The subject of Laura Linney's latest movie - siblings dealing with elderly parents - scared executives. But the best scripts are often the toughest to get made, she tells Michael Dwyer
Laura Linney has a penchant for Irishmen. She has married Liam Neeson twice and wed Gabriel Byrne three times. "I've had much better marriages with Liam than I've had with Gabriel," she says, laughing loudly. "Gabriel and I have had three very troubled marriages. Gabriel is a real angel to me. I did one of my first films with Gabriel, so he's known me my entire professional life. Gabriel knows me very well, as does Liam. I love those Irishmen. They've been very good to me."
She first married Byrne in the 1994 movie A Simple Twist of Fate, but his character was more interested in his wealth and political ambitions than he was in her. They were a couple again in the 2004 picture PS, in which Byrne's character was revealed as an adulterer and closet bisexual. And they were together again in 2006 in the powerful Australian drama Jindabyne, in which a traumatic event put great strain on their relationship.
After making PS, Linney played the loving wife of the pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey, played by Neeson in Kinsey. Two years earlier they had played John and Elizabeth Proctor in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, which earned both actors Tony nominations. "Liam's John Proctor in that production is the best match of actor and role I have ever seen in my life," Linney says. "He was distractingly good."
When we meet in London, Linney is looking radiant, as she tends to do, despite having one of the fingers on her right hand supported with a splint. "I broke my finger the other day," she says, sighing, "and I'm right- handed, so it's a real nuisance. It was a stupid accident. I feel like such an idiot. It happens."
The last time we met was when she was in Dublin for the 2003 film-festival screening of Alan Parker's thriller, The Life of David Gale. "I loved working with Alan, and I really loved that movie," she says. "The themes were dark, but we all had a really happy time making it. It was really unfairly treated in the States. I still don't understand that. People come up to me all the time and tell me how much they loved it, probably more than about any other film I've made."
A native New Yorker who turns 44 in just over a fortnight, Linney has been remarkably busy since then, acting in more than a dozen movies in four years. The quality threshold has been high, defying the widely held view that there are few good roles for women. Is it that she chooses wisely or that most of the best roles are offered to her, Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett?
"In fact, a good portion of the movies I've been lucky enough to have been in have been ones where we all had to wait years to get them financed," she says. "Kinsey took four years. I'm sure The House of Mirth took even longer. You go and meet these people, and you fall in love with these scripts, and then you wait and wait. The best scripts I've ever read are the ones that are really difficult to get made.
"I wanted to make The Squid and the Whale as soon as Noah Baumbach gave me the script, but that was one of those movies that nobody wanted to make. I would talk to Noah all the time, and he would tell me to hang in there. He promised me that it would get made eventually, but it was a struggle for him. It took years. They went through many actors for the male lead, until, finally, Jeff Daniels signed on, and it could not have better. That film could not have been better in any way. Noah made a beautiful movie, a jewel."
Linney's latest movie, The Savages, opened to excellent reviews in the US recently, but it was another victim of development hell. In the film she and Philip Seymour Hoffman play estranged siblings Wendy and Jon Savage, who are drawn together when they have to care for their ailing father (Philip Bosco). It's the second feature film written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, who had to wait nine years after she made her debut with the comedy-drama Slums of Beverly Hills.
"The subject matter of The Savages scared people," Linney says. "They didn't seem to know how to read the script. By that I mean that they couldn't see the tone, even though that was so obvious to all the actors involved from the outset. I think it's harder for executives and financiers to know how to read a script that's complicated that way."
Surprisingly, she says that the film could have been financed much earlier if Jenkins had replaced her and Hoffman, despite their stature and the respect they command. "They had the opportunity to do that," she says. "Much to Tamara's credit, and to the credit of the producers, they wouldn't do that. I can understand the financial reasons for wanting to replace me, but they wanted what they called box-office names for Phil's role and for mine. And Phil was just about to win the Oscar for Capote! Everyone had predicted him. That seemed insane to me.
"But I think this particular group of people wanted to make a very different type of film, and not the kind of film Tamara wanted to make. Thankfully, she was stubborn enough - and fair enough with Phil and me - not to give in. A lot of people, quite understandably after waiting so long to get their movie financed, would have dropped us in a second."
The Savages is the second recent movie, after Away from Her, that tackles the theme of older people when they reach the point when they no longer can care for themselves. Coincidentally, both films were written and directed by women much younger than their principal characters: 45-year-old Jenkins and the then 27-year-old Sarah Polley.
"It is a very tough subject," Linney says. "So many people are riddled with guilt - and dread. For me it's dread. I'm scared to death of that period in time. But it's inevitable. It's a part of life you can't escape unless you die before a parent dies, or a parent dies before you are a mature person. My parents are very much alive, but making the film certainly made me think about my responsibilities later on.
