How often does any film star three major female actors who have a total of 13 Oscar nominations among them as well as a host of other accolades? Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s gritty, uncompromising yet hopeful indie The Miracle Club boasts such a trio of thesps in Laura Linney, Kathy Bates, and Dame Maggie Smith—a veritable acting Mount Rushmore.
It’s taken two decades for this story, about deeply damaged Irish women seeking forgiveness and redemption, to reach the big screen (championed by the unwavering Smith). Now that it has, we are gifted a powerful work with extraordinary performances. Set in 1967 in Ballygar, a tough community in Dublin, we initially meet three generations of bonded friends, Lily (Smith), Eileen (Bates), and Dolly (a wonderful Agnes O’Casey) who gather for the funeral of one of their own and dream of going to Lourdes.
But before they embark on their journey, Chrissie, a former Ballygar native now fully Americanized, arrives after a 40-year absence. She returns to attend her mother’s funeral and, in doing so, opens a slew of old wounds, forcing past trauma to the surface.
Chrissie is embodied by the remarkable Laura Linney, whose subtle yet seething performance grounds the film. Fresh off her Broadway triumph in David Auburn’s Summer 1976, opposite Jessica Hecht, Linney is one of those truly exceptional actors who manages to frequently and seamlessly maneuver mediums, etching extraordinary portraits of complicated women. She is a recipient of five Tony nominations (The Crucible, Sight Unseen, Time Stands Still, The Little Foxes, and My Name is Lucy Barton).
On the small screen she’s received four Emmy Awards (Wild Iris, a guest stint on Frasier, John Adams, and The Big C: Hereafter) and has been nominated for five other Emmys (4 for Ozark and one for amazing work on The Big C). This doesn’t include her groundbreaking work on the (to date) four Tales of the City installments, which should have brought her a few more Emmys.
She received her three Oscar nominations for You Can Count on Me, Kinsey, and The Savages and has done outstanding work in many other movies including Absolute Power, The Truman Show, Mystic River, Love Actually, The Squid and the Whale, The Fifth Estate, Sully, and The Dinner to name a few.
And she now adds The Miracle Club to that illustrious list.
Awards Daily had the pleasure of Zooming with Linney. Below is the conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Awards Daily: I love how gritty and uncompromising The Miracle Club is until it no longer needs to be –if that makes sense.
Laura Linney: Oh, good. I’m glad you felt that.
Awards Daily: Tell me about why you wanted to play Chrissie?
Well, to be in a movie with Maggie Smith and Kathy Bates [Laughs] that’s not a hard decision to make. And I was just lucky that it happened to be a movie that was interesting and charming and aesthetically kind of unusual and had an interesting story with great characters. The fact that it had all of that, plus Kathy Bates and Maggie Smith, made it a pretty easy decision.
Awards Daily: As a former Catholic, the film really resonated– the harsh repression, the guilt, the shame. It’s all still there. I know, you’re not Catholic, but did you have anything from your past that you could bring to that? Or was it just something you conjured?
Laura Linney: I think if you look at it just from a human standpoint and you put it within the context of a Catholic background — it’s the intersection of those two things that make it hopefully {a} story that will affect people. But I think everybody can understand, or maybe some people even have the experience, of being lied to, of not really knowing what your history is, of not understanding why real betrayals of trust happened.
People are trying to figure out who they are and why they are and how they ended up where they are. So, I think there’s certainly the human aspect of it as well, and the fact that it is set within a Catholic context in Ireland, in the 60s, certainly that influences the role of women and family and the church.
Period pieces are always fun to do. Then when you had a period piece like this one, being the American who goes back to Ireland after being Americanized, was fun–to be a woman who had been liberated, and then to come back to see the people who she grew up with in very similar situations, sort of the same as they were when she left, was interesting,
Awards Daily: We never learn much about what Chrissie’s life is like in the United States. Did you do your own backstory work there?
Laura Linney: Oh, absolutely. I did. Oh, yes. I did a lot of that work. I think you have to with a part like this. And you have to trust that something about it will bleed through even if you don’t talk about it.
Awards Daily: Oh, it does! Are you the type of actor that takes the role home with you or can you just turn off?
Laura Linney: I can turn off. I’m always thinking about it. And I do a lot of work on it, so I bring it home as far as that’s concerned, but I’m not possessed. The character is not within me. (laughs)
Awards Daily: Now, back to working with the great Maggie Smith. So often you don’t have an opportunity like that. I’m curious, did she tell stories…?
