Bankrate: What were some lean years?

Felicity Huffman: Making $12,000 if anything at all. But I did go out and splurge even when I had no money to spend. I've gotten fired a bunch of times and once I kept thinking if I didn't get fired I was going to buy this Louis Vuitton handbag for over $1,000. I bought the bag and never really use it so that was a wasted expenditure. Another time I thought if I could get through this audition -- which was with Robert DeNiro -- that I was going to buy this great pair of shoes I'd been eyeing. I got through it, didn't freak out even when he was totally bored with me but I did go buy the shoes. I was wearing this nice little sundress but I wasn't well endowed so I had taken toilet paper and put it in my bra. I go to Bergdorf Goodman's -- like I belong there making less than $12,000 a year -- leaned down to look at the shoes and this long, horrible toilet paper fell out of my breast, still attached. This older gentleman helping me looked up and said, 'Madam' and I said, 'I know, I know,' just stuffed it back in but didn't buy the shoes. 

Bankrate: You are not only an actress, but an author and an inventor. I remember the "Head's Up" comfort pillow you invented received the Good Housekeeping magazine's "Good Buy Award." I saw them at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $30 each -- that will buy you a few pairs of shoes.

Felicity Huffman: The pillow was something I created after my youngest daughter was born. I didn't really know what I was doing but I knew I needed a pillow for when I was rocking the children to sleep ... something that would hold my head up and stay put in place. So I got out my sewing machine and made this pillow called Head Up. I have them all over the house now and my husband loves them too. When I fly I always bring one along. It's the best thing ever. 

Bankrate: When you think about the main characters on "Desperate Housewives," of course everyone does their share of scheming, but do you think Lynette is the most redeeming of the four? 

Felicity Huffman: Sort of. I think Marc (Cherry) has done a brilliant thing. He's taken the icon of the American family and he's held it up for ridicule. But because Marc loves it, it's not ridicule that pulls it down and the stories poke fun at it and make people go, "Oh, I feel good, that's funny." When you do that, you have to have extremes. You have to have the extreme Gabrielle, the extreme Bree, the Edie, the Susan and the me. I'm the extreme mom. I've had parents come up to me and say, "Can't you just enjoy your boys on the show a little?" And I'm wondering, and I say yes, but on the other hand I say no.

Bankrate: What elements of Lynette's extreme lifestyle do you relate to?

Felicity Huffman: Four kids and no help? I'm not so sure it's an exaggeration! Probably her feelings of being overwhelmed, being unable to cope -- never getting it all right. I would have asked for help a lot sooner than Lynette. I'd have maybe moved closer to my parents or something. It does take a village.