out how to do it with grace and no guilt.’”
Falling into and out of societal pressures: “I’d take a vacation, and if I was heavy, it was a bad vacation, and if I was light—or, you know, lighter—it was a good vacation.” Huffman routinely cataloged life memories according to the number on her bathroom scale: “‘Oh, that was when I weighed 150 and had to wear muumuus. That wasn’t so good.’ Or ‘That was when I was 19 and so thin, my period stopped. That was great!’” It was motherhood that helped her gain a healthier perspective. “For some reason, after giving birth—which is when you look like a bag of doorknobs—I actually looked at myself in the mirror and went, ‘I look beautiful!’ I don’t know why, but that sort of tipped it for me.”
On success over 40: “If this success had happened when I was younger, I would have been too tortured to appreciate it. Now that I’m older, I can go, ‘God, this is fantastic!’”
Fitness…and muffins?: “I’ve had a lot of trainers through the years, and they’re always like, ‘Oh my god, you ate a muffin?’ and ‘What do you mean you weigh 125? You can’t shoot at that weight.’ [Kirsten Holtgreen is] the first trainer who’s said, ‘You’re not eating enough.’”
