“When I first came [to Los Angeles], I had my lovely list of theatre credits. My resume was golden in my mind. I had worked regionally, I’d worked on Broadway. And a casting director looked at my resume and said ‘You really haven’t done anything, have you?’ I was just dumbstruck. The attitude here is that theatre is what you do when you can’t get filmwork, and that is just insulting to the marrow of my bones! ” —Linney*

“Lorenzo’s Oil” (1992) offered Laura Linney her first big-screen (although not big-scope) role. At about the same time, Linney landed the lead in the controversial yet praised television series, “Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City,” where she played Mary Ann Singleton, San Francisco’s newest resident who wasn’t all that comfortable with the sexual revolution of the 70s. Her career progressed speedily to a starring role in “Congo” and her most critically acclaimed performance to date: The role of the wife to Jim Carrey's character in the 1998 comedy “The Truman Show.” In this film, an “ordinary” man's life was televised without his knowledge, and the powers that be went to great lengths to keep the illusion realistic by building an entire town and equipping it with fake everything, including a wife — a hired actress. Linney was suitably comical, expectedly all-American, and plain funny, which is no easy feat when you have to perform on Carrey’s evel. In “Primal Fear,” Linney managed to overcome the limitations of the script and deliver a performance which got her a part in Clint Eastwood’s hit “Absolute Power.” Her portrayal of Sammy, a divorced, overprotective mother in “You Can Count on Me” (2000), earned her an Oscar nomination. In January 2002, Linney will once again appear alongside Richard Gere, this time in "The Mothman Prophecies," an adaptation of the 1975 cult classic book by John A. Keel.