She plays a woman who is diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma. It’s how she handles the sentence that fascinated Linney.
“When this script came to me, what hit me the most
was the theme of time and what do you do with time? What are the
choices that we make? How we spend our time? The fact that we all have
a limited amount and that it’s a privilege to grow old. And that’s
something that I think a lot of people have forgotten in this very
fast-paced world where youth is overly celebrated.
“So it was meaningful to me,” she adds. “It was what
the whole story was about more than just the wonderful character that’s
there. Clearly, I thought it was something that I could spend some time
with and would be challenged by. But more than anything else, it’s
more, for me, about time.”
Linney, whose father was a playwright, graduated
from Juilliard and began working in the theater. She’s best known for
films like “You Can Count on Me,” “The Truman Show,” the “Tales of the
City TV programs and the “John Adams” miniseries. But mostly she’s
cleaved to
“I think there are two viruses in L.A.,” she says.
“There’s the what-I-have-is-not-enough-virus — deadly. And the
what-do-they-think-of-me? virus, which can drive you insane. And
everyone is going to feel that. Everyone is going to be affected by it
at one point. No one is immune to it,” she says.
“But they can cause you to make foolish decisions.
And so it’s about being centered enough to really realize what do you
want? Do you really want to be famous? If that’s what you want, great,
go for it. Do I really want that? Or is it about the other stuff?
“You have to figure out what’s important to you.
That doesn’t mean not to try unexpected things. (It’s) not just so you
can be proud of yourself as an actor but as a human being, and how you
choose to live your life day-to-day and treat those who work for you
and with you and those you work for and with, that’s something you have
to keep an eye on, because you can be easily morphed or brainwashed.”
Ever since her small but memorable part in “Lorenzo’s Oil,” she’s managed to avoid the brainwashing.
That’s one reason she liked “The Big C.” “I’m sort
of going on the journey with Cathy (her character) … I’m at the age
where relatives are growing older and friends are dying, sometimes in
unexpected ways. It hits me in a very different way,” she says.
“I remember I shot a scene with
and I got unusually … Normally, I’m fairly contained when I’m
working, things don’t really cross over. But something hit me in that
scene, and I just started to boo-hoo because it hit me: ‘Oh, my God.
She’s really dying.’
“And it was a scene that had so much life and had
such vim and vigor and vivacity and great humor that it was the
combination of those two things that were hitting me at the same time.
And that’s part of why I love the show.”
Exploration and learning are two elements that
propel Linney, both in her life and her work. After guest parts on
“Frasier” and “Law & Order,” she says working in television has
changed her.
“I think it’s made me a better actress, which is why
I love working in different mediums. I find it really challenging. And
the television that I’ve done has been some of the happiest experiences
I’ve ever had. I mean, ‘Tales of the City’ and ‘John Adams,’ I deeply
love those projects. And you learn so much about yourself when you’re
with certain responsibilities and with the time constraints that are
there, the challenge …
“How do we problem-solve and, yet, still not let go
of the core things that we know are vitally important and cannot be
relinquished? And that’s the great challenge of TV. It’s fast. It’s
furious … it can do things that film and certainly theater, of
course, can’t do,” she says.
“And for me, to have the opportunity now to stay
with one character for hopefully, God willing, a long period of time is
— for any actor, is really — is really exciting. And also not to know
what’s coming. I mean, normally, when I do anything — if it’s a film,
if it’s a theater piece or a miniseries — I know the beginning and end.
I know what my complete arc and journey is. And with this, I don’t. So
that’s very new for me, and I’m trying to figure out how to craft
something without knowing where it’s going, sort of a bridge to — I
don’t know where the bridge is going. Hopefully not nowhere.”
———
“
again, you don’t look at a show and say, ‘I’m only going to pick this
up because it’s driven by a female cast member.’ You have to pick it up
on the basis and the merits of the show itself. But certainly it’s
always about going forward in a series. If we can add other female
characters, we certainly will.”
———
“Law & Order,” the original, may be lifeless on
the coroner’s table, but there’s a new part of the franchise ready to
take its place on NBC
Skeet Ulrich is starring in the new series as an
“all-business” type of LAPD officer who’s married to his ex-partner.
Though he says he only saw one episode of the “Law & Order” group,
Ulrich is already boning up for his role.
“I’ve never played a cop. As I’ve started to delve into this lifestyle — I have friends who are on LAPD and are on the
and stuff. And it’s a fascinating — and I can tell you, living here,
extremely grateful for these guys, having gone on a homicide scene
recently and seeing what they do. And we are very fortunate to have the
police department we have here. And I hope to live up to what it is
they do on a daily basis, because it is honorable to the nth degree.”
———
new sitcom “Mr. Sunshine.” Janney, who played the snappy press
secretary C.J. on “The West Wing” so well, says she cherishes the
chance to change her spots. “I sort of looked at it like I spent seven
years being politically correct on ‘The West Wing,’ and now I get to
just be completely wrong on so many levels,” she says.
“… And I’m so excited to be politically incorrect
and sexually inappropriate, have a prescription pill problem. I just
find it all fascinating, and I’m so happy to get to go this far with a
character.”
———
(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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