Just to Be Nominated

Felicity's work in Transamerica is particularly fascinating and complicated because she is a woman playing a man—who is trying to act like a woman.

"Bree was a transgendered woman," Felicity says. "And the thing about being transgendered is you don't feel like a male. You feel like a woman trapped in a man's body. So I didn't feel like a man. I actually felt as if I was learning feminity as a foreign language."

One of the most striking elements of the character was the voice Felicity developed for Bree. Hormones do not change a person's voice, Felicity says. "You can look like Kate Moss and sound like James Earl Jones."

Finding the correct balance for the voice took a lot of effort. "I went through three voice teachers," Felicity says. "It took me about an hour of exercises in the morning to lower it. Once I lowered it, I couldn't get out. ... I had to find a male voice and make it sound like it was reaching for something artificial."