LOS ANGELES — On television, they both have played doting mothers who could do no wrong.

Now, the Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin find themselves as the twin public faces of a sprawling college admissions bribery scheme — the best-known symbols of presumptuous entitlement at the center of widespread ire.

But even as the admissions scandal has placed Ms. Huffman and Ms. Loughlin side by side in the spotlight amid dozens of lesser-known parents, the actresses’ roles in this real-life drama are actually quite different — and diverging by the minute.

[Actress Felicity Huffman is the first parent to be sentenced for her role in the nation’s largest college admissions cheating prosecution.]

One glimpse of that?

When Ms. Huffman announced this week that she would plead guilty to the crime she’s accused of, she issued a long, hand-wringing apology and her appearances in court have been somber — lips pursed and eyes avoiding the dozens of news cameras all around. Ms. Loughlin, who so far has not opted to enter a plea, has seemed to approach her courthouse visits with an affect more common on the red carpet — she has repeatedly been photographed smiling, at one point signing autographs for fans before she walked into federal court.