Desperate Housewives
Lynette Scavo

Lynette Scavo

Played by Felicity Huffman

THE SKINNY:

  • Separated from Tom Scavo
  • Mother of Parker, Penny, Porter and Preston
  • Former advertising executive
Previous Quote

"There's something about little people that gives her the heebie jeebies." - Lynette Scavo

Next Quote
Prev
  • Tom Scavo to Lynette:

    "It would be a shame, a shame, if some meaningless encounter 20 years ago ruined this wonderful life that we have built together."

  • Bree Van de Kamp to Lynette:

    "Lynette, I wish I had time to be more tactful, but I don't. Your swan is pathetic and I'm firing you from napkin duty."

  • Gabrielle Solis to Lynette:

    "I don't know how to say thank you for saving my child's life and how sorry I am."

  • Carlos Solis to Lynette (about her breasts):

    "Come on, you don't buy christmas ornaments unless you're going to hang them on a tree."

  • Renee Perry to Lynette, Gaby, Susan & Bree:

    "You guys are like the mean, pretty girls who won't let anyone sit at your lunch table."

  • Renee Perry

    "I suppose it is a time to be thankful. And I'm thankful I'm not her."

  • Gabrielle Solis to Lynette:

    "Seriously. It'll be my treat. And tonight -- you'll be Tom's trick."

  • Tom Scavo to Lynette:

    "Everybody smile for mom and her strange and twisted friendship."

  • Mary Alice Young

    "Lynette Scavo had a dream that night. It was one she'd had many times before. But this night, something changed. This was the last time Lynette would ever dream of me, and for her sake, I am grateful."

  • Bree Van de Kamp to Lynette:

    "Oh, don't go Catholic. All that standing and kneeling and genuflecting — I go for worship, not a workout."

  • Tom Scavo to Lynette:

    "This is gonna be so great. We're a team again."

  • Carlos Solis to Lynette:

    "We have an opening for you in our Florida office, but here your job's already been given to Tim. I guess this gives you no choice but to quit."

  • Mary Alice Young

    "We know dangerous men walk among us. What we can't be sure of is who they are or where they hide. So the most we can offer any stranger is reasonable doubt. But once the doubt is gone, people are anything but reasonable."

  • Renee Perry to Lynette:

    "Doug screws up a lot, but his apologies are always the 4th of July."

  • Renee Perry to Lynette:

    "It's just hard for me to reconcile this suburban housewife with the girl who had a threesome with two of the guys from the rugby team."

  • Renee Perry to Tom about Lynette:

    "If I never tell Lynette what happened, then my friendship with her is not real."

  • Tom Scavo to Lynette:

    "Guys always pay for sex in some way, dinner, flowers, antique rings."

  • Gabrielle Solis to Lynette about Renee:

    "I know she's your friend, but isn't she kind of a self-absorbed, narcissistic diva?"

  • Gabrielle Solis to Lynette:

    "Tonight, you're a redhead. Tomorrow, Helga, the sexy milkmaid. Or Amber, the lonely runaway. Or Jeff, the friendly guy from work. What? I don't know what Tom's into."

  • Carlos Solis to Lynette:

    "I'm not firing you Lynette, I'm offering you a promotion."

Next

Character Bio

Lynette Scavo was once best known as a tough, savvy businesswoman. In the working world she was an over-achiever who could accomplish any task. But those days came to an end when she and her husband, Tom, decided to have kids...five kids to be exact. Since then, Lynette has tirelessly struggled to find the perfect balance between marriage, motherhood, and career.

Over the last ten years, Lynette battled her wild children, her prescription drug dependency, her crazy boss, her husband's mid-life crisis, her unstable siblings, her alcoholic mother, cancer, a miscarriage, and a serial killer, to name a few. But the one thing she could count on through all of it was her loving husband, Tom. Until he took a corporate job and didn't have time for tending to the family or their marriage. Lynette, long the person who called the shots in the relationship, was suddenly delegated to being the "plus one." Feeling like their lives were going in different directions, the two finally agreed to a trial separation. Can the marriage that so many of their friends admired survive?

"I love the marriage Lynnette has with Tom. Maybe it's just that I adore working with Doug Savant, but it is a "marriage in progress." It has its ups and downs but is still alive and vibrant and the characters love each other. I also love how the writers create Lynette. She is strong, but always crazed trying to balance family and work. She is a very truthful character who has a big heart and a lot of flaws. Finally, I love that I get to wear baggy clothes!"
-Felicity Huffman

Actor Bio

We love our actresses versatile, and, geez, does Felicity Huffman ever fit the bill! Not only can she currently be seen starring as Super Mom Lynette Scavo on the hit Desperate Housewives on ABC on Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m., Huffman also proved herself to be an exceptional actress by earning an Academy Award nomination for her stunning performance as a transsexual woman in Transamerica, as well as a Golden Globe Award and Independent Spirit Award for the same role.

Huffman also nabbed an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on Desperate Housewives. The cast won the 2004 SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, and most recently won a Golden Globe for Best Television Series-Comedy or Musical. Huffman was also nominated for Best Actress in a Television Comedy for Desperate Housewives.

In 2006 she starred in the critically acclaimed Weinstein Company film, Transamerica, as Bree, a transgendered woman who embarks on a journey across country with her newly discovered son. In addition to an Oscar nomination, Huffman won a Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award for the role..

In 2004 Huffman appeared in the feature film Christmas with the Cranks, which starred Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. She also appeared in Raising Helen, with Kate Hudson and John Corbett.

On the small screen, she was seen in 2004 in the television movie Reversible Errors with William H. Macy, Tom Selleck and Monica Potter. Among her television movie credits are Out of Order, the critically acclaimed Door to Door, starring William H. Macy, Path to War, starring Alec Baldwin and Donald Sutherland, The Heart Department, Harrison, Cry of the City, Quicksand, Heart of Justice, The Water Engine and Underworld. Other television credits include Chicago Hope, X-Files, Law and Order, Bedtime Stories and appearances as a series regular on The Human Factor, the ABC series Sports Night, Thunder Alley, Early Edition, Jules and The Golden Years.

Huffman is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company, an off-Broadway theater company where she has been featured in numerous plays, including Dangerous Corner, Shaker Heights and The Joy of Definitely Going Somewhere. Among her other stage credits are Oh Hell, directed by Greg Mosher ad the Lincoln center Theatre, Boy's Life, directed by William H. Macy, The Loop and Grotesque Love Songs. Huffman also appeared in David Mamet's Speed the Plow. She received an OBIE Award for her portrayal of Donnie in Mamet's Cryptogram.

Huffman resides in Los Angeles with her husband, actor/director William H. Macy.

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