Laura Linney called on a snowy Sunday and, first thing, asked how things are in Pittsburgh.
"Cold," I said.
"I remember it well," she replied. Linney spent most of last winter filming "The Mothman Prophecies" in southwestern Pennsylvania, much of it outdoors at night.
In the role of police sergeant Connie Parker, Linney did get to wear a furry Russian Army hat with a big badge in front, making her look a little like Frances McDormand's character in "Fargo." Now that was a big chill.
A lot of people have brought up the comparison, she said. "It's a standard-issue hat. And it was too cold for me not to have a hat."
But even the prospect of watching her breath freeze couldn't dissuade her from taking on "Mothman," the story of a Washington Post reporter (Richard Gere) caught up in a series of unexplained, seemingly paranormal phenomena taking place in and near a small town in West Virginia.
"It was a page-turner. It was a genre that I've never been a part of before," she said. She knew director Mark Pellington, who made the thriller "Arlington Road," would make it "extremely visual and very technical, and a different kind of movie than I've ever done. You have to sort of pitch your performance so that you don't compete with the camera but that you complement it, and so you don't shy away from it, either. It's a whole other sort of skill."
She also looked forward to working again with Gere. They were previously teamed in the 1996 film "Primal Fear."
"He's become a friend of mine over the years. I just adore him. So when the opportunity came to make another movie with him, I said absolutely. I'll do anything you want me to do.
"His kindness comes through. He's a really kind person."
The movie wasn't so kind to another colleague, a young Pittsburgher named Clay Bunting who was hired to play Connie Parker's son in the movie. That aspect of her life ended up on the cutting-room floor.
"I was very, very disappointed about that. He's fantastic, Clay. I loved Clay. I was sad to see that whole story line go.
"But that's what happens with film. Movies sort of take on a life of their own and things go. It's disappointing, but that's a part of it."
Linney made her first movie appearance in another film shot in Pittsburgh, the 1993 drama "Lorenzo's Oil," with Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon. She had a bit role as a school teacher.
A few years later, she returned to this area for a featured role opposite Joanne Woodward in a TV drama called "Blind Spot." Linney portrayed a congresswoman's cocaine-addicted daughter.
Unlike "Mothman," neither of them required her to spend a winter's night on a bridge over the Allegheny River at Kittanning.
"There was a blizzard that night. It would start to snow and we would have to stop. And the wind gusts were so intense."
There were compensations.
"The people of Kittanning were so wonderful to us, and enthusiastic and supportive. They were just terrific."
The crew spent several weeks in that town, and that was after shooting for a month in Pittsburgh. Such is life on location.
"The good part is that you experience a whole other area, and that's just fun. You have adventures and you eat different kinds of food and you meet different kinds of people. The difficult part of it is that you're away from home. Living in a hotel can be a little dreary and you don't feel grounded."
It didn't hurt that she received an Academy Award nomination during the shoot, for her role as a single mother trying to manage her increasingly complicated life in the low-budget drama "You Can Count On Me."
It hasn't changed her life drastically, she said, but it has made people more aware of her work. She thinks it was responsible for her casting in the movie she made after "Mothman," a thriller called "The Life of David Gale."
"It's about the death penalty. It's a murder thriller set in the context of the death penalty. I am an anti-death penalty activist who is murdered." Her story is told in flashback. Kevin Spacey stars in the title role of the film, which will is slated for release later this year.
In the meantime, Linney is rehearsing for the role of Elizabeth Proctor in a Broadway revival of "The Crucible" starring Liam Neeson.
Mothman, murder, witch-burnings. So, Laura Linney, do you believe in the paranormal?
"I'm certainly open to it. I don't give it a whole lot of thought, to be honest with you, but I'm sure there's stuff going on that we don't understand."
