Calpernia’s Interview with Felicity Huffman (FULL Version)

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Categories: Diary • Audio/Video Clips • In Print • Interviews

Transamerica is quite a departure from Desperate Housewives. What have people been saying about your portrayal of Bree?

So far only my family and film festivals have seen it, and you’re preaching to the converted there [Laughs]. They loved the film in Toronto and Tribeca. I think it’s been warmly recieved most everywhere. Maybe it’s sort of an urban thing, but from the minute it begins, people start laughing. They go, “Oh, it’s not a hard issue movie like transgenders are people too, it’s a warm hearted comedy about people!”

I always get called about movies coming out with transgender themes. Whenever I talk to the directors and casting people, they seem really surprised at the suggestion that they cast women to play these parts. Why do you think it doesn’t even occur to people to cast transwomen in these roles?

The people who aren’t familiar with transgendered people, I think they get hung up in the… package, no pun intended [Laughs]. I think most people can’t do what (director) Duncan Tucker did… You know, if you’ll remember, I even called him, I said “Listen, you should get a guy to play this role.” And he said, “First of all, it’s not a movie about what’s under your skirt, its about what’s in your heart. And second of all, we want to honor who transgendered women are, and they are women.” I think for the most part, instead of the interior truth of the character, people can get caught up in the wrapping paper.

Duncan said he needed an actor who was transformative, and I think you really did that. What turned out to be different than your expectations once you started researching for this role?

Well, it sort of transformed throughout the spectrum of my experience, beginning with getting the role and ending with finishing the movie. I think, to tell the truth, I probably paralleled those casting directors that you’re talking about, you know how they start going “Oh! It should be a man”, and I started going, “Well, its an odd small segment of society, and Im going to play a really interesting oddball, and I’ve gotta figure out how to do it… you know, it’ll be a “character”. Of course, what it ended up being was finding Bree’s emotional journey, and where that rested in terms of the truth of the human soul. And you know, the truth of the human soul is the truth of the human soul, whether your a guy or a girl or transgendered or anything. And once I went, “Oh, Ok, she’s just like me, her circumstances may be a little different, but she’s just like me.” That changed it from I’m playing an small, odd segment of society to I’m portraying a certain an aspect of myself.

What you did with Bree’s voice was especially amazing.

I worked with Andrea (Calpernia’s business partner), and I also worked with a voice teacher here in LA and Katie Bull in New York. I came up with a few different voices, all of which got nixed within the first 3 or 4 days of rehearsal in NY because they were all really false. Eventually I learned to bring the inside out. Where is this person coming from? She’s coming from excruciating self consciousness, self loathing and shame, but she’s also coming form a place of bravery and courage. That’s what we needed to find in the voice, the voice just can’t be, “Oh what a weird voice!” We tried to find a voice that portrayed all those things going on inside and it wasn’t just a guy going (in cracked falsetto) “hello how are you!” It had to show her soul.

This is a deeper question, but what does being a woman mean to you, in light of playing someone like Bree?

That’s a great question… gosh, women have always been the waters in which I have swum, so I didn’t quite know what anything else was like. Growing up in a matriarchal household with my mother and six older sisters, women were the beginning, middle and the end for me. It meant that men have always been “other” to me. I never knew how to act around them, what they felt, they were “other”.

I feel like as women, we deal with a lot more self loathing, at least I do, so it’s been a process of letting go of the self loathing and appreciating the blessings of being a woman. Which is that double edged sword of incredible strength and also incredible vulnerability. And I hope with my daughters, that I come to a place where I can start saying, “I love being a girl!” and it’s not just lip service. It’s not, “Yeah I’d love being a girl if I was 20 pounds lighter, I’d love being a girl if I was really pretty, Id love being a girl if I was smarter,” all those things I feel as if I’m not. That I can say, I love being a girl, I love being a woman because I love the way women create community, bond with each other, I love the way women take care of the spirit, I love the way women create a home. And Im not saying men don’t do that, but I’m saying I find women to be natural athletes at it.

It’s a question that transwomen have to ask themselves. I grew up in a household where my mother never wore makeup, jewelry, dyed her hair, so those things weren’t part of developing my ideas of what being a woman was. I developed my ideas based on the social place, the familial place.

