Oscar Nominee Laura Linney: No Down Time for Busy Best Actress
By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
Feb 7, 2008
Best Actress Oscar nominee Laura Linney doesn't have anything in the way of free time to savor the ramp-up to this year's Academy Awards, where she's in contention for the third time with her Best Actress nod for "The Savages." Lovely Laura flew into Los Angeles to attend this week's Oscar nominees' luncheon with plans to jet off the next day for London and the beginning of production on "The Other Man."
Oscar Nominee Laura Linney: No Down Time for Busy Best Actress (Image: Wenn)
She tells us she's planning to be back for the Oscars, but it'll be on a fast turn-around basis, what with two leading men waiting for her. "The Other Man" has Liam Neeson as a man who sets out to track down his wife's (Linney's) suspected lover. Antonio Banderas also stars.
Linney, who headquarters in Telluride, Colo., these days with fiance Marc Schauer, says that when she comes into Hollywood for events and meetings, she's finds she enjoys the town more than she did when living there.
She also has "City of Your Final Destination" with Anthony Hopkins in the can, but "I don't know when that one is going to come out," she says.
And then there's HBO's forthcoming seven-part event miniseries from the David McCullough bestseller "John Adams," with Tom Hanks among the producers, Paul Giamatti as the second president of the United States, and Laura as the brilliant and strong famous first lady, Abigail. The gifted actress — who was up for Oscar honors for "Kinsey" in 2005 and "You Can Count on Me" in '01 — worked to get the part and now tells us she's seen some of the mini and it's excitingly good.
THE INSIDE TRACK: Veteran songstress Patti Austin says despite the fact her "Avant-Gershwin" CD garnered two Grammy nominations — for Best Jazz Vocal Album and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) — she plans to go in a completely different direction with her next project.
"We've been talking about putting together all the music I've done that has an inspirational bent, the songs that are all about inspiring love or talking about love for a compilation album," says Austin, who's also set to host the pre-Grammy ceremonies on Sunday (Feb. 10). "I'm seeing and feeling an energy in the world that I find disturbing now. It feels like we're on some kind of brink or precipice, and music very often addresses that better than anything. So in the midst of the fact I'm being anointed by my peers as a jazz artist, I'm coming out with a lot of pop, R&B and smooth jazz."
Austin says among the tunes featured on the upcoming CD is "a tune I wrote called 'I Am Calling You' from the movie 'Baghdad Cafe' and a new version of (Bill Withers' classic 1972 hit) 'Lean on Me.'" She recalls, "I did the Greek Theatre in L.A. last September with Michael McDonald, and we did 'Lean on Me,' but not the way Bill did it. It's kind of a deep song, so I said let's make this music match the impact of the lyrics and do it slow and operatic, like an aria. By the time we got to the line 'Call on me brother when you need a hand,' the people were on their feet losing their minds, so that we're going to have to record live. We're not going to be able to capture that in the studio."
A NICE NICHE: "Hairspray" star Nikki Blonsky says she's continuing to champion the plight of the underdog in the upcoming "Harold" with Cuba Gooding Jr., Spencer Breslin and Ally Sheedy. "It's a ridiculously funny comedy about a prematurely balding 14-year-old boy," says Blonsky, "and I am the lead of the Nerd Herd. I play the biggest geek in the world and had so much fun playing it. I welcome him into my group and we end up fighting the bullies. We take it to the go-cart track and duke it out there. I was a go-cart racer, which was great. … I like to pick up a new skill in each of my movies."
THE BIG-SCREEN SCENE: Jonathan Murphy's "October Road" character, Ronnie, is reduced to pining for his big brother's lady love in the ABC drama, but Murphy says he gets the girl in the upcoming indie film "Broken Windows" with Larisa Oleynik. In the flick about four women and their struggles, "Larisa plays a photographer who was at one time really doing inspiring work and now she's turned to doing headshots and sultry pictures to make a dollar," says Murphy. "My character is a free spirit, go with the flow, life's never that bad type of guy. He misses that in Larisa's character, so he really is on a mission to bring her back to the person he fell in love with, the person she in essence really wants and needs to be to be happy."
The actor — who's currently recurring on the ABC Family Channel series "Wildfire" — says "Broken Windows" is "a story a la 'Crash' because all the people are intertwined without ever knowing it." He adds the film "is beautifully shot and the music is fantastic."
With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster.
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