Laura Linney

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Laura Linney
Born February 5, 1964 (age 43)
New York City, New York, Flag of United States United States
Spouse(s) David Adkins (September 1995 - 2000) (divorced)
Notable roles Meryl Burbank in The Truman Show (1998)
Sammy Prescott in You Can Count on Me (2000)
Clara McMillen in Kinsey (2004)
Joan Berkman in The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Guest Actress - Comedy Series
2004 Frasier

Laura Linney (born February 5, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated and Emmy Award-winning American actress, active in movies, television, and theatre.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Linney was born in New York City. Her father, Romulus Linney, is a well-known playwright and her mother, Ann Leggett Perse, is a nurse who worked at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City; she has a half-sister, Susan, from her father's second marriage.

Linney graduated from the Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1982. She then attended Northwestern University before transferring to Brown University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1986. Some of her more memorable roles while attending Brown University were as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the title role in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. She also trained at the Juilliard School and at the Moscow Art Theatre.

[edit] Career

Linney appeared in minor roles in a few early 1990s films, before being cast in a series of high-profile thrillers, including Congo, Primal Fear and Absolute Power. In 2000, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the lower-budget film You Can Count on Me. In 2003, Linney appeared in several notable films, including Mystic River, Love Actually and The Life of David Gale. Her 2004 performance in Kinsey, as the title character's wife, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2005, Linney starred in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (a horror movie and courtroom drama), and the very well-reviewed comedy, The Squid and the Whale, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy".

Linney recently appeared in the Robin Williams political satire Man of the Year, and will soon be seen in the spy thriller Breach, the comedy Driving Lessons starring Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame, The Nanny Diaries, opposite Scarlett Johansson and based on the book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus,[1] and The Savages, where Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman will play siblings.[2]

Her important television roles include "Mary Ann Singleton" in the television adaptations of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City books (1993, 1998, and 2001). She won her first Emmy Award in 2002 for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie" for Wild Iris. In 2004, she won her second Emmy Award as "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series", for her recurring role as the final love interest of Frasier Crane in the television series Frasier.

Her extensive stage credits on Broadway and elsewhere include Hedda Gabler (for which she won a 1994 Joe A. Callaway Award), Holiday (based on the movie starring Katharine Hepburn), and The Crucible. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 2002 as Best Actress (Play) for 'The Crucible', and again in 2005 for Sight Unseen.

Linney also appears on the Sandra Boynton's children's CD Philadelphia Chickens, on which she sings "Please Can I Keep It?"

[edit] Personal life

Linney was married to David Adkins, who she met at Juilliard, from 1995 to 2000.

[edit] Selected filmography

Year Title Role Other notes
1995 Congo Dr. Karen Ross
1996 Primal Fear Janet Venable
1997 Absolute Power Kate Whitney
1998 The Truman Show Meryl Burbank/Hannah Gill
2000 The House of Mirth Bertha Dorset
2000 You Can Count on Me Samantha 'Sammy' Prescott
2000 Maze Callie
2002 The Mothman Prophecies Connie Mills
2003 Love Actually Sarah
2003 Mystic River Annabeth Markum
2003 The Life of David Gale Constance Harraway
2004 Kinsey Clara McMillen
2004 P.S. Louise Harrington
2005 The Exorcism of Emily Rose Erin Bruner
2005 The Squid and the Whale Joan Berkman
2006 Jindabyne Claire
2006 Driving Lessons Laura Marshall
2006 Man of the Year Eleanor Green
2007 Breach Kate Burroughs

[edit] External links