Arrive Magazine - July/August, 2011

Not just because they’re healthier?

I drink Coca-Cola, you know? I’m not that person.

The carriage of the typewriter.

That’s right. The Smith-Corona.

And when are you going to do a movie with
Meryl Streep?

Whenever I’m asked.

I also wonder how we perceive things visually,
like I wonder if the way you see me, if I have
what I would call purple skin.

Yeah, all of that.

If you could have one superpower …
I would totally be able to speak every language, and
I’d want to be able to talk to any living thing whether

If I handed you an Oscar right now whom would
you thank?

it was an animal or a plant or a. ... Some languages are God. It’s so hard. I don’t know how people do that.

just funny to listen to. They’re just funny to hear.

You ever hear a Hungarian answer the phone?
Yes! And I wonder if the languages that sound very
harsh in English, if they sound harsh in their own
tongue. … Or is it just ’cause we don’t understand the
meaning to the sound? These are the things I think
about.

Does Italian sound as brusque to German ears
as German sounds to our ears?

That’s right ... I also think about the extinction of cer-
tain sounds that are only present for a certain period
of time. There are certain sounds from my childhood
that I’ll never hear again. The rotary dial phone.

Oh, please don’t say your agent.
It goes to Julliard and parents and husband and
friends and—then there were t wo little old ladies who
ran a button shop when I was growing up and I would
go in there every day after school, and they were
really kind to me. And I never forgot them. I’d thank
them for being nice to the pipsqueak kid who would
come in every day after school.

Interview has been condensed and edited.

THE SAVAGES (2007)
Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman play self-absorbed
siblings forced to make care decisions for an aging (and
uncaring) father. She earned her third Oscar nomination
for the role.
JOHN ADAMS (2008)

In her Emmy-winning turn as the formidable Abigail Adams in the acclaimed HBO biopic, Linney fully embodied our nation’s second first lady, down to her pigeon-toed gait.

THE BIG C

(2010–present)

In this improbable Showtime comedy now in its second season, Linney lets it all hang out as a suburban wife, mother and teacher with incurable cancer.