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There's A Real Passing Down In The Theater, Almost Ad Nauseam. You Have To Listen To Older People Talk About Their Experience, But It Makes You Very Aware Of What Has Come Before You Or What Is Coming After You - That You're A Part Of A Link In A Chain. It's Not All About You.

-Laura Linney

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There's A Real Passing

Laura Linney

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There's A Real Passing Down In The Theater, Almost Ad Nauseam. You Have To Listen To Older People Talk About Their Experience, But It Makes You Very Aware Of What Has Come Before You Or What Is Coming After You - That You're A Part Of A Link In A Chain. It's Not All About You.

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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.

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.

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

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

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

It's Always Nice When You Do Something And It's Well Received As Opposed To The Other Way Which God Knows Happens To Everybody. When The Good Times Come Around, You Take A Deep Breath, Appreciate It, But Not Take It Too Seriously.

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

I Still Know I Have An Awful Lot To Learn, And I Hope I'm Put In Whatever Situation It Is That's Gonna Help Me Learn It, Or That I'll Get To Watch Really Good People Do What They Do.

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

I Crave A Cone Of Silence Every Once In While.

I Have A Bag With A Toothbrush And Toothpaste And All The Things I Might Need During The Day. I Call The Bag My Trailer. Sometimes You Don't Have A Trailer, So That's My Trailer.

People Can't Really Place Me. They're Not Really Sure Who I Am. Sometimes They Think I'm Helen Hunt. Sometimes They Think I'm Laura Dern.

I Love Working Closely With People.

I Grew Up In Manhattan On The Upper East Side.

Upper East Side

I Get Cold - Really Cold - When I Travel.

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.

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

Doing The Right Thing Has Power.

Doing The Right Thing

I'm Always Curious, But I'm Learning Things I Never Thought I'd Learn. I Get To Travel To Places I Never Thought I'd Go.

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

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

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

It Was So Soon After I'd Had My Son And I Really Wasn't Planning On Going Back To Work For A While. I Will Walk Over Hot Coals To Work With Bill Condon On Anything, The Experience That You Have With Him Is Just Too Good... I've Certainly Never Worked With Him Before So The Trio Of Bill [codon], Ian [mckellen], And Sherlock Holmes, And England: It Was Too Much To Say "no" To.

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.

Some Big Movies Are Terrific, And Some Aren't. They're Made For Different Reasons, And They Have Different Impacts And They're Very Different Experiences Making Them. But If They're Good, If You're With Good People, Then Hooray.

I Always Laugh To Myself When I Listen To Some Really Big A-list Star Saying That They Are Just A Normal Person.

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.

To Be Too Knowing Is A Downfall.

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.

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.

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.

People Have To Look To The Right Places For Guidance. Looking At A Certain Type Of Entertainment Shouldn't Be Where You Go For Guidance. To Zone Out, Have A Laugh, Sure - But It's Not A Great Example On How To Navigate On A Journey. There Are Other Places To Look.

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.

You Know When Someone's Over-flattering You In A Way. You Smile But You Can't Believe It.

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

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

Our Relationship

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.

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

History's A Resource.

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.

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

Cancer Is So Much Bigger Than A Tv Show.

Courtroom Dramas Can Be Boring.

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

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.

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 Your Life Is Being Threatened There's An Instinctive Urge To Fight. You Fight For The Time You Have, For Your Relationships.

At School I Was Always Trying To Con My Teachers Into Letting Me Act Out Book Reports Instead Of Writing Them.

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

Most Scripts Are Written To Be Green Lit. They're Not Written To Be Acted. And A Lot Of Writers With The Greatest Intention In The World Don't Write For Actors. They Don't Understand The Architecture Of What An Actor Needs To Get From Point A To Point B.

I Never Felt Like A Happy-go-lucky Ingenue To Begin With. And Parts Are Written Better When You're Older. When You're Young, You're Written To Be An Ingenue, And You're Written To Be A Quality. You're Actually Not Written To Be A Person, You're Written For Your Youth To Inspire Someone Else, Usually A Man. So I Find It Just Much More Liberating.

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.

Fame Didn't Happen To Me In My 20s, It Has Been A Gradual Thing Which Probably Makes It Easier To Deal With.

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

Learning Disability

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.

Tanning Is Tricky, Because A Lot Of People Just Look Orange.

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.

People's View Of Cancer Will Change When They Have Their Own Relationship With Cancer, Which Everyone Will, At Some Point.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

What I Find So Interesting About People Is The Choices They Make, And How That Effects Their Behavior, Their Sense Of Self And Their Relationships.

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.

There's A Real Passing Down In The Theater, Almost Ad Nauseam. You Have To Listen To Older People Talk About Their Experience, But It Makes You Very Aware Of What Has Come Before You Or What Is Coming After You - That You're A Part Of A Link In A Chain. It's Not All About You.

I Think The Way We Talk About Cancer Has Really Evolved. I Remember The Way My Grandmother Used To Talk About It, Like A Death Sentence, No-one Would Even Mention The Word.

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.

Things Get Complicated At Times, So There Are Certainly Moments When You Wish Your Life Were Different. That's True For Everybody, Not Just People In Our Profession. But There's Nothing I Feel Like I Gave Up Professionally. I'm Absolutely Doing What I Enjoy.

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

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.

The (sir Arthur Conan Doyle) Stories Were Great, For One. The Thing That Makes Him A Remarkable Character Is How He Can Withstand All Of These Different Interpretations And Different Styles And, That's What Makes A Classic Character A Classic Character; They Keep Coming Back And You See Them In A New Way Every Time.

What I Hope In My Ideal World Is That With Each Project, I'll Either Get To Work With A Really Great Script That Would Force Me To Grow, Or Work With A Really Great Actor Who Will Make Me Better.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Traits Like Humility, Courage, And Empathy Are Easily Overlooked - But It's Immensely Important To Find Them In Your Closest Relationships.

The Entertainment Industry Is Terrified Of Silence.

I Certainly Didn't Have A Nanny.

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

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.

I Don't Want To Spend My Life In My 40s Feeling Bad About Being In My 40s, And Then All Of A Sudden I'm 50, And I Will Have Missed A Whole Decade!

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