Movies: A Disparate Housewife

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Still, she says she hasn't had any film offers since she got Transamerica, just after Desperate Housewives got picked up. And she notes that it was gay men who cast her as a lead in each. She believes that as more gay men get positions of power in Hollywood, older women will get more opportunities. "I think for gay men, women stay sexual, sensual beings longer," she says. "Because the sex question doesn't come into it, they appreciate women sensually. I don't think they afford the same courtesy to their own community." You don't have to worry about saying things that alienate gay guys when you star in Desperate Housewives.

Huffman says she wouldn't be shocked if Housewives were her swan song, and she doesn't seem all that worried about it. She's using the rest of her free day to meet Macy on the set of his film about Bobby Kennedy's assassination and then to see her kids, including the gender-traumatized daughter who begged her to wear a dress that morning. It's the same dress she wore to a screening of Transamerica the night before and to work the day before that. "I wear things for days on end," she explains as she leaves. She might have mastered the acting-like-a-guy thing a little too well.