Felicity Huffman on getting cast on "Desperate Housewives" - TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews

like sports night again the drumbeats kind of go out into the zeitgeist about the great scripts or at least the scripts that one is right for and I heard from my friend Jennifer Grey who came over we had kids who were little my kids were now two and three at the time or yeah it's around there and she brought her daughter Stella over and said there's the script called Desperate Housewives you should really audition for it and I was kind of like trying to deal with motherhood and I read it and I loved it I thought it was really funny and I went it was a day when it was raining that's how much that's how a little it happens in LA I was like it's raining and it's my audition was at five o'clock I had both kids sort of in the bathtub I was said I have to pull myself together the kids are crying because I'm leaving my babysitter's there I go in and I pull myself together and I put on really nice clothes and I do my hair because I'm thinking like I could be Lynette but I could also be Bree and maybe I could be you know Susan Mayer and I thought maybe I could be the Hispanic supermodel but that would be a widow reach and I went in and auditioned and Mark was there and the director charles was there and they gave me a few adjustments and i walked out and and as it happens in a lot of auditions i find that if you hear quickly you're in the running and if a day or two goes by forget it and it's usually as you're driving out of the lot and i drove out a lot my agent called and said they want you and you got the role and i went great but I've done enough pilots at that point I was thrilled to get it but I don't know enough pilots that point that I thought well it's another pilot that I'll be doing they won't be picked up I felt like I was the curse of the pilots I later found out from Mark cherry who's become a good friend of mine he was like you know it was great about your audition and I was thinking because I was so funny here because I was so talented anyway here's such a mess it's like Lynette what what do you mean he was like your clothes were staying your hair wasn't done total mess after I told myself together I made a conscious effort so I think I fit the role at the time I was a harried mother and thank you to my children you know as they say every baby brings a basket and so my kids brought Desperate Housewives and you know God that's gonna be on my tombstone Desperate Housewives I couldn't be more grateful for it so anyway I got the role we shot the pilot again I didn't think it was going anywhere while we were shooting the pilot I got Transamerica so while we were shooting the pilot I was starting to do research we finished the pilot I went off and shot Transamerica came back and started doing the first season of desperate and my voice had dropped about three times and I remember the first episode I I think it was um I can't remember who directed it but they came up and went he's sick I said no no I feel great it's really low what's going on I said oh I'm so sorry the other thing was in Transamerica the character's name was Bree so I'm so used to being called breathe so every time they called to Marsha or someone said Bree I was kind of like oh that's me and we started you know shooting that first season and I love that there's a little golden sort of bubble that you're in when you're shooting a series and of course I have more experience with television and it's before anyone's seen it so you sort of have a carte blanche for however many episodes you have until the audience comes in and the ratings come in and the network comes in and you just get to do what you want and I always liken it to rehearsals in a play I love to rehearse once the it comes time to perform I'm like I don't want to perform it I just like rehearsing it you're kind of free and easy and you don't feel any pressure and you don't know if it's it's piece of or it's really good and you have a lot of freedom so we have this lovely golden cradle and ABC did a fabulous job of marketing it and they shot us out of the cannon and we got the golden ring and you know it was huge from the beginning and I remember sort of it didn't seem like overnight but I remember kind of going oh and there was the billboard on sunset and there was other billboards and there I was on buses going by and it didn't happen to me but overnight the rest of the women you know they couldn't go out people were following to their house people were going through their garbage I mean it was instant success for some reason it didn't happen to me which was great and changed my life changed my life totally I remember I'd been eyeing a an outdoor patio table forever and it was really expensive it was like one of those teak ones that'll go out to twelve feet or scoot into five and I think it was like $3,000 $4,000 and once the pilot went and it was a hit I I went and bought that table and that was my big like table but you know also we were working so much that I remember sort of I didn't quite get how big it was

Channel: FoundationINTERVIEWS

Views: 25,945

Rating: 4.9634147 out of 5

Keywords: Television history, Interviews, Emmy TV Legends, emmytvlegends, tv, academy, Felicity Huffman, Actress, Desperate Housewives

Id: mJJ3c2Ua08Y

Length: 6min 6sec (366 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2016