Wife of actor Macy touts their working together

The pair's latest project is the CBS thriller 'Reversible Errors.'
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Felicity Huffman is on her cell phone as she enters the restaurant for an interview. She's talking to husband William H. Macy, who's half a world away filming the adventure "Sahara."
As parents of two young daughters, the acting couple try to juggle their busy schedules so only one of them is working at a time. Occasionally, however, they end up working at the same time -- even on the same project.
Such was the case with the crime thriller "Scott Turow's 'Reversible Errors.'" The CBS miniseries, which also stars Tom Selleck and Monica Potter, airs at 9 tonight and Tuesday.
Huffman, 41, portrays Gillian Sullivan, a disbarred judge whose drug abuse and ethical violations have landed her in prison.
"I look like hell in this movie. Which is fine," the forthright Huffman says.
Wearing a T-shirt, jeans and smoothed blond hair, she looks considerably better this day, although she apologizes for not being able "to get all dressed up" because of family demands.
Character connection
Macy, 54, plays Arthur Raven, a big-time corporate lawyer who is grudgingly assigned to a pro bono appeal for a man on death row claiming innocence. While unraveling the truth, Raven tracks down Sullivan. She not only had sentenced his client, but was also someone he once had a secret crush on.
Huffman insists she still harbors some surprise that in real life Macy "chose me. ... You could have knocked me down with a feather. I had a bad perm and glasses, and I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now."
The two have worked together in "a bunch of plays," the movie "Magnolia" and the ABC sitcom "Sports Night."
"It's actually one of the things we do best. We work really well together, which is surprising because I know it's tough for couples to play tennis together, much less work together," Huffman said.
"I'm not competitive with him at all. I think he's one of America's greatest actors, and so you sort of go, 'Well, you cornered the market on that. That's cool,'" she says. "He's able to help me and coach me, and I don't get my nose out of joint."
Furthermore, she insists, "Bill's very kind and not judgmental ... and I am not kind and I'm very judgmental!"
By request
The script of "Reversible Errors" was "sent to Bill first," she says, as is usual. "Then he says, 'Cast my wife, please.'"
She wasn't cast until the day before rehearsals started but was "thrilled to get a job without auditioning," even though it meant moving the entire family from Los Angeles to Canada on short notice for the shoot.
"Felicity is capable of playing all facets of a diamond," co-executive producer Frank von Zerneck says. He noted how Huffman's character transitions from "a cold, tough cookie, smart as a whip with no cracks in her exterior to ... this injured bird with a broken wing, vulnerable, frightened."
"This is someone who fell, fell, fell," Huffman says. "He [Raven] remembers me from my glory days ... so he's intrigued and sort of pursues me, even though I'm so damaged."
Huffman, the youngest of eight kids, grew up in Aspen, Colo., in a family "mostly into horses." She did her stint as a polo groom for several summers but had already been hooked by acting.
Later she studied acting in both London and New York, where she met Macy.
Huffman co-stars in the upcoming Kate Hudson movie "Raising Helen." She has also filmed "Desperate Housewives," a pilot considered likely for ABC's fall schedule in which she plays "a crazed mother of four."
This month it will be Macy's turn to stay around Los Angeles with the kids as Huffman starts work on the independent movie "Transamerica," playing a transsexual who discovers that as a man he fathered a son.
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