Oscar®-nominated Laura Linney has been called "the thinking man's sex symbol," so you'd think it was a no-brainer for her to play Abigail Adams — wife, advisor and confidant to John Adams, one of the great minds behind the founding of America. But anyone who's sat through a grade-school pageant about the writing of the Declaration of Independence can sympathize with the plight Linney faced in taking on the portrayal of an American Icon in a TV miniseries.

"These are not easy to pull off, these things," Linney admits. "They can come across as being very thin, or academic, or tongue-in-cheek — or people will make the easy choice." But the more she learned about the production, the more her concerns were assuaged: "I've never seen a company like this. I've never seen costumes like this, I've never seen prosthetics, and locations, and production design — it's the largest thing I've ever done."

Having decided "let's give it the old try," Linney spent six months filming in Virginia and Budapest, immersing herself in the life of this steely, no nonsense, get-it-done figure. And it was no easy task. "We are spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. We would not survive. I wouldn't survive," she says of the physical challenges of daily life then. The Adams' had no slaves, remarkable for that time, and managed most of the household and farm chores themselves. "I admire her fortitude. And I admire her strength. And that Yankee-fresh kind of 'get to it' attitude," says Linney.

As David McCullough's book reveals, along with Abigail's letters, the couple's 54-year marriage also represented a great romance that many modern couples would envy — another daunting aspect of the role. "I just wanted to make sure that their relationship wasn't two notes," explains Linney. "You know, love and more love. I wanted to make sure that you would get a look at a marriage that went through many different phases....I didn't want it to be stereotyped."

So the biggest challenge of playing Abigail Adams? "The corset," laughs Linney. "Wearing a corset for fourteen hours a day. There's a reason they don't exist anymore. They're not fun. But that's a really complain-y challenge — I had such a wonderful time on this!"

Without being didactic, Linney does hope there's one takeaway from 'John Adams': "It's important to see as a country, who we are, and what we are, and why we are. What do we want to be? To see the political process that was set into motion, and see where we are now — I hope it inspires people to keep their standards high. And not be lazy."