Laura Linney: Collaboration. ... For me, it has informed every move I'...

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!

Laura Linney

feeling-bad want feelings

A magnetic personality doesn't necessarily indicate a good heart.

Laura Linney

good-heart personality heart

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.

Laura Linney

casting groups intelligent

I'm not someone who likes to have my picture taken, let alone see it plastered all over the place.

Laura Linney

picture-taken likes taken

I grew up in Manhattan and, since my father was a playwright, all I ever wanted to be was a stage actress.

Laura Linney

manhattan actresses father

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.

Laura Linney

aunt remember sweet

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.

Laura Linney

lucky nice people

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.

Laura Linney

different reason people

I always laugh to myself when I listen to some really big A-list star saying that they are just a normal person.

Laura Linney

lists stars laughing

Ask "why" until there is no more "why."

Laura Linney

asks

Fame didn't happen to me in my 20s, it has been a gradual thing which probably makes it easier to deal with.

Laura Linney

deals easier fame

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.

Laura Linney

creativity discipline father

Courtroom dramas can be boring.

Laura Linney

courtroom boring drama

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.

Laura Linney

scripts actors world

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.

Laura Linney

jobs long interesting

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.

Laura Linney

quality men inspire

I had learning disabilities, and I couldn't express myself in the written word.

Laura Linney

learning-disability written-word disability

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

Laura Linney

eugenics stars

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.

Laura Linney

age people thinking

I don't mind aging. I mean, my whole thing is, it's just a privilege to age.

Laura Linney

age mind mean

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.