Laura Linney

Laura Linney
Linney at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	Laura Leggett Linney February 5, 1964 (1964-02-05) (age 45) New York City, New York
Years active	1992–present
Spouse(s)	David Adkins (1995–2000)
Awards won Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actress - Miniseries or Movie 2002 Wild Iris 2008 John Adams Outstanding Guest Actress - Comedy Series 2004 Frasier Other awards NYFCC Award for Best Actress 2000 You Can Count on Me NBR Award for Best Supporting Actress 2004 Kinsey

Laura Leggett Linney^[1][2] (born February 5, 1964) is a three-time Academy Award-nominated, a three time Golden Globe nominee and a three-time Emmy Award-winning American actress, active in movies, television, and theatre.

Biography

Personal life

Linney was born in New York City. Her mother, Ann Perse (née Leggett), is a nurse who worked at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and her father, Romulus Linney, is a well-known playwright and professor.^[2][3] Linney's paternal great-great-grandfather was Republican U.S. Congressman Romulus Zachariah Linney.^[4] 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. After attending Brown, Linney went on to study acting at the Juilliard School.

Linney married David Adkins in 1995. They divorced in 2000. As of 2007^[update], she was engaged to Marc Schauer, a real estate agent in Telluride, Colorado.^[5]

Career

Film

Linney at the Chicago International Film Festival, 2007

Linney appeared in minor roles in a few early 1990s films, including Dave in 1993, before coming to prominence in the public television mini-series Tales of the City. She was then cast in a series of high-profile thrillers, including Congo, Primal Fear and Absolute Power.

She made her Hollywood breakthrough in 1998 when she was cast as Jim Carrey's wife in The Truman Show, for which she received much critical acclaim.

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. That same year she also appeared in the role of an artist's model in the low budget, critically praised film Maze with Rob Morrow. 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 horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and the comedy-drama 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". In 2006, Linney appeared in the political satire Man of the Year, in the comedy Driving Lessons (starring Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame), and also in the Australian drama Jindabyne by Ray Lawrence. Jindabyne is based on Raymond Carver´s short novel So much water so close to home.

In 2007, Linney appeared in the spy thriller Breach, The Nanny Diaries, opposite Scarlett Johansson and based on the book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus,^[6] and The Savages, where Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman played siblings. She received her third Academy Award nomination for this film—this time as Best Actress.^[7]

Recently, the actress played in The Other Man, film where she plays beside Liam Neeson, where she finds four years later Kinsey and Antonio Banderas.

Television

Linney starred as 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 had 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. In 2008, Linney won an Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her portrayal of Abigail Adams, wife of the second president of the United States, in the HBO mini-series John Adams.

Theatre/other

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 1938 movie starring Katharine Hepburn), and 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?"

Columnist Liz Smith commented in the New York Post that Linney is "very hot, reputation wise", due to her Oscar nomination for The Savages. Linney also appeared as La Marquise de Merteuil in a revival of Christopher Hampton's play Les Liaisons Dangereuses.^[8]

Filmography

Awards and nominations

• You Can Count On Me (2000)
  • Academy Award
    • Best Actress
  • Golden Globe Award
    • Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
  • National Film Critics
    • Best Actress
  • New York Film Critics
    • Best Actress
  • Online Film Critics
    • Best Actress

• Kinsey (2004)
  • Academy Award
    • Best Supporting Actress
  • Golden Globe Award
    • Best Supporting Actress
  • National Board of Review
    • Best Supporting Actress
  • Online Film Critics
    • Best Supporting Actress

• The Squid and the Whale (2005)
  • Golden Globe Award
    • Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
  • Gotham Awards
    • Best Cast
  • Independent Spirit Awards
    • Best Actress

• The Savages (2007)
  • Academy Award - Best Actress in a Leading Role

References

External links

• Laura Linney at the Internet Movie Database
• Laura Linney at the Internet Broadway Database
• Laura Linney at TV.com
• BlackFilm interview (August, 2005)
• Combustible Celluloid interview (February 17, 2003)
• Hollywood.com interview (January 3, 2001)
• PlumTV talks to the Lovely Laura Linney (January, 2008)