Nearly five years after she served 11 days in jail for her involvement in the college admissions scandal, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues, Felicity Huffman admits that it’s been hard to shed the public shame of her criminal act.

“I walk into the room with it. I did it. It’s black-and-white,” Huffman told The Guardian in a new interview. “How I am is kind of a loaded question. As long as my kids are well and my husband [actor William H. Macy] is well, I feel like I’m well.” In 2019, the Desperate Housewives actor pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud for paying William “Rick” Singer $15,000 to doctor her daughter’s SAT scores. (Huffman also paid a $30,000 fine, completed 250 hours of community service, and issued a written apology.) Now, she says, “I’m grateful to be here. But how am I? I guess I’m still processing.”

Huffman was embroiled in the controversy with 32 other parents, including Full House star Lori Loughlin, who served almost two months in prison. Singer himself pleaded guilty to charges of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice; he was sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay $10 million in restitution to the IRS. “When he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like—and I know this seems crazy—at the time that that was my only option to give my daughter a future,” Huffman said last December. “I know hindsight is 20/20, but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So I did it.”

Since her conviction, Huffman has failed to secure any major screen roles. “I’m not in any way whitewashing what I did, but some people have been kind and compassionate,” she told The Guardian. “Others have not.” Last year, ABC passed on a spin-off of The Good Doctor involving Huffman, after the network cast her in a baseball comedy series in 2020 that never materialized. “I did a pilot for ABC recently that didn’t get picked up. It’s been hard. Sort of like your old life died and you died with it,” Huffman said. “I’m lucky enough to have a family and love and means, so I had a place to land.”

Instead, the Emmy winner has found her next gig on the London stage, starring in a revival of Taylor Mac’s Hir. Huffman plays Paige, the mother of a transgender child. Back in 2006, she was Oscar-nominated for playing a trans woman in Transamerica—a role Huffman knows she “wouldn’t be able to do now.” She added, “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.”

When asked by the publication what it was like to meet trans actor Alexandra Billings, who says she was originally offered the part before Huffman expressed interest, she replied,“I have no memory of that. As an excuse, I also have no estrogen left in my body.”