"It also raises the very difficult details of dealing with the affairs of older people when they cannot handle them. In that respect, it made me sit down with the people I love and tell them that the biggest gift they can give me is to help me now to sort out these details. That can be an act of love, and it's a privilege to help somebody who brings you into the world if you can help them when they go out. It's one of those continuums of life that nobody wants to deal with."
For all the seriousness of its themes, The Savages is peppered with sharp, telling humour. "It's not wry, smiling humour," Linney says. "Hopefully, it's laugh-out-loud funny in parts. The tone is really unusual. If you summarised what the film is about in one line, the people you are telling probably would want to throw themselves out a window. But the film is a really well-rounded experience."
Her character, Wendy Savage, an aspirant playwright, is no angel, and it's appropriate that Linney's hair is dyed dark, reflecting the nature of her character. There is more to Wendy than meets the eye - and sometimes rather less - in the movie's ongoing process of revelation. Wendy is a woman who is even willing to cash in on 9/11 when it suits her. "She's a deeply flawed protagonist," Linney says, laughing. "She's far from perfect."
Like so many people frustrated with waiting for a break to work in the arts, Wendy has to earn a living in a series of temporary jobs that bore her to distraction. "I know a lot of people like that," Linney says. "I grew up with them."
Her father is an established playwright, Romulus Linney. "Because he is a New York City-based playwright and I grew up around him in the 1970s, he took me to all those theatres that are referred to in the movie. When Wendy sends off her play to all those addresses, I know them all, and I know so many people working in them, so I know the life she is craving.
"It's not a commercial life. It's about something else, and I knew what she wanted. And I knew the sort of people she was dealing with and who were keeping her out."
Not a lot of people realise that even when actors are starring in a hit Broadway show, their earnings are a fraction of what they could make in a movie. "Oh, not at all," she says. "Your per diem on a movie is more than a week's salary on Broadway. But it's a great life. I love the stage."
It seemed to be only a matter of time before Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman were cast opposite each other, and the sparks and chemistry they generate together in The Savages come as no surprise. "We're roughly the same age and we both started out in theatre," she says. "Our reference points are pretty much the same, and we approach our work in much the same way. We had a ball on this film. We were so completely intertwined that I don't know where my work ends and his begins. He's just a dream to act with. I don't just like him and see him as a peer. I deeply admire Phil and the choices that he makes. It's good for everybody that Phil is an actor."
The Savages is released next Friday
Laura Linney's screen highlights
Lorenzo's Oil (1992)Linney makes her cinema debut in a minor role, credited as Young Teacher.
Tales of the City (1993)She gets her breakthrough in the pivotal role of Mary Ann Singleton in the enthralling TV mini-series based on Armistead Maupin's novel.
Primal Fear (1996)Linney joins Richard Gere and newcomer Edward Norton in a dark, twisting thriller.
The Truman Show (1998)She plays the actress who plays the wife of Jim Carrey's character in Peter Weir's fascinating film.
You Can Count on Me (2000)Linney gets her first Oscar nomination, as a single mother with an irresponsible brother (played by Mark Ruffalo).
The House of Mirth (2000)She joins Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd and Eric Stoltz in Terence Davies's admirable film of the Edith Wharton novel.
Wild Iris (2001)She wins her first Emmy award for this TV drama.
The Life of David Gale (2003)She stars with Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet in Alan Parker's thriller.
Mystic River (2003)Clint Eastwood, who chose Linney to play his character's daughter in Absolute Power (1997), casts her with Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins in a powerhouse ensemble.
Love Actually (2003)She features in the large cast of the Christmas-set serious comedy, which also includes Liam Neeson, but this time they are not married to each other.
Frasier (2004)She plays Dr Frasier Crane's love interest in six episodes of the TV comedy and wins a second Emmy award.
Kinsey (2004)Linney earns a second Oscar nomination.
The Squid and the Whale (2005)Sparks fly between Linney and Jeff Daniels as a divorcing couple in this acute comedy-drama.
Jindabyne (2006)Linney's third film as the troubled wife of a character played by Gabriel Byrne is a riveting moral drama.
Breach (2007)She plays a determined FBI executive in a gripping, factually based thriller.
The Nanny Diaries (2007)Her neck muscles permanently tensed, Linney portrays insecure snob Mrs X with relish, almost rescuing this misfired effort.
The Savages (2007)Opens at Irish cinemas next Friday.
City of Your Final Destination (2008)She stars with Anthony Hopkins, Omar Metwally and Charlotte Gainsbourg in James Ivory's film of Peter Cameron's novel. "We filmed it in Argentina in this incredibly beautiful old house," Linney says. "All those Merchant Ivory designers are so good that I felt like swooning when I walked on the set."
John Adams (2008)Linney plays Abigail Adams, wife of the second president of the United States (Paul Giamatti), in an eight-hour HBO mini-series. "Abigail was an amazing woman," she says. "We're all wimps compared to what she dealt with on a daily basis. She ran the farm while he was away, and she had all those children. They had a wonderful marriage, which you can tell from all their letters to each other, which have been beautifully preserved."