Laura Linney '86 once asked her professors if they thought she should pursue a career in acting. They assured her that she seemed very much at home on stage.
Linney took their advice. Now, after starring in the 2007 film "The Savages," she is a third-time Academy Award nominee.
Linney was nominated in the Best Actress category last month for her role in the Tamara Jenkins film. In the movie, Linney plays Wendy Savage, a struggling playwright who learns that her father has been diagnosed with dementia. Wendy and her brother, a college professor played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, share the responsibilities of caring for their father.
Linney transferred to Brown after one year in Northwestern University's theater department.
Professor of Theater, Speech and Dance John Emigh, who taught Linney, said the actress preferred Brown's liberal arts education to Northwestern's more pre-professional acting program.
"She came here to get a whole education. That's why she left Northwestern," Emigh said. He taught Linney and worked with her in theater productions.
Linney's stage roles at Brown included Ada, the lead in the play "Childe Byron," in her senior year. Romulus Linney, her father, had written the play several years earlier, but Emigh said he did not pick the play with Laura Linney in mind for the role.
"She originally wasn't going to try out," Emigh said. "Then she said, 'Why shouldn't I try out?' She was just absolutely the best person to play the role."
Emigh said Linney's involvement with drama at Brown was not limited to starring roles. When Emigh directed a production of "Spring Awakening," Linney worked as a stage hand, setting up microphones.
"She was happy to do this," Emigh said.
Linney went to the Juilliard School after her graduation and worked with Emigh's former teacher, Michael Kahn. Linney received a master of fine arts degree after four years.
"She wasn't always the flashiest, but I think she absorbed and profited the most," Kahn said in a Dec. 16 Washington Post article.
After graduating from Juilliard in 1990, Linney appeared in a number of Broadway and off-Broadway productions, as well as minor appearances in television and film. Linney's breakout role was Meryl Burbank in "The Truman Show" in 1998.
Since then, Linney has been in the films "You Can Count on Me," "The Life of David Gale," "Mystic River," "Love Actually" and "Kinsey." She has also acted on Broadway, with Tony Award nominations for her roles in "The Crucible" in 2002 and "Sight Unseen" in 2005.
Linney has been nominated for an Oscar twice before. She received a Best Actress nomination for her performance in "You Can Count on Me" in 2000 and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance in "Kinsey" in 2004.
"I hope she wins," Emigh said. "I think she's due."
