Laura Linney Grows Up

With a wedding to plan and family drama The Savages opening in limited release today, it’s an exciting time to be Laura Linney.

The two-time Oscar nominee, 43, who is engaged to Marc Schauer, joins me at W Union Square Hotel in NYC after a lunch of a leafy green salad with vinaigrette dressing and wrap sandwich.

Donning a black cut-out top with her blown-out blond locks curled and parted on the side, Laura is nursing her right pinkie and ring finger back to health with a splint, but the rock on her left hand glows brilliant and bright. She is ready to start anew after her 2000 divorce from David Adkins.

How is wedding planning going?

“Fine,” she tells me. “We’re still just trying to figure it all out with schedule, time, and where and how many people and whether or not we have a wedding or we runaway and elope. I just don’t know.”

Like her character in the film, Laura hopes she is nurturing toward her family.

“I’m not so much worried about my getting older as much as I am terrified about my parents getting older,” she says. “It’s the inconceivable that will become conceivable. My parents are still very much alive, fortunately, so there are several people that I will be responsible for. I know it’s my responsibility to help them out. I went to them and said ‘look, the greatest act of love that you can do for me is help me to make all these decisions now while you’re still sane and I’m still sane. It will be awkward and it might feel morbid, but at least we’ll laugh about it, because when you go, I’m going to be a mess and I’m not going to be able to make the proper decision. If you can guide me now, it will help me so much, and when that time comes, I’ll also feel like you’re with me.’ So there are files now and wills and wishes and where do you want to go. All that stuff has been sorted out a little bit more.”

Unlike her character, however, she is not a cat lover.

“I’m highly allergic to cats,” she tells me. “For some reason, karmically, there’s a cat involved in every film I do. It’s not just a little allergy. It’s a severe allergy. I always have to run to the allergist and deal and try to explain to the movie that this isn’t a little thing, it’s really a big thing. People don’t believe you when you tell them ‘I have a severe allergy to cats.’ They don’t really understand. They think you just sneeze. But my eyes will swell, my throat will swell, and the movie will shutdown. But I somehow managed to get through it. I love dogs. I adore them.”

With a wave, Laura is off and running with the rest of her day.