Frau actress Laura Linney

I'm miss Downton Abbey and her Sunday night introduction:

"I'm Laura Linney and this is Masterpiece Classic."

I think she gets type-cast OP; it would be interesting seeing her in a comedy or romantic thriller.

She annoys me and then I like her again. I think we're frenemies.

That's too bad OP, I think she's talented. I enjoyed her work in TALES OF THE CITY, KINSEY, MYSTIC RIVER and YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. Plus she seems like a nice person.

I worship her voice.

She was funny on her Frasier arc.

I always wondered whether she or Laura Dern would win an Oscar first. Now we have the answer.

I wouldn't consider her a frau.

I can see your point OP. But she's just too good to be so easily dismissed. I'm not sure that she's typecast though. I think, unlike Streep, that Linney understands her limitations and pushes against that. She doesn't seek to be ridiculous. She's looking for the heart of a character always. She's very fine, with that annoying little grin of hers.

She is a fine actress, and seems like a lovely human being. Her performance in "You Can Count On Me" is one of my very favorites. And really, she is lovely on Tales of the City. Love her.

I adore Laura Linney. I always have.

[quote] I'm miss Downton Abbey and her Sunday night introduction:

I miss seeing Darlene Shirey and her "I'm so rich I bought you this fucking show" intros!

R 10 Perfect movie and she is so great in it. So is Mark Ruffalo.

I liked her in Tales of the City--but of course the whole show is iconic. In The Squid and the Whale I wanted to turn her in for child abuse or audience abuse or both.

OP, you’re just jealous because she gets to have TV sex with Jason Bateman.

I checked her into a hotel in NYC 8 yrs ago. Very very down to earth. Looked exactly as she does in films. The awkward exchange was that I couldnt check her into the room because some shitty PA booked via EXPEDIA of all things and the rez was under only her fiance name or whatever he is/was. So even though she was the star all I could awkwardly say is that I couldnt check her in ( clueless mgr, 3rd party booking) but we can store her luggage. I felt ridiculous having to turn her away. She was totally cool about it. Smiling the whole time. Love her.

She was quite good in [italic]Savages[/italic], neurotic, annoying, but endearing in the end. She doesn't seem frauish to me.

I think she is very good at playing fralish. And I hate that fucking word. But Laura Linney is not that herself. She's quite an amazing actress that you forget about quickly. She's pale and blondish and has no eyelashes. Her voice is perfection. She's a great actress, but overall a bit recessive. There, I've said it.

She's also excellent in her complex role in [i]Ozark[/i].

Great in everything, but I especially admired her in Kinsey.

I wish I could see her onstage. She’s gotten wonderful reviews for her stage work. I think she’s interesting because she mines the harshest and darkest sides to the characters she plays and so whatever redemption in the end seems hard won and miraculous. I’m a gay who didn’t care for Love, Actually but I thought she created a marvelous character there.

She has a matronly lesbian quality about her that's interesting. Marvelous in YCCOM. Was always shocked Mark Ruffalo didn't get a Supporting nod for it. Beautiful script.

Linney is a less frigid Jodie Foster. More soulful whereas Jodie was more soulful as a young actor.

First of all, OP, your aggressively negative stance wounds me. As the LLT, I can't help but take it as a personal attack. My rebuttal:

Even if you dislike LL, you have to admit she's a gifted performer. Linney finds the humanity within really unlikeable characters. I adore her as Wendy Byrd on Ozark, because the character is morally reprehensible, yet I find myself rooting for her at every turn. Linney found that kernel of truth and brought it to the surface, allowing us to see Wendy as sympathetic.

Wish I could have seen The Little Foxes a few years back.

OP, put a damn photo. Geez.

I saw her play Elizabeth Proctor opposite Liam Neeson's John Proctor, yet I have no memory of whether she was good or not. I assume she was, I enjoyed Neeson, and the whole production.

She ruined Love Actually.

She is the real deal. people.

She teaches acting part-time at Juilliard--mostly because she loved studying there and genuinely loves the students. She is incredibly intelligent but really, really down to earth. As the daughter of a respected playwright and a Brown and Juilliard grad she could quite easily pull a Gwynneth 'tude of entitlement, but apparently she never does.

While I've loved a lot of her work (Mary Anne Singleton! You Can Count On Me, and she was the best thing in Nocturnal Animals), I've been disappointed other times (miscast in a bad stage revival of Dangerous Liaisons). She's a mixed bag. Not the most versatile actor.

