Tell Laura we love her

10 April 2012

Laura Linney abides by one golden rule: Do Not Expect Anything.

A respected New York-born stage actress, best known to cinema-goers for her role in The Truman Show, she will be doing just that in LA on Sun 25 Mar. Nominated for Best Actress in this year's Oscars for her role in You Can Count On Me, Linney has already learnt to curb anticipation when it comes to her career - after all, this is Julia Roberts's night, right?

'When The Truman Show came out, it was extremely well received, but nothing happened for me,' she says, in her neatly-clipped Manhattan brogue. 'It was disappointing because the hype was so big. There were great expectations for what I would do next. But it just didn't happen.'

Ironically, it has been a much smaller movie that has made it happen for Linney. You Can Count On Me has already garnered her a Golden Globe nomination, the New York Critics Award for Best Actress and now an Oscar call-up.

Written and directed by playwright Kenneth Lonergan (himself nominated for Best Original Screenplay), it's a delicately observed story of the relationship between two orphaned siblings - single mother Sammy Prescott (Linney) and her drifter, ex-con brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo).

Beginning as Terry returns to their hometown of Scottsville in upstate New York, where Sammy still lives, the film paints an affectionate, yet truthful portrait of two lost souls clinging on to each other.

'Sammy's identity is very much tied up in Terry,' says Linney, who has a half-sister herself. 'lt falls apart without him. When she sees the trouble he is in when he returns home, she tries, as gently as she can, to suggest that maybe if he looks to his roots and the religion that moulded their childhood, when things were good, it might help him. Religion is the one constant in her life. It gives her a great sense of security, and a wonderful connection to the community.'

Linney, who made the film back-to-back alongside three other movies - including Terence Davies's masterful Edith Wharton adaptation The House Of Mirth - in the summer of 1999, positively glows when she talks about the film.

'I'm extremely proud of it,' she gushes. Why? 'It's good,' she says. In case you might think she's prone to congratulating herself, she clarifies. 'It's good. It's good. The story is very good, the acting is very good.'

Lonergan, who also cast his long-time friend Matthew Broderick as Linney's anal boss, had never quite managed to snag Laura to appear in his work. 'I've known her for years. I'd seen her work in New York before, and I'd asked her several times to perform in my plays, but she'd never been available. I didn't know her very well. But I've always admired her acting. She's a very warm person, a very polite woman.'

It's a good description of the 37-year-old Linney, who on our two encounters has been both a courteous and consummate professional. A perky blonde, with bright blue eyes, she has a pale but well-sculpted face, dominated by her smile. It's those apple-pie features - perfect to play the rosy-cheeked 'wife' of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show - that you first notice when she arrives on screen.

But, as witnessed by her vicious socialite in The House Of Mirth, they are quite capable of hiding a powerful venom, a fact that makes Linney such a fascinating performer.

Raised by her mother, a nurse in a cancer hospital, after her parents divorced, Linney grew up surrounded by the theatre. Her father is Romulus Linney, a well-respected US playwright, who fostered in her a love for drama. 'I'm sure my father had more to do with it than I would like to give him credit for,' she laughs. 'I would love to think it was all me!'

She even performed in one of his plays, Child Byron, during her school years before she moved on to Brown University. 'I think they set it up so that I would do it. It was my senior year. I was one of the main actresses, with a father who was a successful playwright. I thought about it and realised that it was my one opportunity to do something [of his] in case the career didn't work out, or if it took me a long time to get my foot in the door.'

Graduating from the prestigious Juilliard drama school - where she roomed with Mickey Blue Eyes star Jeanne Tripplehorn - the first job Linney was offered was to work on another of her father's plays.

She declined, a sure sign that Linney has no time for nepotism. 'Given who we both are, I didn't think it was the right thing to do. I just wasn't comfortable with it. I didn't want to be identified as Romulus Linney's daughter, who has got into the business because of him. I had worked very, very hard. I was independent in that way.'

And work she did. Making her Broadway debut in Hedda Gabler, which won her the 1994 Calloway award, she began to carve a name for herself across all three mediums. On film, bit-parts in Lorenzo's Oil and Dave led to more substantial roles in ape drama Congo, legal thriller Primal Fear and Clint Eastwood vehicle Absolute Power, while her recurring role as Mary Ann Singleton in the Armistead Maupin-penned Tales Of The City kept her TV profile bubbling along nicely.

'Fortunately I'm at this wonderful level,' she says. 'I get a little bit of attention, which certainly feels nice, and then I go home. I put on my sweatpants and my T-shirt, and I walk around Manhattan and no one bothers me.'

How long her anonymity will last is questionable. Having recently played an eccentric socialite in pro-golf story Lush and the lover to an artist in Maze (for which she dyes her hair red), she's currently shooting sci-fi epic The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere, having just completed another series of Tales Of The City. Still based in New York, having separated from her husband, stage actor David Adkins, she has no intention of moving to Hollywood just yet.

'All of my friends are there, and you just make sure you create your own life with care,' she says. 'The danger of LA is that it makes you feel that what you have is not enough. Or that what you have done is not enough. And that's not good. You just have to be careful. Everyone's susceptible to that. I don't care how centred, well brought-up you are. In time, you start to feel bad about yourself. I go, I enjoy it while I'm there, and when I start to feel bad, I go home.'

That said, she knows she can no longer shy away from Tinseltown. 'You have to engage, you have to be a part of it,' she admits. 'You just have to take care of yourself along the way. You can smell the bullshit. You can. You know when someone's overflattering you in a way. You smile but you can't believe it.' Whether or not she steals Julia's thunder next Sunday, Laura Linney has landed.

You Can Count On Me opens Fri 23 Mar. The Oscars are announced Sun 25 Mar.

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