Felicity Huffman Talks About Rebuilding Life After Prison

The saga about actor Felicity Huffman going to prison in the college bribery scandal isn't news to anyone but now that the chapter is officially over, one may wonder as to just how is Huffman rebuilding her life back together.

It's been a minute since every piece of new evidence, every press conference about the so-called Varsity Blues scandal that's rocked the world of college admissions for the past year represented a different reality for her future. And yet, an insider tells E! News for Huffman, "It's hard to continue hearing about the case in the news." 

So, she'll switch off the TV, steer clear of certain corners of the Internet, try not to keep tabs on Rick Singer, the scam ringleader she paid $15,000 to boost her eldest daughter's SAT score. "She tries to avoid it," says the insider. "She wants to move on and not have to keep living it."

"Hearing and seeing what people are still going through makes her feel all the more relieved that she is moving on," notes the insider. Because having pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and completed the two-week jail sentence that followed (a punishment that was reduced to just 11 days, thanks to the prison's policy of not releasing inmates on the weekend), the Emmy and Golden Globe recipient no longer has to deal with the anxiety, the interminable wait that fellow actress Lori Loughlin and others are enduring. 

"She is incredibly relieved that she has served her jail time and is moving ahead with her life," a source says of the 57-year-old, who shares Sophia Macy, 19, and Georgia Macy, 17, with husband of nearly 23 years, William H. Macy. "She is looking forward and not backward." 

Her brief stay at Federal Correction Institution Dublin in Northern California now firmly in the rearview, she's working to tackle the more time-consuming but decidedly more enjoyable part of her sentence. Tasked with finishing 250 community service hours, she's publicly committed to far more, splitting her time between Enter: A New Way of Life, an L.A. group dedicated to helping once-incarcerated women return home with jobs and work, and The Teen Project. 

Having already proven invaluable at the former ("She's been very helpful and supportive to the women here," founder Susan Burton, a former inmate and recovering addict, told People. "She has connected with them in a real way and you can feel it,") she's recently been devoting herself to the latter. 

Having watched her contemporaries work their way back from much larger missteps, she's hopeful that an opportunity will come her way soon. "Hollywood is a small town and nobody has anything bad to say about her," another source tells E! News. "She feels like she is paying her dues and has shown remorse for her actions. She hopes that she will be accepted again."