Laura Linney wasn't planning on making another movie anytime soon.
She recalled that Bill Condon, who directed her in the biographical drama "Kinsey" and the pilot episode of her cancer comedy-drama "The Big C," called her about his next movie.
"He was very sneaky about the way it was offered to me," Linney said in a recent phone interview. "He asked, 'When are you thinking about going back to work?' I said, 'Oh, I'm not.' "
She knew, though, that Condon was working on a movie about Sherlock Holmes — an adaptation of Mitch Cullin's novel "A Slight Trick of the Mind," which supposes the detective as an old man whose famed mental sharpness is fading.
Linney, 51, ultimately opted to work with Condon again, to co-star in "Mr. Holmes," which opens in theaters nationwide today.
She said she was drawn to the film in part because of Sherlock Holmes, who is as multifaceted a character as one can find.
"He's brilliant, he's a loner, he's mysterious. He's a musician. He's probably a drug addict," she said.
Linney also was struck by Holmes' durability since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the character in 1887, in "A Study in Scarlet."
"I don't know how many characters can stand being put into so many formats," she said, comparing Holmes to Shakespeare's characters.
She reeled off a list of famous Sherlock portrayers — from William Gillette, the first stage actor to play Holmes onstage, through Basil Rathbone, Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch and her co-star in this movie, Ian McKellen.
Her favorite (besides McKellen, of course) is Nicol Williamson. He played Holmes in Herbert Ross' 1976 thriller "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," in which Watson (Robert Duvall) brings a cocaine-addicted Holmes to be treated by the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin).
"It's amazing to see an iconic character withstand all of this use," she said.
In "Mr. Holmes," McKellen plays an aged Sherlock who, in 1947, has retired to a seaside residence, maintaining a bee colony and trying to recall the details of his final case — which he plans to write about, in order to correct the fictions of his late companion, Dr. Watson.
Linney plays Mrs. Munro, the housekeeper who looks after Holmes and her inquisitive 10-year-old son, Roger (Milo Parker), who becomes an eager protégé to the detective.
She credits Condon with helping her find the key to playing the no-nonsense Mrs. Munro.
"The thing that Bill, quite rightly, pointed out right away is that she's a war widow," Linney said. "She was in a very happy marriage. She was never a housekeeper before the war. And then her husband was killed [and] their lives were turned upside down."
"I based it on that," she added. "There was a lot to play with there."
Mrs. Munro also contends with Roger's fascination with Holmes. It is difficult for the character, Linney said, "to feel your only surviving family member, your son, and there's a rival for his attention."
There was no such rivalry working with McKellen. Linney said he was "a fond acquaintance" before they worked together, and she's thrilled "that I can now claim him as my friend."
"It's great when you get to work with someone in film who also has a theater background," she said.
The two met through a mutual friend: Armistead Maupin, author of the acclaimed "Tales of the City" novels. The 1993 PBS miniseries of "Tales of the City" (and subsequent sequels on Showtime) gave Linney her first major screen role, playing Mary Ann Singleton, the naive Midwesterner who moves to 1970s San Francisco and befriends a colorful array of characters, gay and straight.
"When 'Tales' came out, it caused such a reverberation in both the gay community and the antigay community," Linney recalled. "We were quite in the crosshairs for a while."
When I interviewed Linney, it was just a few hours after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling recognizing same-sex marriage as a right in all 50 states. She was bubbling with joy at the news. "No one ever thought this day would happen. Ever," she said emphatically.
Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.