But people who know and/or work with her IRL adore this woman.

She ruined her role in Love Actually, by ditching her hot co-worker for the annoying, constantly calling brother. Turn the phone off, Bitch!

I loved her in The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

She is America’s Olivia Colman. She’s brilliant in everything, especially when she gets to play a character who is losing control, as in the Truman Show and Ozark.

Loved her in Love Actually. She and Emma Thomson injected just enough reality to rescue the whole thing from vomit-inducing schmalz.

I’ve never really liked her...until Ozark. Her performance made me sit up and take notice.

She's a good actress, but it was embarrassing how she threw herself at Liam Neeson around the time his wife died.

She was in a one-woman show on Broadway, can’t remember the name, right before the pandemic. I walked by the theater one night and saw her at the stage door surrounded by fans asking for her autograph - like 15 of them. She was super-gracious and patient with them. And she looked fabulous - radiant even.

I love the part in the Armistead Maupin documentary when she talks about how they were both dumped by their respective partners shortly after Tales of the City came out. Armistead was a grand marshal of the SF Pride parade that year and invited her to accompany him. They were both miserable and depressed but as they went through the parade route, people went wild screaming their names and cheering - so much so that by the end of it they were jubilant and overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness. It was a great story the way she told it (they showed the actual footage of them in the parade).

R33, she was dickmatized.

She is great in Ozark and acts circles around Jason Bateman. She is not frau at all in that series.

We saw her in Little Foxes. She and Cynthia Nixon switched parts throughout the run of the show. We saw LL play the confident Regina. Interesting to see her in that clip playing the mousy Birdie.

She's not a frau at all. She's a good friend of the gays and a tremendous actress. The dimples tend to make her look like a Disney concoction but she's super hip in person, not an atom of traditionalism in her.

I found the sequel Tales of the City unwatchable but nostalgic.

Bitch stole my career!

Short, sweet anecdote about her kissing scene with Rodrigo Santoro in "Love Actually" (which I still refuse to watch, but might now for this scene)

We adore her around here. OP should run away and never come back.

[quote] She is great in Ozark and acts circles around Jason Bateman.

He is to that as Erin Gray was to [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic].

I like her! I liked The Savages, which got her a surprise Oscar nomination, hence probably snubbing undeserved Angelina Jolie. Few times the Academy got it right.

She seems like one of those actresses, who will win a Best Supporting Oscar with the right project, because she is too lowkey and independent for a Leading Oscar.

I want to bake her a German cake!

Misogynist Op.

oh wow, she gave birth to her baby boy at age 49, beautiful

I saw both iterations of The Little Foxes, and thought she would have won the Tony in featured instead of Nixon if she'd played Birdie on Opening Night. I know the reviews were more favorable to Nixon (an actress I really admire), but I thought Linney was better both nights because she played the parts in a more unique manner (Nixon particularly was very Bette/Tallulah with Regina, while Linney did subtle for most of it, until the Third Act). Linney also got much more sustained applause from the audience after her monologue in the third act for her Birdie than Nixon did.

Both of them are great and undervalued, though. Linney may give good frau, but she's chillingly disarming on Ozark (acting rings around Bateman, which is probably why she had more to do with McTeer, Pelphrey, and even Garner this season).

Should I watch Ozark? It's in Season 4 and I hate to watch so many episodes in order to catch up and everybody says the second season is bad.

Ozark is a slow burner, but it is well written and beautifully acted, and pulls off a few genuine surprises.

I think she's a terrific and extremely intelligent actress. I thought she was wonderful in Mystic, CT and I've never seen her phone it in.

Ozark is not a 10 but it's a solid 8. She's fantastic in it.

mystery of mysterys::::how this vanilla thing has a career.... i cant watch a thing she in

I have family and school connections to her. She’s a genuinely nice person and I’d agree with the assessments above. Terrific in some things (YCCOM, some of Ozark, etc.,) and miscast in others (awful Dangerous Liaisons revival, that cancer series on Showtime.) She’s getting more interesting and better as she gets older. She’s a smart actor. She’ll definitely land the big awards some day.

Her husband is extremely heterosexual

I read an interview with her and she was talking about the time she was in a bad stage production of Hedda Gabler. It only ran a month in 1994 but she wanted to get out early when she realized it was a stinker. She sought the advice of Joanne Woodward who said it was better to stick it out, because that would have hurt her professional reputation, which she did.

i remember her in that armistad maupin gay series......figured she would fade into vague obscurity. must have very ! good press agent.

