THERE HAVE BEEN several awards and an avalanche of critical accolades, but Felicity Huffman thinks the remarkable transformation her career has undergone in the past year can be summed up by one simple fact: she's going to the Oscars - as a nominee. A relative unknown just over a year ago, the 43-year-old has been catapulted to fame on the back of her role as harassed mother-of-four Lynette Scavo in the hit television series Desperate Housewives and her astounding portrayal of a transsexual in Transamerica. Huffman is now one of the front-runners for best actress at the Academy Awards next Sunday. But win or lose, she says she's just happy to be invited to Hollywood's biggest party, after spending years with her nose pressed up against the glass trying to get in. 'This is all I feel like doing right now: 'I'm going to the Oscars! I'm going to the Oscars! I'm not in catering, I'm not a seat filler, I'm not on somebody's arm. I'm going to the Oscars!' That's what it feels like. It's incredible. It's a dream come true. 'As actors, with 5 per cent of the union making a living wage - not people like myself who make a good living - you have to give up this dream many, many times. You get the stuffing knocked out of you. But this whole year has been a dream come true. As my brother said, 'You're in some weird parallel universe where all your dreams are coming true'.' Huffman's story - years of toiling in obscurity, learning to take disappointment on the chin and struggling to suppress the nagging feeling that success might always prove elusive - is one familiar to actors. The crushing sense of having missed the boat was brought home to Huffman in 2003. 'I was at a party a couple of years ago and Renee Zellweger had just won a Golden Globe the night before. A friend of mine was shooting a movie with her and said, 'So we're doing a reshoot tomorrow, right, 7am call?' And the producer was there and says, 'No. It's not going to be a 7am call.' And she went, 'Why?' He said, 'Well, Renee is a Golden Globe winner now, she can call her shots.' And at the time I went, 'A Golden Globe winner. Wouldn't that be incredible?' And here I am.' So does Huffman now demand to push the shooting time back? 'Oh yeah, I've become a total ass****,' she says with a laugh. 'I inconvenience people. They've had to widen the doors because my head's so big.' Oscar recognition has led to more attention in her daily life. 'Three or four days ago, I went to the market and I felt a shift. Before, it had always been little dribs here and there like, 'I think I went to camp with you' and 'No, I don't think so'. But a few days ago I went to the market and I could feel it. The critical mass shifted and I went, 'Oh, this feels different'.' Huffman's victory in the Golden Globes was followed by a best actress nomination by the Screen Actors Guild, where she lost to Reese Witherspoon, who is seen as the other frontrunner for the best actress Oscar. But it was in the early hours of January 31 that Huffman's spirits suddenly soared. She was in bed with her husband, actor William H. Macy, when the Academy Award nomination call came. 'It was 5.45 and I kept dreaming - you know, when you're dreaming that you're awake. I kept dreaming that it was 7am and I was like, 'Wow, OK. I didn't get the phone call, but god I'm so lucky.' And I was processing the disappointment, and thinking how I would never hear from Harvey Weinstein again, and how my agents wouldn't be interested in talking to me. And then I would look at the clock and it was 1am. And then I would do it all over again at 3am and 4am. 'And finally I fell asleep and the phone rang at 5.45 on Bill's side and he went, 'Ha, ha, ha', rolled over and gave me a hug and said, 'Congratulations, don't answer the phone'. Of course, I lunged across him and answered the phone.' Macy, who for years has enjoyed a higher profile than his wife, with starring roles in hits such as Fargo, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, is now taking a backseat while Huffman enjoys her moment in the spotlight. Not that Huffman's elevated status has caused any disquiet on her husband's part. 'No, he's thrilled,' Huffman says. 'He left the next day to go on this thing for a movie that he's doing. So he calls me every so often. 