Of all the “Desperate Housewives,” no character is closer to the millions of fans than Felicity Huffman’s Lynette Scavo, the work-at-home mom who broke down last season under the pressure of rearing four children, at least three of whom would test Mother Nature’s patience.

In the Golden Globe-winning ABC hit’s upcoming sophomore season, Lynette, who was a career woman on the way up until she hopped onto the mommy track, will be headed back to work-payback for having sidetracked hubby Tom’s career. Ms. Huffman, who has juggled a busy stage, film and TV career with her real-life marriage to William H. Macy and motherhood of two close-in-age youngsters, rues the likelihood that the thickening plot will mean she has to give up a wardrobe of which she has become quite fond.

“I love the huge pants and the huge shorts, and that my hair is a mess, and that I’m usually covered in food. I love it. This is what my wardrobe at home looks like,” she said. “I like it because it’s comfortable and I don’t have to be thin. I would like it if she could go to work in a high-powered corporate world looking like that.”

Of course, that isn’t likely to happen, but when time comes for the “Desperate” costumers to accessorize Lynette’s power duds, Ms. Huffman offered this thought: “Raspberry jam is really effective. Yesterday I was covered with Fudgesicle on white pants. That’s pretty good, too. It looks like some artistic Beverly Hills salon. You know how they f**k up their jeans? It looked like that.”

The actress-wife-mother sounded very happy about everything in her life on and off camera. After working in many go-nowhere pilots and the critically beloved but short-lived “Sports Night,” she was worried about becoming “a bit of a crepe hanger” who felt like “the unlucky penny in the mix,” she said.

Now, she’s feeling very lucky to be part of the smash hit created by Marc Cherry, with whom the “Desperate” cast vamped in a Broadway-style production number that stole the show at ABC’s recent upfront presentation.

“I seriously had a crush [that afternoon] on Marc Cherry and kind of wanted to have his baby,” Ms. Huffman said of the openly gay showrunner. “I suddenly wished he batted from the other side of the plate. I was thinking of converting him. He was beyond terrific. He should have a Broadway show.”

And Ms. Huffman said she feels lucky to be a member of a cast that has been the subject of made-for-TV gossip since before the show launched. “As Nicollette [Sheridan] wisely said, ‘Better they are writing about you than that they are not writing at all.'”

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