She's an interesting type. She's not a leading lady but she can carry a non commercial film as a lead with her skill. She has a masculine energy but still doesn't seem dykey.

It’s so funny when someone posts about a celebrity that is admired and people come out of the wood work to disparage them. I guess it’s for attention. They get off on it and I believe some just do it to go against the grain.

R55 continued. Hedda was played by Kelly McGillis in her Broadway debut and critics were not kind. The New York Times wrote [she] may have a thousand and one expressions at her command but as the title character in the Roundabout Theater Company's unsatisfying revival of "Hedda Gabler," she relies largely on two.

Laura Linney is a national treasure and not even remotely close to a frau.

Take it back, OP!

She used to ride the subway often on the UWS and couldn’t have been cooler or more down to earth and friendly. So I love her and she is a great actress who hasn’t had the overhauled plastic surgery as of yet so I respect her.

Sad how many DLers cannot appreciate Linney's craft. She's not for you. Please continue to appreciate the bland actors that those of us with a discerning palette find unremarkable.

R53 You are disbarred from any family events from now on, bitch!

I forgot the name of the movie, but I saw her presenting her hairy poosay onscreen once.

I dare u, find a more boring nothing actress on the Earth, she belongs in a diner on the highway, waitress a go go

R22 That film launched his Hollywood career, so he didn't do too badly in the end.

I always liked her, but Ozark really made me appreciate her. She uses every “frauish” perception to her age, looks and social standing to disarm people. And you get really curious how she will react to the most banal occasions, which is a sign of what a great actress she is. The role as written helped her to do this.

Her final, chilling, speach in Mystic River Put me off Clint Eastwood forever. Another good thing.

I always liked her, but Ozark really made me appreciate her. She uses every “frauish” perception to her age, looks and social standing to disarm people. And you get really curious how she will react to the most banal occasions, which is a sign of what a great actress she is. The role as written helped her to do this.

Her final, chilling, speach in Mystic River Put me off Clint Eastwood forever. Another good thing.

She's one of my favourite actresses working today, has been since The Truman Show. I am very glad she is finally getting leading roles in interesting productions. Ozark is a revelation (Hi, I'm Wendy with that dimple smile of hers that you really want to believe).

I find her very attractive and love her voice. She's totally the kind of people I would love to be friends with: intelligent, kind, smart, open. In fact, she reminds me of a very close friend from HS.

I like her better as Regina in Little Foxes.

She’s the second best thing in Ozark (after Julia Garner).

She *IS* Mary Ann Singleton.

The thing that makes Linney so good is that she is surprising in how she approaches a sene. She makes surprising choices. That makes her watchable. And smarter than you OP. But I did find your post funny

I'd love to watch something with r73. I'm always mystified when people start talking about actors' choices. I know I like Laura Linney, but I don't really know why.

I'm also enjoying reading a DL thread in which posters actually like, even love, someone. How often does that happen?

Let’s not forget she had that hot scene with Brazilian God Rodrigo Santoro in “Love Actually.”

AND she was able to go beyond that paper-thin script to make you feel for her character, and also make it believable that a hottie like that would be in to her.

R64- was it The Life of David Gale? She had a nude scene in that.

I'm bummed she lost the Emmy to Zendaya. Hopefully she'll be nominated for Ozark S4.

R73 That's exactly it, she makes surprising choices. When I watch the video below, that's what I see.

[quote]I'm bummed she lost the Emmy to Zendaya.

Indeed. Losing was bad enough. But losing to [italic]Zendaya[/italic] ?

R79 Why? Was she that bad?

I saw Laura Linney being together with her presumably gay husband. She seemed nice, but she always does.

Zendaya is a goddess. In another time she would be an ever bigger sensation. She's sings, dances, is gorgeous, sweet, kind and a very good actress. She has star power and charisma. Versatile. I wouldn't be surprised if she won an Oscar in the next 5 to 10 years. Don't downgrade her. Laura Linney is dependable and good. Always good. Yawn.

The Little Foxes. Tremendous work by LL. She should be a much, much bigger star.

It doesn't look like she brushes her teeth.

I laughed at "plump pilgrim-face". Not gonna lie.

I don't think she wants to be a "star". And I'm happy that she doesn't. I don't think she sees life or her work in those terms.

She is so..so..so Canadian looking. Is she? Her dimples are cute.

WTF is a Zendaya?