By Jenny Halper in New York

There are many remarkable things about stage/screen actress Laura Linney. Let me start with this: both times I’ve interviewed her, she’s made a point to individually introduce herself to every single person in the room. I’ve spent almost two months as a “junketeer,” and that is very rare.

Another thing: this fall, Linney appears in two major films, “Kinsey” and “P.S.”, which she filmed back to back with a barely two-day rest. Then she hopped right to the Manhattan Theater Club to star in a revival of Donald Margulies’ “Sight Unseen.” Since that run ended in July, Linney has wrapped another film (“The Squid and the Whale”), and is hard at work on “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” with Campbell Scott.

But when Linney, cheerfully dressed in a Christmassy red sweater, sits down to discuss her starring role in “Kinsey,” she’s absolutely full of energy. Playing Clara Kinsey, the wife of controversial sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, was an endeavor that called for physical adjustments (including major weight gain) and a good deal of research. But it gave Linney the opportunity to reunite with Liam Neeson, whom she co-starred with in Broadway’s “The Crucible” in 2002.

Here’s what Linney had to say:

Q: How much did you know about the Kinseys?

Laura: I certainly had heard of Kinsey and the Kinsey report, but I had no clue about the impact that the research had had, nor did I know anything about them personally. It was fun to find all that out.

Q: When we talked to you for “P.S.”, you said this was the first time you worked on something from the outside, in. Was there an aspect of your physical transformation that affected you the most?

Laura: Well, it's a combination of all of it. You know, the weight gain, for one, of course. The prosthetics. But the size, I guess, more than anything.

Q: Bill said that you were the first person cast. Did you help to bring Liam to the project, since you had worked with him so much?

Laura: No. Liam and I were doing "The Crucible" on Broadway at the time when I had found out about "Kinsey," and so I was sort of hoping that he would-I mean I knew the fact that I was doing "The Crucible" with Liam, that he would think about Liam - so I sort of hoped that it would go in that direction. And it did.

Q: What's it like to work with Liam?

Laura: Heaven. (laughs) It is heaven to work with Liam, on stage and to do a movie with him. It was such a great experience. Not too many people get to do that, to do a play with someone where you're playing husband and wife for such a long period of time and in a very intense play, and then be able to go into a film with them. It's like, your ten steps ahead. Liam and I just work really well together-we don't discuss a whole lot of stuff, you know, we don't seem to have to talk a lot to each other, we just sort of fall into it.

Q: Did you have a similar approach?

Laura: Yeah, I think so. I mean I don't really know what his approach is. We just sort of do it. We're also great friends socially, we spend a lot of time together. I love his wife and his children and we all have a lot of down time together.

Q: Is there a lot of research involved in creating a character like Clara? Because she strikes me as sort of a Norah Joyce type, she's very important to James Joyce's development but she'd probably been cast in the certain shadows of a greater figure. Was there a lot of stuff out there for you to grab onto the character, or did you just rely on the script?

Laura: There was not a whole lot there. There was the information in the biographies, there were some photographs I was able to look at, some footage of her moving which was helpful. But the most important thing, the thing that really helped the most, there was an audio tape of her being interviewed by Clyde Martin. And so to hear her voice, the rhythm, the cadence, her speech, how she organized her thoughts, her wit, her humor, her laugh, etc. That was profoundly helpful. Then it all sort of came together. Just the stuff from the script and the information that Bill had, and you know, the few things that people would say.

Q: How do you think she complimented Kinsey?

Laura: Well, it was a profoundly successful marriage, on many, many, many fronts. I mean, they were true partners, they were very good parents to their children, they were both intellectual equals. You know, she was a brilliant scientist in her own right, and at the same time had a very conventional home life, despite how radical his work was. You know, she didn't have a credit card-she was a traditional wife. She gave up her studies, and she raised their children, and she had food on the table, and she took care of the house at home, and I don't think she was allowed to have a credit card and I don't think she drove.

Q: Conventional except for sexually.

Laura: At the time, yeah. The thing that I sort of have great respect for is that their three children knew nothing about what was going on in their personal sex lives. Nothing. They valued their home and they valued their children and they valued their family. I thought that was really, really impressive, because I see parents breaking boundaries all over the place now. You know, parents tell their children absolutely everything in an effort to make them feel better about themselves. I sort of feel it's remarkable that they protected them from all of that.

Q: Would you have liked to have seen more of the relationship between the Kinseys and their children in the film? Because at a certain point, they just kind of disappear from the film, and that was obviously an aspect of their lives that you were very taken with.

Laura: I love the movie as it is, I mean, I could watch a fifteen hour movie on the Kinseys. You can't get everything in. But it is fascinating. They're very, very interesting.

Q: The (production) notes said that some of the actors were picked on their characteristics that veered the people in the film. What were some of your characteristics that resemble his wife?

Laura: I think you'd have to ask Bill that, I think that's a Bill question. I really don't know.

Q: Did he ever talk to you about it or tell you why he picked you?

Laura: (Laughs) Why did you choose me, Bill? Tell me what's so special about me!

Q: Your character is always the voice of reason. She sees how he's becoming his father, etc. What did you know about her nature, as far as how she handled him?

Laura: I didn't know a whole lot. Clearly she was the one that was socially more at ease. She was not under the sort of obsessive stress that he was.

Q: Why do you think she put up with him?

Laura: She loved him. She loved him. It's pretty simple. She loved him.

Q: There's the scene where she had sex with Clyde. At this moment, do you think her point of view is changing and she's sort of taking on the Kinsey point of view that sex is not about love? Or do you think she's doing it to get even?

