Bridging the age gap in p.s.

Oscar-nominated actress Laura Linney stars in Dylan Kidd's romantic comedy

One of the cinema's most solid and versatile actresses for decades, Laura Linney didn't get serious critical recognition until she starred in Kenneth Lonergan's 2000 quiet family drama You Can Count on Me.
Despite having appeared in acclaimed features Primal Fear, The Truman Show and The House Mirth, as well as the mini-series Tales of the City, it took that movie to garner Linney the best actress award from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, as well as nominations for Best Actress at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards.
Working hard ever since, this year Linney appears in no less than two critically acclaimed pictures, including Dylan Kidd's (Roger Dodger) romantic drama p.s. (The other is Kinsey, about the famous sexologist.)
Based on a book by Helen Schulman, p.s. centres on college admissions officer Louise (Linney) who is lonely and unhappy, even though she carries on a relationship with her ex-husband Peter (Gabriel Byrne). Suddenly her life gets a jolt when she reads the name F. Scott Feinstadt on a student's application. That's the name of her first love who died when they were teenagers. After meeting with F. Scott (Topher Grace), she finds the young man not only resembles her dead boyfriend, but also paints like him. Despite F. Scott's impudence, Louise seduces the young man and a passionate, and highly credible, romance blossoms. But Louise is carrying around too much emotional baggage, which isn't lightened by Peter (who confesses to be a sex addict), her former drug-addict brother (Paul Rudd), and her best friend Missy (Marcia Gay Harden).
Tandem talked to Laura Linney, 40, when she was in Toronto.

It's so rare today to find a woman over 30 having sex on screen. Don't you find that there's a cut-off age in Hollywood?
"I don't. I don't think there is a cut-off. I think people want there to be a cut-off. I don't think there is a cut-off. I think a lot of it is perpetuated by a relentless desire to hang to that for some reason. You know, it's not that rare."

When you read this script, did you see it as another May-October romance?
"No, I didn't see it as that. I saw it as a woman who was in life panic, and what so many people deal with when they get to a certain age and they think they've done everything right and their life has not turned out the way they thought it would, and they think to themselves: 'what happened?' And, that's really to me what the movie's about - the romance is a result of that. Or it's a symptom of that. But mainly what the movie is about, for me, is the journey of someone learning how to accept the past, be in the present, and look to the future. That's really what the movie is about."

At the same time, that's an enjoyable role to play...
"It's always nice to be around good-looking people. (laughing). That's not the main reason why I do what I do, but of course that's always very nice. Yeah, I've worked with some great men, absolutely."

What was your first reaction when you read the script? You're almost in every sequence of the picture...
"Yeah, there was a lot in there to play. It's complicated, I knew it was complicated and I knew it was thick with stuff. And I also, you know, didn't know if it was going to work or not."

Why?
"Well, because it's a simplistic thought. People want to go right to the romance, and that's not really what the movie's about, and that's what's so interesting to me, that you have a stereotypical sort of thin overlay on something that's far more complex and, you know, rife with interpersonal relationships. So it was more about: would that thought really be able to co-exist with the other stuff? Would the filmmaker allow that to happen? How would it actually be?

It's really a personal relationship-based film. This is Dylan Kidd's only second film. Did you have any concerns?
"Well, the thing about new filmmakers is that, you know, just because someone doesn't have experience doesn't mean they're not talented, and that's really the most important thing - are they talented? And they learn, and if you happen to have more experience than the director you're working with, maybe you can help them out and maybe they can help you see things through their own talent that you wouldn't get to on your own. So, you know, I don't have a problem with working with young, less experienced directors. People gotta learn. And as long there's a good give-and-take at both ends, then it works out very well."

I wonder if you can talk a little about the female friendship in the movie too. I thought that was just such an honest and interesting and complicated depiction of long-term female friendship.
"Right. That's a very complex friendship. They are devoted to each other and also not completely safe with each other. But somehow are completely intertwined in each other's lives. But maybe it's not always the healthiest of friendships, but there is a true love for each other there, so it's complex. I don't have a friendship like that - which I'm happy about - I have, like, the good stuff, all the good stuff."

People think of female friendships as the safe ones.
"Yeah, but also you know how ruthless women can be with each other. To combine the two - to have a ruthlessness with a friendship - but the thing about them is that they know each other profoundly well. And they love each other just like that. And maybe that's a true friendship, you know, to see someone's really horrible side and still love them. And to forgive that, you know - to forgive it and take the good. And have knowledge of the bad but, you know, to have a foundation of it being more about the positive than the negative."

Did you guys work out a back story, like, did you imagine that they would be not friends for a time and maybe that death brought them back together?
"Probably, I'm sure. It's all in the book, actually. But the novel is a great primary resource and I used it a lot. I used it as much as I could when making the movie. It'll answer a lot of questions."

You carry the film from beginning to end. Was there ever a doubt at some point saying 'I don't know if I'm up for this'?
"I didn't have the sense that I didn't think that I was up for it. No. You know, I can't think of it as being about me. You think of it as like 'will the story hold'. The only thing is, can I make the story hold? Can I keep the scenes flowing from one scene to the next to the next? Can I make the story be told the way the story needs to be told because if the story is told correctly then everything else takes care of itself? The actors are there. If I start thinking way too much about mmeeee - just anxiety lies there, and then you're not concentrating on the work but you're thinking about all the wrong stuff. So, I didn't, really?

With all these great movies coming out, are you having a great time in your career?
"Yeah, the work has been great. Over the past I guess, three or four years, the work's been extremely fulfilling. I've worked with great people and on great things both in the theatre and on film so it's been extremely satisfying. But it is tiring, I will say that. But you just get tired. You get tired, and you know, you're travelling a lot, you lose your tracks, your sense of home. So, all of that costs a little bit. But, the work has been fantastic. I've been extremely lucky."

Do you believe that the relationship works with an older woman and a younger man?
"I mean, it depends on the people. I think it depends upon the connection. Connection is connection. Love is love, and if it's honest and respectful and no one's getting hurt, I have no problem with that. It's one combination of many different types of relationships that's existed forever and that exist now and it will exist in the future. People just right now are sort of making a big deal about it. But it's not an alien incarnation."

p.s. is currently playing in local cinemas.

Publication Date: 2004-11-14
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4607