- Was once a teacher for deaf and autistic children.
- Filmed Mystic River (2003) in Boston, US, while filming Love Actually (2003) in London, UK. She flew across the Atlantic several times in a short manner of time, in order to complete filming on both movies.
- Attended and graduated from the Juilliard School in New York City (1990).
- Gained about 20 pounds for her role in Kinsey (2004), mainly by eating Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts.
- Clint Eastwood picked her for the role of Kate Whitney in his movie Absolute Power (1997) after he saw her performance in Primal Fear (1996).
- Four weeks before turning age 50, she gave birth to her first child, a son Bennett Armistead Schauer on January 8, 2014. Child's father is her husband, Marc Schauer.
- Won both a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for her work on The Big C (2010), but not for the same season. Both times she was unable to accept the award in person, due to personal reasons.
- Attended and graduated from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island (1986).
- 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".
- Loves Meryl Streep. In The Truman Show (1998), her character was named Meryl and Laura was made up to look like her.
- She says that she was the worst at reading and writing in her class.
- She was given the screenplay for The Squid and the Whale (2005) by Eric Stoltz, her boyfriend at that time, while they were filming The House of Mirth (2000). She agreed to do the film immediately, but this took four years to raise the financing.
- On May 2, 2009, she married for the second time to her boyfriend of five years Marc Schauer, following a 21-month-long engagement.
- Her father is respected Off-Broadway playwright Romulus Linney.
- Great-great-granddaughter of U.S. Congressman Romulus Zachariah Linney (1841-1910), a Representive from North Carolina. He was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, and Fifty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1901).
- At age 14, she spent the summer at the New London Barn Playhouse, summer-stock theater in New London, NH, and loved it, sometimes doing 14-hour days.
- Has played the wife of Gabriel Byrne in three films: Jindabyne (2006), P.S. (2004), and A Simple Twist of Fate (1994).
- Her mother is a nurse.
- Has a yellow Labrador dog that she named Eleonora Duse, after the actress Eleonora Duse.
- Longtime friends with Sir Ian McKellen whom she acquainted through their mutual friend Armistead Maupin.
- She has English, as well as Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry.
- Attended Northwestern University for one year before transferring to Brown University.
- Got engaged to Marc Schauer in August 2007. She met him at the 2004 Telluride Film Festival when he was her festival host that week.
- Is just 10 years older than Amy Adams, who played her daughter in Nocturnal Animals (2016), albeit in a flashback sequence where Adams' character is supposed to be in college.
- New York, New York: Spoke at the commencement of her alma mater, the Juilliard School in New York City, from which she graduated in 1990. Previously had spoken at the 2009 commencement, at which she was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Fine Arts). (May 2013)
- Returned to work six months after giving birth to her son Bennett to begin filming Mr. Holmes (2015).
- 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 an automobile accident together.
- Nominated for the 2017 Tony Award for "The Little Foxes" (Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play).
- Won a Theatre World Award and received a Drama Desk nomination for her stage performance in "Sight Unseen".
- Won the 1994 Joe A. Callaway Award, for Best Performance in a Classic Drama, for her performance as Thea Elvsted in "Hedda Gabler".
- She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6533 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on July 25, 2022. Holland Taylor and producer Chris Mundy were guest speakers at the ceremony.
- Only child of her mother. Has a paternal half-sister, Susan Linney.
- Nominated for the 2005 Tony Award for "Sight Unseen" (Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play).
- New York, New York: Starred on Broadway in the play "Sight Unseen" at the Biltmore Theater. This is her second time performing in the play. Years ago, she was cast in the role of the younger female character. (May 2004)
- Is to date the oldest Oscar nominee to become a natural first-time mother, having given birth to her son Bennett at age 49, surpassing even Jennifer Jason Leigh, Holly Hunter, Geena Davis and Chloë Sevigny who became natural first-time mothers at age 48, 47, 46 and 45, respectively.
- Attended and graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon School (1982). A fellow alumnus is Kim Raver, who graduated in 1985.
- Her guilty pleasure is Swedish Fish candy.
- New York, New York: On Broadway as "Sarah" in "Time Stands Still", a new play by Donald Margulies, directed by Daniel J. Sullivan. With Eric Bogosian, Brian d'Arcy James and Alicia Silverstone. (February 2010)
- Counts Bill Condon among her all-time favorite directors with whom she has worked.
- On July 16, 2011, she was in attendance at the wedding of Mamie Gummer to Benjamin Walker.
- Considers her second marriage to be the biggest risk she has ever taken.
- Is on Julliard's Board of Trustees.
- Nominated for the 2010 Tony Award for "Time Stands Still" (Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play).
- Attended the wedding of longtime friend Armistead Maupin and Christopher Turner which took place in the garden of the Sausalito, California, home of Amy Tan and husband, Lou DeMattei.
- Her dream co-star is Irish actor Liam Neeson (with whom she had worked on stage in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" (2002) and in three feature films through 2022).
- Her celebrity childhood crush was Errol Flynn.
- A visit to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean is on her bucket list.
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