Award-winning actress Laura Linney to speak at ASU in October

Award-winning theater, film and television actress Laura Linney believes it’s important to infuse all aspects of our lives with creativity.

She will talk about how creativity and the arts enrich peoples’ existence and the importance of liberal arts in building skills like socialization, interpretation, character building and originality in the 2023 Flinn Foundation Centennial Lecture presented by Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University. She also will touch upon the interconnectivity of professionalism and creativity, and how one cannot thrive without the other.

The lecture is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 17, in the Carson Ballroom at the Old Main building on the ASU Tempe campus. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are available here.

Linney, whose parents were a prominent New York City playwright and a nurse, began her education in performance art at an early age.

She graduated from The Juilliard School and appeared in leading roles across film, television and theater. She has performed in the films "Genius" and "Nocturnal Animals," "Mr. Holmes," "Kinsey," "You Can Count on Me," "Mystic River," "Love Actually" and "The Truman Show."

From 2017 to 2022, Linney starred as Wendy Byrde in the Netlfix original series "Ozark," a performance which garnered her multiple Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations.

Other notable television credits include the Showtime series "The Big C," the HBO mini-series "John Adams," "Tales of the City" and "Frasier." Prominent Broadway productions include "The Crucible," "Time Stands Still," "Sight Unseen" and "Six Degrees of Separation."

“I believe that no matter what you do in life, if you learn the basics through theater, it will help you in everything else — problem-solving, communication, discipline, all of that stuff,” Linney has said about the craft of acting.

Linney has been nominated three times for an Academy Award, five times for a Tony Award, once for a BAFTA Award and eight times for a Golden Globe. She has won one SAG Award, one National Board of Review Award, two Golden Globes and four Emmy Awards. She holds two honorary doctorates from her alma maters, Brown University and The Juilliard School.

In addition to her many acting and performing awards, Linney, who has lost family members to cancer, was honored with the Tower Cancer Research Foundation’s Humanity Award for her work in advocating for people with cancer.

She starred in the Showtime drama "The Big C," about a suburban mom who is diagnosed with melanoma, and was featured in the “Wear Your Beauty Brilliantly" ad campaign, a joint project of Stand Up To Cancer and the Melanoma Research Alliance.