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Here’s a transcript of the video:Today I want to tell you about one of my favorite people in the world. Judging from what I hear from fans, I think she may be one of your favorite people as well. So it’s a pleasure to talk to you about Laura Linney.We met on the set of Tales of the City in 1992. As I recall, we were out at Land’s End in San Francisco filming an exterior shot of some sort, and I was totally charmed by her — not only by the way she treated me, but the way she treated the people who worked on the show. She was courteous to everyone. She seemed intuitive about what people were thinking and feeling, and that kind of kindness always impresses me when I see it. She had it in spades.The first time I ever saw Laura was in a casting tape that was sent to me. She had come in to read for another role, but that role had already been filled, and they asked me, “Do you think this woman would work?” It was such a laughable question, because not only would she work — I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing Mary Ann Singleton. She grasped a lot about Mary Ann — about her naivete and her essential innocence — but also a kind of calculated way about her. She knew what impression she was making at all times, and the combination of those things made her irresistible in that role. I felt as if I’d seen Mary Ann Singleton come to life — she embodied that character so completely.And the joke is, of course, that Mary Ann Singleton is sort of me as well, and so that instantly connected me to Laura. I felt that we knew each other really well, and her understanding of that character seemed to be an understanding of me. I hate to bring it back to myself, but that’s what it felt like.I don’t know exactly when I realized that there was a serious friendship developing between me and Laura, but it came pretty quickly. We laughed about the same things. She had this sly little cackle, and at the same time that I was laughing about something, she would be. We just fit as friends. You know, we fit in the most beautiful kind of way. I was twenty years older than she was, but it didn’t matter a bit.Laura adjusted to whatever set we were on. When we moved the show to Montreal, she was suddenly speaking in a Montreal accent and making me laugh like crazy. It was never malicious, but she heard people and she knew how to recreate their voices.Laura is the kind of actor other actors come to for advice on how to play a scene. I’ve seen it happen many times on the set of Tales, and I’m sure it happens with every other production she’s ever been in because, one, she’s kind, and two, she’s knowledgeable, and she knows how to offer advice in a gentle way. It’s no surprise to me that recently she’s moving into a directorial role in some of her productions, like Black Rabbit with Jason Bateman. She directed several of those episodes because they trust her. Actors trust Laura, and that comes across in the performances.Laura had a bit of trouble breaking into a movie career. She was in the famously awful Congo. She used to be very funny about that on the set because she knew when something was good and when it wasn’t. Her first major film role was in The Truman Show. She played this chirpy housewife who’s the wife of Jim Carrey. He’s in a reality show and doesn’t know it, and she’s part of the conspiracy to keep him in the reality show. But she gets very angry when he’s not playing along with the game. It’s great comedy stuff, and it works. She understood it on every level.After that, in 2000, she got the first role for which she received an Oscar nomination, You Can Count On Me. In the movie she plays the sister of Mark Ruffalo. He’s kind of a hippie, kind of a ne’er-do-well who can’t keep a job. And she plays a really solid woman, and they are loving brother and sister. And the way in which they convey that is so brilliant. It breaks your heart before it’s over.The biggest thrill of my life came when Laura asked me to be her escort for the Oscars when she was nominated for Best Actress. I got to go to that amazing event with her and I can barely remember what happened in it. It was really kind of hallucinogenic for me. But it was thrilling, and we went to the Oscar party afterwards, the Vanity Fair party, and I ran into someone I knew, Bud Cort, who’d played Harold in Harold and Maude, and a number of other people that were known to me but didn’t know me. It was such a treat that she gave me. She knew it would be.She had broken up with a boyfriend, and she didn’t want to announce any new boyfriends to the world, and so she asked me. We had such a good time. We laughed so hard, which is always what we do when we have a good time. I was disappointed when she didn’t win. I think she should have won, but I don’t even remember who did win that year. For me, it was just a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So it sort of popped my cherry, as it were, to have that experience. And I could look at the ceremony from that point on and not see it as something too magical, but rather a very, very complicated act of artifice that everybody has to participate in.Of course after that she went from strength to strength. She was in Mystic River. She got her second Oscar nomination for Kinsey. Of course she was in Love Actually in 2003. And it was a hard time, as I recall, because she’d had