Last year was a great year for Laura Linney, with leading roles in three of the best films of the year. Her latest film, The Savages, which is released nationwide today has earned her a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars. As she sits down on the sofa in front of me I notice a bandage on her finger. She tells me she did it this morning, she thinks it's broken and shrugs it off in a 'hey, that's life' kind of way. It's this lack of airs and graces where some other actors would have cancelled all press at the chip of a fingernail that makes her one of journalists' favourite interviewees. Sitting opposite her you realise just how pretty she actually is, something that she doesn't play upon in her various roles. We got chatting about her latest role, getting nervous in front of the camera and her two different lives.

So your new film The Savages, what was it about this film that made you want to take it?

I read the script and I loved it and it was unusual for such a script to be ready to go. .

You play the character of Wendy who is, let's just say, complex. How much of you is in the character?

She's very different than I am, fortunately! I think her boundaries are gone and she basically behaves like an 11 year old most of the time. She doesn't know how to commit, she does want to, which is what saves her from being a totally unlikeable, unrelateable human being. She can behave so badly - she can cheat, she can lie, she can have an adulterous affair, she can be a fraud and at the same time you can stay with her and it's because she doesn't know how to just be. She makes all the wrong choices all the time and thinks that's what she has to do for whatever reason whether it's out of fear or neurosis. She'd get into a scrap and her pride would never let her down so she would lie like a six year old like - who broke that lamp? I didn't do it . Not only saying I didn't do it but a monster came in with three feet and they broke the lamp.

It's refreshing to see a character who has flaws and you seem to relish those characters?

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