Laura Linney: She’s hilariously funny. She’s unbelievably bright. She’s incredibly sharp and witty. And she’s led an extraordinary life. She has made a contribution to the theater and to film unlike anyone I can think of. Just being able to be around her and see what she observes and how she interprets things…she has an actor brain of the highest order, like watching her with a script and how she can see straight through it and see what it needs, she’s just amazing. And then she’s incredibly human. She’s this godlike figure who is incredibly human. She struggles and stumbles and get scared like the rest of us. She’s just extraordinary. It’s really been one of the privileges of my life to spend time with her.
Awards Daily: That’s great to hear. And it’s also amazing and rare to have three female actors leading a movie. We don’t get that often enough. Are we turning a corner when it comes to better female representation?
Laura Linney: I doubt it, but one hopes…? I mean, in some ways, it’s certainly better than it was when I first started. That’s for sure. But roles for women are few and far between. And you’re absolutely right, I’ve never done a movie where I’ve had three co-stars who are all female. I’ve never been in that situation.
Awards Daily: So, let’s talk a little bit about Lourdes…
Laura Linney: We weren’t there.
Awards Daily: You weren’t?
Laura Linney: No, we didn’t go there. We filmed everything in Dublin. And it’s the magic of moviemaking. They did a really good job. I wondered how are they gonna pull that off? And they really did.
Awards Daily: I would have never known. Was it a long shoot?
Laura Linney: It was not. I think I was there, all told, five weeks, maybe, four weeks filming. So, it was fast. It was a fast and furious, low budget movie. But the designers, who were all from Ireland were amazing. Our DP was extraordinary. Our costume designer was brilliant. The production designer–everyone was wonderful. I love independent film because you’re all just a little more connected somehow. I don’t know why when you do a big splashy movie, you just don’t get to know anybody, For some weird reason, everybody’s a little separate. With indies it’s very intimate and very hands on. Everyone is able to collaborate and really contribute. And I love that.
Awards Daily: You have one of those amazing–I like to refer to it as a Jane Fonda type career…
Laura Linney: [Sits up, delighted] Oooh!
Awards Daily: Yeah, where you, marvelously Ping Pong Pang from stage to screen to TV–big budget, indie. It’s impressive. Is this something you hope to always do?
Laura Linney: I hope I’m always able just to work. And to work on interesting things with really good people. And I am always curious about different types of entertainment mediums, like low budget, high budget–sitcoms, hour dramas–the forms that that it all takes, I just find it so interesting…I’m inherently curious…I love doing things that I don’t know anything about.
Awards Daily: Did you feel that on The Miracle Club?
Laura Linney: Oh, sure. I was working in a foreign country. Absolutely. Whenever you’re in a foreign country with a different culture, it’s always a different type of moviemaking. And it’s really interesting to see how it functions and what’s really good about it, what isn’t good about it, what could you do in that situation that you couldn’t do anywhere else? I just I find it all endlessly fascinating and challenging and fun.
Awards Daily: I saw you in Summer 1976. You and Jessica Hecht were just marvelous in that, it was in a such a great piece of theatre.
Laura Linney: Thank you for coming to the theater. Thank you…We ended a little over a week ago.
Awards Daily: Was it an enriching experience for you?
Laura Linney: Of course. It was. And I miss Jessica Hecht every day. It feels very strange not to be around her. We became quite close doing that. I loved working with her. It was so easy. And she was so good. It was a demanding thing to do. I’m just so grateful that I was able to with her.
Awards Daily: Just the two of you on stage for 90 minutes. But riveting!
Laura Linney: Yeah, you don’t need smoke and mirrors. The smoke and mirrors are fun, like, a big explosion is fun, but you can do it with just people, too.
Awards Daily: What’s up next?
Laura Linney: Vacation. The summer. The writers are on strike. And there’s not a whole lot going on. I’m going to try to enjoy the downtime and not panic. And go on long walks with my son and my husband.
Awards Daily: I’ll end with a Tales of the City question. Do you think we might ever see Mary Ann again? And what would you hope the context would be?
Laura Linney: (pauses) I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Armistead. I’ll have to ask him if he has plans for more. I’m not sure. I loved her so much. I loved playing her so much. The first Tales really changed my life in so many ways, for the better. All of it. Everything about it.
The Miracle Club opens in theaters July 14, 2023.