That’s fascinating, because for most of us you’re just born into this gender and you’re never asked, “What would you like out of being a woman?”

So Calpernia, did you cringe when you saw yourself on screen?

I did! I always rip on myself like, “You’re hideous!” and can’t stand to look.

Thats awful! [Laughs] Join the club! I don’t know very many actors that can. I remember talking to a wonderful hairdresser who’s worked with the beauties of Hollywood, and I was listing all these things I didn’t like about my appearance, and she said, look I have had the greatest beauties in Hollywood in my chair. No one likes the way they look. So why don’t you just choose to like the way you look? Cause it doesn’t matter really what you look like so much as how you feel about it. But I haven’t made very much progress with that.

So now you’ve played two really different really mothers. Bree’s mother in Transamerica looks like she would be right at home on Wisteria Lane. How do you think the girls would react to Bree if she moved in there?

Ha ha, you’re right! Fionnula Flanagan, who played my mother, would be very very at home on Wisteria Lane. She and Marcia Cross’ character would be great friends. How do I think they’d react to Bree if she lived there? I think at the beginning of the movie, they’d probably look at her as the outcast she believes herself to be, because she’s so uncomfortable, so painful with who she is that, how can you deal with someone like that other than going, “Geez! Are you alright? God!” But I think at the end of the movie, she’d be a wonderful addition, because, all those women have been through different “wars”, but none of those women have been through the war that Bree has been through.

You must know that there has been, to use a Hollywood term, “Oscar Buzz”, about your work in the film. How do you deal with that?

I try and turn my ears off, because who knows what’s gonna happen with this movie. I mean, on one hand I’d be flattered, it’d certainly be a lifelong dream. Like everyone in the business, you hear, “this is it! Boy your life’s gonna be different in a year!” and then you don’t work for a year. That’s happened to me before, so I try and just ignore it.

After Desperate Housewives, this movie is sure to add to your already enormous gay following. Did you ever think you might become a gay icon?

It’s sort of a convergence, being on Desperate Housewives and doing this movie. I have a couple of things to say about the gay community. One, I think it is no accident that Marc Cherry, who’s a gay man, wrote a television show where 40 year old women are viable, sexy happenin’ chicks. And there’s something I feel that the gay community affords women, that straight guys don’t, which is, you can be 50 and a gay guy will go, “You’re so beautiful , you’re so sexy”, and they mean it! They’re not just trying to sleep with you. They appreciate your femininity. And I think that’s a real gift that they give older women. So did I ever think I would be a gay icon? I never thought I’d be an icon at all, but if it so happens, I’d be flattered an honored. The gay community has good taste and picks well.

And I just want to say again, that, I really appreciate what Duncan did with the script of Transamerica, and how he directed it. He didn’t make an issue movie, like “transgender individuals are people too!” and thats nice, but what are you gonna do with the other 100 minutes of your film? I think what people need to break down any barriers or prejudices is, you need to experience what that character is experiencing. So you need to take them on a journey, and so he’s taken the audience on a journey, and its just the backdrop that she’s transgendered. The story is one of a woman thinking the biggest thing she can do is have sexual reassignment surgery, but actually the biggest thing she can do is become a parent. I know this from people saying, “I didn’t really want to see this movie, I wanted to see Star Wars VI, but you were here so we came, and it turns out to be this heartwarming road movie!” I loved this woman, I loved her journey, and that’s what I want people to take away from the film. And what I want people to expect going in is, it’s a heartwarming comedy. I know there are some dark parts, but you don’t get laughs unless it goes somewhere dark too. I just wanna go, “it’s funny, guys! It’s ok to laugh! She’s a wacky character, she’s your conservative right wing aunt.”

I’m always glad when a movie shows people that we are more than the hookers and psychos usually portrayed.

Yes, there’s such a wide range… Who Bree is is not representative of “transgendered people”, she’s one individual, an odd combo, I bet you wouldn’t find a lot of people like her whether they’re transgendered or not. So I hope I bust through some barriers. All you need to do is experience what someone is experiencing, and you go oh, its you and me. Well, it’s not you and me, or you or me. It’s you are me.

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