Laura Linney was given the script for The Squid and the Whale (2005) by Eric Stoltz, her boyfriend at that time, while they were filming The House of Mirth (2000) in 2000. She agreed to do the film immediately, but it took four years to raise the financing.

Won the 1994 Joe A. Callaway Award, for Best Performance in a Classic Drama, for her performance as Thea Elvsted in "Hedda Gabler".

The writers Romulus Linney (father of Laura) and Jonathan Baumbach (father of Noah Baumbach, who directed Linney in The Squid and the Whale (2005)), spent time at Yaddo, an artists colony, where they knew each other well enough to have gotten into a car accident together.

Loves Meryl Streep and donuts.

Nominated for the 2005 Tony Award for "Sight Unseen" (Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play).

Spouse, David Adkins (2 September 1995 - 2000) (divorced)

Was once a teacher for deaf and autistic children.

Has played the wife of Gabriel Byrne in three films: Jindabyne (2006), P.S. (2004), and A Simple Twist of Fate (1994).

Won a Theatre World Award and received a Drama Desk nomination for her stage performance in "Sight Unseen".

Engaged to Marc Schauer in August 2007. She met Marc at the 2004 Telluride Film Festival when he was her festival host that week.

Was at Northwestern University for one year before transferring to Brown University.

Loves Meryl Streep and donuts. In "The Truman Show" (1998) her character was named Meryl and Laura was made up to look like her.

Has a yellow Labrador dog that she named Eleonora Duse, after the actress Eleonora Duse.

Gained about 20 pounds for her role in Kinsey (2004), mainly by eating Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts.

Clint Eastwood picked her for the part of Kate Whitney in his new movie Absolute Power (1997) after he saw her performance in Primal Fear (1996).

She says that she was the worst at reading and writing in her class.

Her mother is a nurse.

Graduated Northfield Mount Hermon School in 1982.

Was nominated for Broadway`s 2002 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for portraying Elizabeth Proctor in a revival of Arthur Miller`s "The Crucible".

1990 graduate of the Juilliard School.

Graduated from Brown University in 1986.

Has a sister, Susan Linney.

Her father is respected Off-Broadway playwright Romulus Linney.