Cinema: Top Performers

LAURA LINNEY YOU CAN COUNT ON ME

Laura Linney has been down this road before. It was 1998, and The Truman Show was being heaped with critical praise. By the time Oscar season rolled around, however, the film had lost much of its heat. Truman received a handful of nominations, but Linney was denied a nod for her creepy, hilarious turn as Jim Carrey's wife, an overly cheerful actress who periodically turns to hidden cameras in their home to plug household products, and the film itself was absent from the Best Picture category. "You call something the movie of the decade and you're asking for it," says Linney. "There was a backlash, which I don't think this movie will get."

This movie is You Can Count on Me, a lovely independent drama that's way too unassuming to warrant a backlash--though it is a major breakthrough for Linney, 36, whose Best Actress award from the New York Film Critics Circle and Golden Globe nomination have propelled her into this year's Oscar race. Is Linney seeing gold? She stammers, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't aware of it. People are excited for me and the prospect that I might be...oh, it's so awkward I can't spit it out."

Linney's not the type to brag. Although she was raised in Manhattan (her father is playwright Romulus Linney) and trained at the Juilliard School, she retains a soft Southern drawl and kind manners acquired during childhood summers spent with relatives in Georgia. Still, this non-diva is a prized commodity in the New York City theater, where she's starred in Uncle Vanya. Indie filmmakers love her too; she can currently be seen in Terence Davies' adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. And she has a nice little cult following owing to her role as sexual-revolution poster girl Mary Ann Singleton in two Tales of the City miniseries (a third will air this year on Showtime). But in her major movies, she's been upstaged by her male co-stars: Truman's Carrey, Absolute Power's Clint Eastwood, Primal Fear's Richard Gere and Congo's primal brutes.

In You Can Count on Me, Linney takes the lead as Sammy, a small-town bank manager who was orphaned as a girl and who's still experiencing growing pains as a single mom with a little boy (Rory Culkin), a wayward younger brother (Mark Ruffalo) and a frustrating new boss (Matthew Broderick). In the process, Linney produces some of the year's most indelible acting moments. Watch her drive alone from an ill-advised rendezvous with her boss and see the emotions illuminate Linney's face like flickering candles--a smile, a jolt of sadness, a surge of joy. "She made a little play out of that," says the film's writer-director, Kenneth Lonergan. "Laughing and feeling guilty and laughing again."

At the moment, Linney's in a very happy place. This month she'll begin shooting The Mothman Prophecies, a thriller that will reunite her with Gere, and she's considered the most worthy Oscar competition for Erin Brockovich's Julia Roberts. But knowing how fortunes can turn, Linney isn't waiting until the nominations are announced next month to enjoy the ride. "Awards or no," she says, "it feels pretty damn good."

--By Jess Cagle

TIM BLAKE NELSON O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?