Q & A With Laura Linney

By Rebecca Winters

Laura Linney currently appears in the British comedy Love Actually and the Clint Eastwood--helmed drama Mystic River.

Supposedly, I'm your doppelganger. So if you have any beauty tips

...That's great! I love that! Um...no lip liner. It makes me look like a duck.

You made these two movies at the same time. You never blurted out your wicked good Boston accent in London by mistake?

No! The thing I was the most relieved about was that accent. It's very hard, particularly [the Dorchester neighborhood], which is different from the Kennedyesque Boston accent.

In both of these films you play a woman who's standing by her man. Are you being type-cast?

Both characters have a sense of loyalty, a sense of who they are. I think I am a loyal person, so maybe I'm drawn to those parts or those parts are drawn to me.

In a film out next year, you play the wife of Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher. Did Mrs. Kinsey have much of a sex life of her own?

She did! She had a huge sex life. I gained 22 lbs. for that movie. There were prosthetics and fat suits and wigs.

Any more theater planned?

I'm doing a revival in the spring--Sight Unseen. I was in the original cast in 1991.

In the same role?

Oh, no. I've moved up from ingenue to leading lady.