Laura Linney's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) The Big C Cathy Jamison John Adams Abigail Adams Sunday Morning Shootout Laura Linney

Main Movie Roles 2008 - The Other Man 2007 - The Savages 2007 - Breach 2007 - The Nanny Diaries 2006 - Man of the Year 2006 - Driving Lessons 2005 - The Squid and the Whale 2005 - The Exorcism of Emily Rose 2004 - Kinsey 2003 - Love Actually 2003 - Mystic River 2003 - The Life of David Gale 2002 - The Laramie Project 2002 - The Mothman Prophecies 2000 - The House of Mirth 2000 - You Can Count on Me 1998 - The Truman Show 1997 - Absolute Power 1996 - Primal Fear 1995 - Congo 1993 - Dave 1993 - Searching for Bobby Fischer 1992 - Lorenzo's Oil

BIOGRAPHY:

Laura Linney was born in New York City on February 5, 1964, into a theatre family. Her father is the prominent playwright Romulus Linney. Although she did not live in her father's house (her parents having divorced when she was an infant), Linney's world revolved, in part, around his profession from the earliest age. She graduated from Brown University in 1986 and studied acting at Julliard and the Arts Theatre School in Moscow and, thereafter, embarked on a career on the Broadway stage receiving favorable notices for her work in such plays as "Hedda Gabler" and "Six Degrees of Separation".

Linney's film career began in the early 1990s with small roles in Lorenzo's Oil (1992) and Dave (1993). She landed the role of Mary Anne Singleton in the PBS film adaptations of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" series, playing her in "Tales of the City" (1993), "More Tales of the City" (1998) and "Further Tales of the City" (2001). Linney's first substantial big-screen role was as the ex-girlfriend of Richard Gere's character in Primal Fear (1996) and her superb performance brought her praise and a better selection of roles. Clint Eastwood chose Linney to play his daughter, another prominent role, in 1997's Absolute Power (1997), followed by another second billing in the following year's The Truman Show (1998).

Always a strong performer, Linney truly came into her own after 2000, starting the decade auspiciously with her widely-praised, arguably flawless performance in You Can Count on Me (2000). She found herself nominated for an Academy Award for this, her first lead role, for which her salary had been $10,000. Linney won numerous critics' awards for her role as Sammy, a single mother whose life is complicated by a new boss and the arrival in town of her aimless brother. On the heels of this success came her marvelous turn as Bertha Dorset in The House of Mirth (2000), clearly the best performance in a film of strong performances. Since then, Linney has frequently been offered challenging dramatic roles, and always rises to the occasion, such as in Mystic River (2003), in which she worked again with Clint Eastwood, and Kinsey (2004), for which she received another Academy Award nomination.

Though not by any means typecast, Linney often plays a woman whose wholesome beauty is deceiving and whose character is ultimately more complex than it seems. Linney is divorced and lives in Connecticut. Although her career now focuses on movies, she continues to appear on the Broadway stage on occasion.


TRIVIA:

• Gained about 20 pounds for her role in _Kinsey (2004)_ (qv), mainly by eating Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts.
• Has a sister, Susan Linney.
• Graduated Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1982.
• Her father is respected Off-Broadway playwright 'Romulus Linney' (qv).
• Was at Northwestern University for one year before transferring to Brown University.
• Loves 'Meryl Streep' (qv) and donuts. In _The Truman Show (1998)_ (qv), her character was named Meryl and Laura was made up to look like her.
• Has a yellow Labrador dog that she named Eleonora Duse, after the actress 'Eleonora Duse' (qv).
• At 14 she spent the summer at the New London Barn Playhouse, summer stock theater in New London, NH and loved it - sometimes doing 14 hour days.