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I Think Everyone's Journey Through This Crazy, Weird, Wild, Wonderful Area Of Work Named Acting Is Really Their Own. And If You're Going For Something That Isn't Yours, You're Wasting Time. You Could Be Focused On Your Own Work Instead Of Thinking About Somebody Else.

-Laura Linney

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I Think Everyone's Journey

Laura Linney

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I Think Everyone's Journey Through This Crazy, Weird, Wild, Wonderful Area Of Work Named Acting Is Really Their Own. And If You're Going For Something That Isn't Yours, You're Wasting Time. You Could Be Focused On Your Own Work Instead Of Thinking About Somebody Else.

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The Basic Laws Of Good Acting Are The Same, But Everything About The Experience Is Different-your Job Responsibility, The Time You Spend On It.

We All Have A Limited Amount And That It's A Privilege To Grow Old. That's Something That I Think A Lot Of People Have Forgotten In This Very Fast-paced World Where Youth Is Overly Celebrate.

I Love Working Closely With People.

I Certainly Didn't Have A Nanny.

I'm Very Hard On My Bags Because I Tend To Carry A Lot Of Stuff With Me.

I Think Everyone's Journey Through This Crazy, Weird, Wild, Wonderful Area Of Work Named Acting Is Really Their Own. And If You're Going For Something That Isn't Yours, You're Wasting Time. You Could Be Focused On Your Own Work Instead Of Thinking About Somebody Else.

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My Castings Sort Of Go In Phases. There'll Be Several Icy Professional Parts - A Lawyer Or A Cop. And Then There'll Be The Intelligent-but-wounded Group And Then The Period Things. It Goes In Sequence.

I Grew Up In Manhattan On The Upper East Side.

Upper East Side

I Had Learning Disabilities, And I Couldn't Express Myself In The Written Word.

Learning Disability

For Me To Have The Opportunity To Stay With One Character For, God Willing, A Long Period Of Time, Is Really Exciting.

It Is Always Good To Explore The Stuff You Don't Agree With, To Try And Understand A Different Lifestyle Or Foreign Worldview. I Like To Be Challenged In That Way, And Always End Up Learning Something I Didn't Know.

The Thing About Death Is That It's Honest. I Go To Things That Have A Core Of Honesty About Them And There's Nothing More Honest Than Death.

What People Can Survive And What They Don't Survive Is Shocking To Me. Someone Can Go To Iraq And Be Blown To Bits And Survive. Someone Can Trip And Fall On The Street And They Die - That's That.

I Enjoy Learning About Different Periods And People, And Then Taking What's Universal About The Human Condition And Seeing Where It Matches Up. No Matter Where You Are, Certain Things Unite Everybody.

When You're Dying, You're Liberated To Do What You Want To Do. You Give Yourself Permission. I Think Everyone's Experience With A Terminal Disease Is So Deeply Personal And Unique To The Person, The Context In Which They're Living And The Relationships That They Have.

I Don't Consider Myself A Celebrity, And I Don't Consider Myself A Star.

I Know What People Want To Hear Is The Connection With The Son, Roger, When You Have A Child. I Would Love To Tell That There Was An Epiphany As To What It Is To Be A Mom, But I Didn't Feel Any Difference There.

Ask "why" Until There Is No More "why."

Collaboration. ... For Me, It Has Informed Every Move I've Ever Made. And It Saved Me In Many Ways And Still Does. When Things Get Hard, You Can Cling To The Work.

I Get Cold - Really Cold - When I Travel.

Some People's Personalities Are So Compelling That They Command Attention.

I Crave A Cone Of Silence Every Once In While.

There's Something Grueling But Very Appealing About Rough, To-the-bone Material In A Low Budget Context. There's Less Between You And The Material. There Are Less People. There Is Less Time. There's Often Less Technology. You Have To Concentrate Very Intensely, And You Jump In A Little Deeper Because There's Nothing In Your Way... But There Are Challenges.

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Our Culture Is Set Up On A Feud Mentality, Or A "housewives" Mentality, That Women Just Fight. And It's Such A Shallow Way To Exist As Far As Our Evolution Is Concerned, And Our Culture Is Concerned. It's Fun To Watch Women Fight, In A Storytelling Way, But In The World, Women Shouldn't Be Seen As A Threat To Other Women.

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Comedy Is A Way To Make Sense Of Chaos. It's A Way Of Dealing With Things That Are Overwhelming, That Threaten You; It's A Way To Survive And Get Closer To The Truth.

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Fear, Anxiety And Neurosis: That's Just In The Suitcase When You're An Actor.

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I Tend To Make Low-budget Movies But, Yeah, I Make More Money Than I Ever Thought I Would Make.

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I Hope That Anyone I Worked With Wouldn't Exploit Our Relationship.

Our Relationship

My Parents Were Divorced And I Didn't Grow Up With My Father, But I Spent A Lot Of Time Around Him, And His Influence On Me Has Been Profound.

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When You Tell People, Your World Changes, Your Identity Changes And People Treat You Differently. And Then, Not Only Do You Have To Deal With Your Own Emotional Response To What's Going On, But You Take On Everybody Else's Emotional Response.

