laura linney

Because his name may not be known by the fans, but his smile and his face full of naturalness surely are. The reason is that we have seen her in numerous movies, although a little beyond the main characters. And, of course, who retains the name of Jim Carrey ‘s wife in The Truman Show , of the prosecutor in the Edward Norton case in The Two Faces of the Truth , or of Sean Penn ‘s wife in the recent Mystic River ?

These are questions for note, but that woman was Laura Linney, and directors who know how to recognize an actress with a huge variety of registers continue to require her to give life to those minor characters who, in the end, are vital to provide dramatic density to the story. .

To Laura Legett Linney (New York, 1964) the vocation runs a bit in the family. Her father is a renowned theater actor, so the profession of stage was always close to her daughter. So much so, that as soon as she finished her studies in high school, she entered Brown University to study dramatic art. She ended her degree in 1986, but she still furthered her curriculum for three more years at the Juilliard School (where she met actress Jeanne Tripplehorn)., one of her close friends) and later at the Moscow Art Theater School. As you can see, the girl had it very clear, and very soon she was going to show that she was worth to get into the skin of her characters. Several plays, such as “Top Girls”, “The Matriarch” or “Sight Unseen” (for which she won the Theater World Award), were his baptism of fire. He would later work on stage with stars such as Jon Voight ( The Seagull ) or Stockard Channing ( Six Degrees of Separation ).

Laura Linney, who admits to being an admirer of Judi Dench , Maggie Smith or Joanne Woodward (that’s nothing!), came to the cinema in 1992, with a small intervention in The Oil of Life , alongside Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte . That debut of hers was followed by other secondary roles, but always in renowned films ( Dave, President for a Day , 1993; In Search of Bobby Fischer , 1993). She then got her first starring role playing the brave doctor Karen Ross in Congo (1995), jungle adventures directed by Frank Marshall. She was also in a good year in her private life, as she married actor David Adkins, although the marriage would only last five years and end in divorce. After giving life to the doctor, she once again placed herself behind the big stars in more than notable films: she accompanied Richard Gere to court in The Two Faces of the Truth (1996), and was the daughter of Clint Eastwood in Absolute Power (1997) . ) and Jim Carrey in The Truman Show (1998), where she debated between being a good wife or a good actress. Seen what has been seen, it is clear that Laura Linney knows how to choose characters.

It is difficult to find a dud in his filmography, although the film Lush (1999) is undoubtedly one of them. But after the slight setback, Linney played probably her best role to date in You Can Count On Me (2000), an independent film written and directed by newcomer Kenneth Lonergan and which chronicled the relationships between two brothers with opposite characters. The film garnered countless awards, including two Oscar nominations (Best Actress and Best Screenplay). But, despite her success, her career has always followed the same line: few films, but important. That same year, she participated in La casa de la alegría , an adaptation of the novel by Edith Wharton .and later we saw her in the notorious The Laramie Project (2002) and re-teaming with Richard Gere in the haunting Mothman: The Last Prophecy (2002).

Laura Linney’s success currently also extends to television and theater, to which she returns from time to time: she received an Emmy Award nomination for her work on the series “Wild Iris” (2001) and stood out on the stage in “ The Witches of Salem,” for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. The last we’ve seen of her on the big screen were the dramas The Life of David Gale and Mystic River , before her role in Love Actually . She and she just finished filming Kinsey , a drama in which she again shares work with Liam Neeson .