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

Biography

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.

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's upcoming films will include the political satire Man of the Year, 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 Krau],[1] and the Savages, where Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman will play siblings.[2]

Television

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.

Theater

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.

Singing

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

Private life

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

Selected filmography

External links

Interviews

• MovieHole interview (September 8, 2005)
• Cinema Confidential interview (September 8, 2005)
• Newsweek interview (September 2, 2005)
• BlackFilm interview (August, 2005)
• Sight Unseen interview, conducted by Romulus Linney (2004)
• Cinema Confidential interview (October 18, 2004)
• MovieHole interview (October 7, 2003)
• Combustible Celluloid interview (February 17, 2003)
• Hollywood.com interview (January 3, 2001)

Web sites

• Laura-Linney.com unofficial fansite

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