Laura Linney and Rob Morrow’s mutal admiration society extends to their new movie together.
So you’re an actor making your debut as a feature film director, and you’re looking to cast a leading lady for your first movie, Maze. You set your sights on a very talented and experienced actress with a great reputation, but who isn’t yet a household name. She turns in the terrific performance as you expected, your film sits on the shelf for awhile and–lo and behold–by the time it’s ready to hit the big screen, the aforementioned leady lady is suddenly an Academy Award-nominated actress whose name and face are being shouted across the world during the Oscar frenzy.
True story: the actress is Laura Linney, who gained widespread notice on TV’s ER and went on to vie for Best Actress Oscar earlier this year after turning in a brilliant, nuanced performance in the breakout indie You Can Count On Me. Of course, the rookie director didn’t just benefit from dumb luck–he’s been around the Industry block a bit, but on the other side of the camera. He’s Rob Morrow, who gained TV fame in the early ’90s on the literate, ultra-cool hit series Northern Exposure and went on to work with top directors like Robert Redford in Quiz Show.
On-screen, the pair make for a moving mismatched couple in Maze, a warm and endearing tale of a sensitive artist (Morrow) isolated from intimacy by his affliction with Tourette’s Syndrome. He finds himself developing a relationship with his best friend’s girlfriend (Linney), who winds up alone and pregnant when her commitment-phobic beau (Craig Sheffer) bolts to Africa. Off-screen, Linney and Morrow form an effective mutual admiration society.
Two years ago, Linney–whom Morrow had only met once or twice–was already tripping Hollywood’s radar with sharp and savvy turns in films like Primal Fear and The Truman Show. She was at the top of Morrow’s list–and others’: she shot Maze, The House of Mirth and You Can Count On Me virtually back-to-back. From their very first meeting, Morrow said he felt the kind of understanding and close rapport he knew would be necessary to bring the two lead characters to life.
“I can’t say enough about her,” Morrow enthused. And while he’s always admired her acting, he’s also impressed with how the actress has flowered since she caught Oscar’s fancy. “Now that she’s an Academy Award nominee, she’s like a goddess!”
“We were friendly but didn’t really know each other,” said Linney of her pre-Maze acquaintance with Morrow, who nevertheless knocked her out with the script for his directorial debut. “I said, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I liked the story and I thought it had great heart, but most of all I wanted to work with Rob…It was obvious he was ready to do it.
“I think it’s an interesting look at these people’s lives,” the actress went on. “It’s really all there, the music, the cinematography…and I think the acting’s pretty good, too.”
Morrow spent years tweaking and tinkering with the Maze script, during which time the actor went from being a footloose single guy to a committed husband and father, and he found the central theme of love fascinating.
“Love is the best device to learn who we are, ” he said. One of the things he noticed while studying Twitch and Shout, a documentary film on Tourette’s Syndrome, was that
[PAGEBREAK]
those who had the condition “had a lament that they would never experience love because of this affliction.” In the film, Morrow explores how Lyle’s disease has kept him at arm’s length from almost everyone in his life, even his own parents.
Despite his extensive preparation, one thing Morrow hadn’t counted on was acting in the film as well as lensing it. While trying to lure in the right leading man to capture Lyle Maze’s quirky personality and startling physical tics, “I kept turning down acting work…but finally I said, ‘I’m just gonna make this movie.” Casting himself actually made things a bit easier: he had already played a character with Tourette’s in another film, Second Voices, where he mastered the physicality required. “By the time I got to my movie, it was second nature.”
He was also able to use the challenges of helming his first film, like having to perform some scenes with a monitor in his lap. “My character’s frustration would often be informed by my directing frustration,” he admits.
Linney had to deal with a different kind of physicality in the film, appearing nude in a lengthy scene in which her character Callie poses for Lyle in his art studio–not exactly a love scene, but with subtle sensual overtones. “It’s always difficult, at least for me,” she said. “It’s just not a natural thing to do! I’m very glad that it was Rob [behind the camera],” she said, acknowledging that actors-turned-directors are “always helpful–if they’re good. They’re going to understand acting in a much freer way.”
Today neither actor is facing a shortage of work. Linney’s basking in the professional afterglow of her nomination, currently filming The Life of David Gale with Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet for director Alan Parker, in which she plays the alleged victim of a real-life University of Texas professor falsely accused of rape and murder. Then it’s on to the stage, where she’ll perform in Arthur Miller‘s The Crucible with Liam Neeson. But now that she’s on the acting A-list, she’s not dismissing a future with the occasional blockbuster. “[Big budget films] force you to be creative in a different sort of medium…It’s great when you’re able to go back and forth.”
Meanwhile, Morrow will step behind the camera again for HBO’s gritty prison drama Oz, then back before it for a pilot for Showtime and “a bunch of movies coming out,” all while doing prep work on a film adaptation of a children’s book written (and to be narrated) by John Travolta. And even though he’s comfortable with how his old alter ego Dr. Joel Fleischman has touched the lives of viewers around the world, don’t ask him to appear in a reunion film for Northern Exposure: “God, I hope I wouldn’t do it. Those things never turn out very well, do they?”