some romantic difficulties, and she was forced to play a love scene with the handsomest guy on the set — Rodrigo Santoro. Of course during that love scene, which is really hot by the way, she also accomplishes an amazing thing of letting her own emotions come through. She was feeling sadness at that point about her solitary state, and she used it in the scene. She made you feel what was in her heart and soul. She’s always been able to do that. She’s always been able to use everything she knows in her work, and it pays off time and time again.Her third Oscar nomination was for Savages with Philip Seymour Hoffman… she was heartsick when he died. It really did affect her in a big way. Surprisingly, the most comments to her from the public come about Ozark, where she plays Wendy Byrde, a woman who is a very dark character, ultimately. It’s amazing how she can play anything, even a show that’s really dark. If there’s darkness in it, she can find her way to that darkness, and that’s why she keeps getting nominated for awards.She absolutely loved working with Jason Bateman. They collaborated on scenes, and he wanted her knowledge, her expertise in that show, and he invited her back to be in a directorial position for another production. That’s Laura. She’s very useful to people because she listens and she has opinions, but not dogmatic opinions. And she makes herself invaluable to anybody on the set.One of my more fond personal memories of Laura is when we were both Grand Marshals for the San Francisco Pride Parade in 2003. I remember it because Laura made up a little bit of nonsense doggerel that she sang in the car as we were driving along. She sang, “We’re two lonely people in the car, we’re two lonely people wondering where our boyfriends are.” It was the truth, but it was very funny. We would both eventually meet our boyfriends, our husbands, but it took a while, and she led me through that day in the sweetest kind of way.I met Chris less than a year after that pride march. Afterwards, I went to visit her in Connecticut, and she was so sweet and kind. That was an important thing to notice — sometimes friends who meet someone else are rejected by their old friends because they’re no longer around. It was nothing like that with Laura. She was amazing. And she celebrated my finding someone. She celebrated it.As luck would have it, she met Marc Schauer, her husband-to-be, only a few months after that.After she met Marc, Chris and I were on a Southwest road trip, and we realized we weren’t that far from Telluride, and we knew that’s where he was living. Chris said, “Should we just drive in and surprise him?” We really wanted to meet this guy that Laura had fallen for, and let’s be honest, to inspect him, as gay brothers would want to do.Marc was working at the Telluride Hotel at that point, so when we went to the front desk and asked if we could see him, he took a very long time to come out. We wondered if something was wrong. But he finally did come out and he was one sad puppy. He was depressed as hell because Laura had been there a couple of days before and was no longer there, and he was missing her. So we went on a little mini tour with Marc in Telluride and had the best time getting to know him. He was so intelligent and political and everything we like in a man… and so kind. I saw instantly why Laura had fallen for him and vice versa.A few years later, Chris and I got married, and I asked Laura if she would be my best man. She read a poem that we gave her, “The Bliss of With” by James Broughton. It’s such a magical poem. Chris had read it to me not long after we met, and Laura loved it so much that she asked me to come and read it at her wedding.Our wedding — the day, I’ll never forget it. It was a lovely day in Sausalito. We were at the home of Amy Tan. So many people that we loved were there in that bright California sunshine. It was a day I’ll always remember.Speaking of magical days, in 2014 Chris and I were living in Santa Fe. We’d bought a house there in Tesuque. And I was in a dentist chair when a phone call came through for me. It was Laura. She had just given birth, and they had decided to name the child after me. His name is Bennett Armistead Schauer. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I still am thrilled by that.When Bennett was two or three years old, Laura and I were both in LA at the same time, and I invited her to come by Don Bachardy’s house where we were staying. And I wanted her to see the place. I wanted her to see Isherwood’s home base. It was important to me. And when we were there, Bennett spotted a portrait of Christopher Isherwood on the wall and went over and ran his hand down it, touched it, like he was connecting with him. And that was, for me, a really powerful moment because that was my past and my future connecting. I was very touched by it. It was a magical moment for me that I cherish, as I do with so many of my memories of Laura.We still see each other from time to time. It’s not always easy because we live on different continents now, but I think I’m going to be seeing her in about ten days when she comes here. She’s been so important to me in my life, so I’m happy that I’m able to share some of our stories together with you.Thank you for coming along, and I’ll see you next time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit armisteadmaupin.substack.com/subscribe