| By Fred Topel
In Theaters Now
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With the success of Desperate Housewives, you would think all the women from the show would have movie deals by now. Only Felicity Huffman has a movie coming out, and it’s one she made before the show began. But it’s a doozy. She plays a man in the final stages of a sex change operation. When she finds out her previous self had a son from his one heterosexual fling, her journey to completing her gender complicates even further.
“It’s always the script,” Huffman said of her daring choice in projects. “I mean, if it lives on the page, it lives on stage, as they say. I was so glad it wasn’t an issue movie, [like] transgender individuals are people too and you go, yeah, and the other 103 minutes what are you going to do? And the part. If I could do it justice, it was just a fantastic opportunity and I hadn’t done anything close to that on film. I’ve done it on stage, not the gender thing, but trying to transform myself so those two things together.”
Research included articles, documentaries, biographies, attending transgender conventions and interviewing transgender women. Then she worked with a coach who helps transgender men sound like women. Her clients were usually older men because of the time it takes to save up for the operation and the mature enough to make such a drastic choice.
“Consequently you get 30, 40 year-old guys who go okay, tomorrow wear a dress and go work it. And make sure you make the colors that work well on your skin, how to put on makeup. It’s a whole new world, to sound like Aladdin. So she coached me as if I was new to everything, which was really helpful.”
Voice coaching was required because hormone therapy does not change deep male voices. Yet this actress had to sound like a man impersonating a woman’s voice. “We don’t have the chest capacity and our head’s not big enough for the resonance so I worked with transgender women on it and they didn’t know how to work on it backwards. I worked with a couple voice teachers in L.A. and it sounded fake or too deep. Finally I found a woman in NY named Katie Bull and we approached the voice work in the same way I approached the acting work which was from the inside out. So what does your voice feel like when it comes out, what does her voice express? It expresses discomfort, it expresses loneliness, it expresses self consciousness, and so we kind of worked backwards and finally found it and a warm up and that’s what we would do everyday. And I had to stay in that voice.”
When faced with the emotional issues her character, Bree, faces, Huffman actually began to re-evaluate her own gender. “I’m not one of those actors just because I’m able to do it, I lost myself in the part and didn’t know who I was. I wish I could. Towards the end of filming, I walked into the ladies room in full regalia and I’m not kidding, I walked in and went, ‘Wow, I’m not supposed to be here’ and I walked out. Then I said, ‘Oh no, I am’ and walked back in again. It took me twice before I said, ‘Okay, I’m actually a woman’ and walked into the ladies room. That was sort of frightening.”
Huffman filmed Transamerica between the pilot for Desperate Housewives and the beginning of the regular series. “If you watch the first four or five episodes of Desperate Housewives, I am not good. No, really, I couldn’t get Marc’s rhythm afterwards. Desperate Housewives has a certain voice and it’s a certain sarcastic, loving, wicked, twisty voice and you need to play with that and I came in a little heavy handed so yes, it was a really hard transition to make. Plus I kept answering to Marcia Cross’ character, Bree.”
Despite the acclaim she is already receiving for her film performance, Huffman has not lined up any more film projects for her hiatuses. “To quote my husband, ‘I will kill you if you take a movie on your hiatus.’ So unless I want to take my life in my own hands, I don’t know yet.”
When thinking about the seedy antics of the popular TV show, Huffman refuses to put her character on a higher moral ground than any of her costars. Even though she’s got her family’s interests at heart, she believes each one is equally twisted.
“I think Marc has done a brilliant thing. He’s taken the icon of the American family and he’s held it up for ridicule. But because Marc loves it, it’s not ridicule that pulls it down and the stories poke fun at it and makes people go, ‘Oh, I feel good, but that’s funny.’ When you do that, you have to have extremes. You have to have the extreme Gabrielle, you have to have the extreme Bree, the Edie, the Susan and the me. I’m the extreme mom. I’ve had parents come up to me and say, ‘Can’t you just enjoy your little boys a little on the show.’ And I’m wondering and I’d say yes, but on the other hand I say no.”
Aside from the fame and recognition, what Huffman appreciates most about Desperate Housewives is the steady paycheck. “I have to say, it’s such a relief to know I’m going to have a job for a couple of years. I’ve gone for years without working and oh, I’ve made $12,000 this year and I’m not kidding that I’m grateful for the fame because I have a job.”
Transamerica is now playing in select cities. |