'How are the kids?' And I'd say, 'They're really good. And have I told you lately that I'm going to the Oscars?' I think he's gotten tired of it.' After graduating in drama from New York University in 1988, Huffman built a portfolio of solid work, featuring in TV shows such as Frasier, Law & Order and Sports Night. She earned a good reputation within the industry, but, despite her obvious talent, substantial parts weren't forthcoming. Transamerica writer-director Duncan Tucker, who first saw Huffman performing on stage in David Mamet's Cryptogram, remembers noticing her in bit-parts and thinking, 'Why is this woman not a star, like Frances McDormand or Meryl Streep?' Huffman struggles to put her finger on a reason it took so long for her career to catch fire, but speculates that she doesn't fall into an easily identifiable category, making her harder to cast. 'I kept my expectations low because it's been so long and so hard and there have been several times in my career where, on small levels, people have gone, 'Oh, here it goes. Fasten your seat belt. Your life is going to change'. And, inevitably, it's been followed by a year of not working. 'Maybe it's just because I'm not easy to cast, so it's kind of the fringe thing. I was talking to [Desperate Housewives co-star] Alfre Woodard and she said the same thing. She's always been a little bit of an outsider, so it's always the outsiders who want to cast her.' Huffman's big breakthroughs came within weeks of each other. First, she was offered the role of Lynette in Desperate Housewives. Then, her agent told her that she'd landed the lead in Transamerica. For more established actors, Transamerica's subject matter might have been viewed as a gamble. But having little to lose meant Huffman accepted the part with alacrity. 'I didn't really have a career,' she says. 'The only gamble was that you could screw it up. You could just screw it up on so many levels. I didn't have my usual landmarks to work from. Normally, you know where the shore is and where the sea is and where you are. I was just out there. So the gamble was blowing it.' Although her gender-bending performance in Transamerica has earned her the critical acclaim, Desperate Housewives served as her launching pad. Huffman says the show has also helped change television industry attitudes towards women in their late 30s and 40s. 'I know from several of my friends whose pilots were smouldering in a drawer and [the networks] are like, 'No, no. We want to do that. Because it has older women and great characters.' 'Before, it was a liability and now it's actually a plus. So it has certainly changed the face of television.' Huffman's Housewives character has struck a chord with a lot of women. While the first series concentrated on her travails as a stay-at-home mother, in the second she'll return to work as her husband's boss. 'It's really interesting because I'm his boss, and it's one thing to be at home - I can imagine that could possibly be emasculating for a guy. It's another thing when you're in the workplace and you have to answer to your wife.' Engagingly forthright, Huffman's habit of telling it how she sees it caused a minor stir last month when she was interviewed on 60 Minutes and declined to go along with the suggestion that motherhood (she has two daughters, aged three and five) has been the best experience of her life. 'I'm glad I said that. You know, you forget in those interviews that you're actually on camera, and maybe, had I thought about it, I would have answered a little more diplomatically. But I hate that question - 'Isn't motherhood the best?' - because you're backed into a corner. 'If you answer yes, you're OK, you're a good mother. And if you answer no, you're a bad mother. And I don't like being put up against the wall like that. It's unfair. So I'm glad I answered that way. Not because I want to make a political statement, but it happens to be my truth, which if I do get flak for it, I understand. 'It's not everyone's experience of motherhood, but it's mine. There's nothing more painful than trying to keep a secret. There's nothing more painful than sitting there going, 'I'm a bad mother, but I can't let anybody know it.' Better to go, 'This is incredibly hard and I'm losing my mind. Does anyone else feel like this?'' Her own experience of parenthood is one of permanent evolution. 'I sort of go, 'You know what? I think I have this three- and five-year-old thing under control' and then a month later they're different. I'm like, 'We just learnt to play that other game. I was just getting good at tennis and now we're playing something else.' It's constantly changing and evolving. 'The most I could say is that it's a process and I don't know what the arrival point is.' Transamerica opens on March 9 The Academy Awards ceremony will be held on March 6 (Hong Kong time)