Felicity Huffman in “Transamerica” Photo: Screenshot
Felicity Huffman says she “wouldn’t be able to” play the lead role in Transamerica if it were offered to her today.
Huffman earned a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for her role in the 2005 film, in which she played a transgender woman who goes on a road trip with her estranged son. In the years since, however, the conversation around whether it’s appropriate for cisgender actors to take on the roles of trans characters in films and on TV has advanced significantly.
Related:
Asked for her opinion on the issue in a recent interview with The Guardian, Huffman, who will play the mother of a trans son in a revival of queer playwright Taylor Mac’s Hir at London’s Park Theatre February 15–March 16, had this to say: “I think we should reflect the audience and that’s got to include everybody. There has been such inequity for so long and now the pendulum must swing the other way. But I hope it leads to a situation where anyone can play anything.”
The Guardian also asked Huffman about an encounter with trans actress Alexandra Billings. The Transparent star has claimed that she was originally offered the lead role in Transamerica, but writer/director Duncan Tucker later rescinded the offer.
“He said, ‘I just can’t get it made if you’re in the lead. I can’t get any money. I can’t get backing because no one knows who you are,’” Billings told Screen Crushof the conversation with Tucker in 2017.
“I assumed the person they were replacing me with was trans, and I said, ‘Who are you going to get to do it?’” Billings continued. “He said, ‘Have you heard of William H. Macy?’ I said yes, thinking to myself, ‘If he plays this role I’m going to throw myself off of a bridge.’ He said, ‘His wife is actually interested in the role.’ I said, ‘Felicity Huffman?’ She ended up playing the role and getting nominated for an Oscar.”
Billings went on to recall confronting Huffman at an event in 2017. “Weirdly, I ran into her about three or four months ago – we’d never met – at something and we were sat at the same table, accidentally. So I got to turn to her and say, ‘Did you know that you stole the role [laughs] in Transamerica from me?’ And she felt really bad, which made me feel great.”
In 2022, Billings told a similar version of the story to Bevy Smith on her Radio Andy show Bevelations. “She had no idea. She was mortified. She said, ‘I didn’t know you had the role,’” Billings recalled. “And I said, ‘That’s completely fine.’ I said, ‘But here’s the thing: You need to take this information deep into the Hollywood madness so that you can tell people that trans people not only exist, but that our stories deserve to be told by us.”
But Huffman told The Guardian she has no memory of that conversation with Billings. “There was no trans actor originally,” she said at first, before blaming her apparent memory lapse on menopause.