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I Believe That No Matter What You Do In Life, If You Learn The Basics Through Theater, It Will Help You In Everything Else - Problem Solving, Communication, Discipline, All Of That Stuff.

I Don't Think You Should Exploit Your Own Pain.

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I'm Not Someone Who Likes To Have My Picture Taken, Let Alone See It Plastered All Over The Place.

With Big, Emotional Roles It's Very Easy, Especially If You've Grown Up In The American School Of Acting, To Exploit Your Own Pain. You Have To Be Careful About That, Because 9 Times Out Of 10, Your Pain Is Not Appropriate To The Character.

My Family Is From The South, And I Can Remember All Those Ladies I Grew Up With, Like My Great-aunts, Who Had Handkerchiefs. There's Something Sweet About Them.

But I've Also Spread My Net Very Wide. If There's One Thing That I've Done On Purpose It's To Take Whatever Job, So Long As It's Interesting And Challenging, Whether It's Theatre, Radio, Tv Or Film.

The Entertainment Industry Is Terrified Of Silence.

That's My Favorite Food Group: Donut. I Love The Donut.

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I Don't Mind Aging. I Mean, My Whole Thing Is, It's Just A Privilege To Age.

I Am Very Aware That Playwrights, Particularly Good Ones, Have A Intention For Everything They Write. Language And Punctuation Is Used Specifically, And Most Of The Time Actors Can Find Wonderful Clues About Character In The Rhythm And Cadence Of The Language Used.

I Love To Work In All Sorts Of Different Situations. I Think You Learn A Lot, Which Is Why I Try Not To Approach Something The Same Way, Because It Might Not Be Appropriate, And Then You Can Get Lazy Just Out Of Boredom. So I Love Any Approach.

What I Love About A Play Is That It's Such An Investment Because Only Time Can Create A Lot Of What Happens Onstage.

The Goal Seems To Me At Times Just To Be Business First.

I Grew Up In Manhattan And, Since My Father Was A Playwright, All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Stage Actress.

I Think Everybody Handles Things Very Differently And You Can Conjecture, But Until You're Put In That Situation, You Really Don't Know.

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History's A Resource.

My Parents Were Divorced And I Would Spend Weekends With My Father.

I Know That Actors And Actresses Have A Great Reputation For Being Very, Very Selfish, And In Some Cases, That's Very True. But In The Theater I Find It Doesn't Help You To Be Selfish. You Sort Of Have To Be Selfless In The Theater, And The More Selfless You Are - That Doesn't Mean Don't Take Care Of Yourself - But The More You Sort Of Surrender To The Work, I Find, The Better The Work Is. That's Just My Experience.

I Get Very, Very, Very Irritable With People Who Complain About Getting Old, Because I Know A Lot Of People Who Would Gladly Trade Places With Us. I'm Not Saying It's Easy, I'm Not Saying It Doesn't Hurt Your Feelings, I'm Not Saying It's Not Painful - And Physically As Well As Mentally And Spiritually - And It's Frightening At Times. However, People Have Really Lost Perspective, And It's A Really Bizarre Topic Of Conversation That It's Become A Cultural Peg In Our World That Aging Is A Bad Thing. It's Not Logical To Me.

To Be Too Knowing Is A Downfall.

I Could Have Gone To The Gym For Three Hours A Day And Bought Into All That, But I Just Wasn't Interested.

Theater Is The Foundation Of How I Live My Life, Actually. My Father Was A Playwright, So I Was Around It All The Time And Loved To Talk Shop With Him, Just Loved It. And Basically Everything That I Hold To Be Good And True And Worthy, I Learned In The Theater. So Not Even Just About The Work, But Just About Life. Discipline, Problem Solving, Creativity, How To Get Along With People.

A Magnetic Personality Doesn't Necessarily Indicate A Good Heart.

Courtroom Dramas Can Be Boring.

I Am Very Lucky, Because For The Most Part People Are Very Nice To Me, And I Am Still Able To Go About My Life And Ride The Subway And All That.

Where I Did Feel A Difference Is Learning To Just Work In A Different Way So That Your Resources Are Not Completely Depleted So That You Don't Have Anything To Give To Your Child When You Go Home, And Fortunately I've Been Working Long Enough That I Know How To Make That Shift So That I Don't Compromise My Work Or Compromise My Relationships; Not Compromising Parenting Is Really The Biggest Difference.

I Love Actors, Regardless Of Where They Are In Their Skill Level. There's Something Terribly Satisfying About Working With Someone Who's Really Learning.

I've Always Thought That I'm Sexy In My Own Right, But Not In A Way That People Thought Was Bankable.

You Have A Lot More To Give, The Older You Get. And You Want To Give It. I Mean, Some People Want To Give It. But There Is A Desire To Pass Down, To Have A Hand In The Past And A Hand In The Future. There's A Continuum.

I Find That Things Don't Bother Me As Much. If I Had A Bad Day On Set, It Sort Of Just Rolls Of My Back In A Way That It Didn't Before. So That's Where The Biggest Difference Is, Stuff That Used To Get Under My Skin Or That I Would Worry About Or Be Anxious About Just Isn't A Problem. So In Some Ways, Having A Child Has Been Very Liberating. I Found It Very Liberating.

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