Laura: You know, I don't think she was doing it to get even. I think she was probably curious, and she was given the opportunity, knowing that it wouldn't damage her marriage, it was out in the open. I think she was probably curious.

Q: How do you respond to the accusations by right wing and fundamentalist groups after the last biography came out, saying that the Kinseys were depraved and there should be no validity in their findings?

Laura: I just think it's a very narrow view. You know, it's people who have an agenda. There's an agenda there. Kinsey has been a controversial figure since the day he published his books, and before that, and will continue to be. Our country has a very schizophrenic relationship to sexual behavior and sexuality-it always has. We have a puritanical past, and part of that is engrained in our national character, like it or not. People seem to think (sex) is something they can control in other people, it's just the way it is.

Q: Why is this scientist, who operated in the 1940s and 1950s, important now?

Laura: Well, I think people are looking as the pendulum sort of swings back and forth, and as it's swinging, people are starting to look back and try to figure out why, and what happened, I think. His research had such an impact and it changed our culture forever. It changed the culture so much that people forgot about the research that put it all in motion. The actual movement became so huge, it changed everybody's perspective in life, that the spark that caused it people forgot about, and they forgot about him as well. So, I think people are fascinated by men who are able to create change. I mean, that's just a remarkable thing, that one man in the basement of Indiana who used to study gall wasps, could have such an effect on American culture and change it forever. It's amazing! It's just amazing.

Q: In this movie and also P.S., you have an awkward sex scene. How do you prepare for these scenes, and which are the hardest and easiest of them to do?

Laura: First of all, you have to really be comfortable with, and understand why these scenes are there, and what they're doing, and what their purposes are. If you feel comfortable with that, that's half the battle. Then, you have to be as kind to yourself and the other person as possible, bring your sense of humor right there like a security blanket. And then you just have to tell the story that you want to tell. They're awkward, they're awkward, they're horribly awkward, all the time. You just have to remember really what it is you are doing, you have to be very clear with yourself about what it is that you are doing, and why you're doing it.

Q: Would you consider that you're actually in the golden period of your career?

Laura: (laughs) It's certainly a good time. The past few years have been really great.

Q: You've come a long way since "Congo."

Laura: Thank you so much for bringing that up! It's amazing. And actually I have great fond feelings for “Congo,” so I feel like I have to defend it every time it comes up. It's been wonderful. The last few years, with "The Crucible" and "Sight Unseen" and "P.S." and "Kinsey" and "Mystic River," you know, it's been just great.

Q: Why do you think you get all these roles?

Laura: Maybe it's because I will do a lot of things, where I work for very little money. I mean a lot of people say there's no parts, there's no parts, there's no parts-but there are parts, you just don't get paid. You just don't get paid for them.

Q: How does it feel when a really worthy movie like "House Of Mirth," is virtually unseen?

Laura: You know, the thing about movies is that you make them and you hope they are good and you hope people will see them, but it's not the reason you make them. You make them for the experience and you make them for the people and you get to learn, and it's the experience of making them. And of course you hope people see them but if they don't, they don't.

Q: How was the experience working on Sight Unseen? Did you see the play through new eyes?

Laura: Of course. I was a totally different human being. It was fabulous. It was a fantastic experience. I loved every single second of it. It was very hard work, very demanding, extremely fulfilling, and I'm happiest-you know, I have such a good time making movies but I think, there is something about being on stage and the rhythm of that life, and it's been a longer part of my history in the theater, and I just love it.

Q: Did they go after you or did you go after them?

Laura: They called me. They called me and said we're doing the first major revival, and would you play the other part?

Q: About working with Liam again-Back in the 1950s, actors and actresses were paired together very commonly. Lately it seems like they don't want to be in too many movies or things together to get set. But obviously you've played husband and wife with Liam for a while now. Would you try and do another movie together or do you feel that people have already seen you as that?

Laura: I'd do it in a second. I don't care, I'll do it in a second. If I had the opportunity, in 2 seconds, I would do it.

Q: How much time was it in between doing this and P.S.?

Laura: 2 days. I had 2 days off.

Q: Can you talk about some of the personal sacrifices you had to make in your personal life?

Laura: What personal life? (Laughs). No. No. The only thing that was really difficult is that I had gained all that weight for Kinsey. And of course, all the Kinsey people were asking me to gain more weight and all the P.S. people were getting nervous that I wasn't going to be thin enough to do their movie, and I had to strike a deal with both of them and say, look, I can't get gain any more weight for you guys, and guess what, I'm not going to be able to lose it all for you. So I lost half of it...not in 2 days.

Q: When you do something like that, do you have a nutritionist working for you?

Laura: I went on a food delivery service plan called Five Squares, which I was able to go on like 3 weeks before we wrapped Kinsey. The fat suits were then going on, so it was better. I gained so much weight.

Q: That's so funny, because you still looked thin-

Laura: Please don't say that! I gained 23 lbs. It was a lot. That was the thing that was strange about it, is that I gained all this weight, and they kept saying, gain more! Gain more! I was like folks, I cannot gain any more weight for you! I wasn't filling out in the areas that they wanted me to fill out in--my arms weren't getting bigger, and they wanted meat here (points to chest/stomach region) and my meal went right to my ass. It just didn't go to the places they wanted it to go.

What was the first movie you remember seeing and what kind of impression did it leave on you?

Laura: Snow White & The Seven Dwarves and it scared me to death.

Q: Why? Because you identified with Snow White?

Laura: No. That witch was just scary.

"Kinsey" is now playing in limited release.