Laura Linney Quotes

"I don't consider myself a celebrity, and I don't consider myself a star."

[talking about Jim Carrey]: "He has tremendous charm. He has an enormous heart, just a big big heart. I think that is the thing. I think if you look at his other work you can see that there, which is what makes his characters more then just mimicry. I think that is why his work has hit so hard. Because there is just more there. So with this one you see more of his humanity."

[about her character on The Truman Show (1998)]: "Well the thing that was interesting was that we sort of did these back stories about these characters, and where they were and what was going on with them. And when the movie picks up, Hanna Gill, who plays Meryl Burbank, is aware of the fact that she is losing her influence over Truman. He's not happy at home. He's beginning to get agitated. He's beginning to think of things outside the house, and she can feel that she is losing her power. So consequently the smile gets bigger and bigger, and the desperation, that is why there is that intense undertow to her. Because she knows she is losing it."

[about her character in The Truman Show (1998)]: "The concept of The Truman Show - it was so much fun. What gave us all an additional challenge was that those of us who were the cast of The Truman Show play the actors but playing a role. So we did all this elaborate backstory. So I made up my actress name Hanna Gill, who plays Meryl Burbank, who is married to Truman Burbank. So we did all this double layering of character work not really knowing what was going to come through. I'm glad that some of the people who have seen the movie can say that they can actually see it in all of us. All of us who play the characters surrounding Jim in the film, that they can see the double layer."

[about her father]: "My parents were divorced and I didn't grow up with him, but I spent a lot of time around him, and his influence on me has been profound."

(On making You Can Count on Me (2000)) "'Kenny Lonnergan' and I locked horns. It was about tiny things that would drive me crazy. He was very specific about his script being word perfect".

"When you work and live on a film set for 12, 14 hours a day, and moving from location to location, it's hard just to exist."

"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 tend to make low-budget movies, but, yeah, I make more money than I ever thought I would make."

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. You can watch someone onstage cry and cry - but in the audience you feel nothing. It's easy to become indulgent. For me, what's important is the story first.

"A lifetime of work, particularly where you get to see an actor grow and change, is better than becoming a rock & roll movie star."