When two actors marry it doesn't always work. They have to cope with long separations, the competing careers, the outside pressures, to say nothing of the constant tempations. But one couple it seems to be working for is Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy, who have been married six years and are the parents of two girls, ages 1 and 2 1/2.
"He loves acting so much, and he's such an artist that when he's doing it he's really happy and so I'm happy when he's happy," said Huffman, who's best known as efficient producer Dana Whitaker on "Sports Night." "When I get to act with Bill it's a pleasure. I feel that Bill, in the business, is a beacon of truth and morality. He's very careful about the projects he picks, he's very true to being honest in his performances, so I look to him as a kind of a North Star. So it's not a source of stress or friction. I'm happy when he's successful. It's not competitive.
The youngest child of eight who grew up in Colorado. Huffman is pre-occupied now by her two small children. It's the hardest job you'll ever love, she said, parroting the poster with the famous adage. "I haven't worked that much since the children arrived but find I'm not as absorbed in the work as I used to be," she said. "It's like, 'Gee, do I have an extra half hour; I can rush home and nurse the baby?" They're constantly in my thoughts. 'Can I get home in time to put them down?'"
Huffman's latest endeavor is a co-starring role in "Our of Order," and it proved to be just what Dr. Spock ordered. "This project has been great that way because I was in it the perfect amount, sporadically, so I would work two days a week, three days a week and the rest I could spend with them."
The 40-year old actress breaks precedent with "Out of Order." She plays a drugged out, clinically depressed screenwriter whose marriage and career are floundering because of her depression and her flirtation with a washed-up producer (played by Macy). Though they have a nanny who comes in to help, most of the household chores fall to Huffman and Macy. "My husband cleans more than I do," she said. "Some (chores) just go down by gender lines, we're just so typical. Bill picks up the trash more than I do. I do more of the baby stuff than he does, it just so happens. Sometimes it's just who hates what. 'What do you hate doing?' 'I really hate cleaning the kitchen.' So Bill cleans the kitchen a lot. I really hate getting gas, and puts gas in the car."
"We talked a lot about the kids. The kids came and I went, 'Whoa! I'm no better at this than you are. I have no more proclivity for this than you do. Just because I'm built differently....' So there was a lot of negotiation about that."