16 The Times Magazine
framed as if she were raised in a family pile,
all pheasant shooting and aristocratic semi-
incest. In truth, her father, William, is a
property developer who bought Melville
Castle, outside Edinburgh, when she was 13.
“He remembered it from his youth as this
wonderful place,” says Linton. “But when he
bought it, it was in ruins. It was very much
a labour of love for him to restore it to its
original glory, and it took him ten years to do
so.” The castle became a hotel and wedding
venue in 2003, but is still owned by the family.
Linton’s mother, Rachel, died of breast
cancer when she was just 14, leaving Louise,
her older brother and sister, and their father. “It
was obviously very hard, but back then, in the
mid-Nineties, we were very reticent to express
too much emotion,” she says. “Stiff upper lip
stoicism, I think that’s how we coped with it
at the time. Since moving to the States, I’ve
become much more able to express myself, and
to convey my emotions more to my family.”
She attended Fettes, Tony Blair’s alma
mater, and, “At about eight years old, I told
my father, ‘Daddy, I’m going to move to
California and go to Pepperdine University,
and I’m going to be an actress.’ ”
Every summer when she was a child, she
explains, her father would throw a barbecue
for the students from Pepperdine who would
rent some of his apartments while performing
at the Edinburgh Festival. “I really looked up
to them and was inspired by them, and
desperately wanted to be part of their world.”
Before she did indeed head to Pepperdine,
however, Linton spent her gap year as a
volunteer at a lodge in Zambia, a subject
I approach tentatively.
In 2016, Linton self-published a book,
co-written with the author Wendy Holden,
about her year in Zambia – In Congo’s Shadow:
One Girl’s Perilous Journey to the Heart of Africa.
“Life was idyllic at first but I soon learnt that
Africa is rife with hidden danger,” she wrote. “I
witnessed random acts of violence, contracted
malaria and had close encounters with lions,
elephants, crocodiles and snakes.” She also
described hiding from armed rebels as a nearby
village was under attack: “As the night ticked
interminably by, I tried not to think what the
rebels would do to the ‘skinny white muzungu
with long angel hair’ if they found me.
“If I were discovered in my bolt hole,
I would be raped,” it continued. “I would be
cut down. Smirking men with deadened eyes
would brutalise me before casting me aside
like a rag doll.”
The criticism of her literary efforts was
unforgiving, accusing Linton of untruths in
claiming that the Hutu-Tutsi conflict had
spread from the Congo to Zambia. The
Washington Post commented that she “may
have written the defining work of the White
Savior in Africa genre for the digital age”. The
book was withdrawn immediately from sale.
“It was very difficult to experience that
kind of criticism when I had written the book
from my heart, and when I loved Zambia, and
the people that I met there,” she says, looking
a tiny bit tearful. “I didn’t mean any offence
with my book, and I certainly did not intend
in any way to dishonour them. It hurt, because
I intended the book to be a story about a
young woman trying to do something positive
with her gap year.
“I think I’m nice,” she shrugs. “I work really
hard to be loving and encouraging to everyone
in my life, and I care passionately about all
the causes I support. I wouldn’t have gone to
Africa if I didn’t want to do some good there.”Linton was married to Ronald Richards, a
criminal defence attorney, for three years
before they divorced in 2009, and met
Mnuchin, 18 years her senior – who was
separated from his second wife, the mother
of his three children – at a wedding in 2013.
They hit it off immediately, she says. For their
engagement in 2015, he bought her lifetime
sponsorship of an endangered rhino.
I’m not being uncharitable when I say that
they’re not the most likely couple – the staid,
conservative millionaire financier and the
sexy, feisty, much younger actress. By her own
admission they are “fire and ice”. What, I ask,
do they connect on?
“He’s so ferociously intelligent,” she gushes.
“He fascinates me. His grasp of business and
his understanding of the world economy, I
find it all so interesting. We never have a dull
moment of conversation.” One of the things
Linton appears to have learnt from four years
at the pointy end of politics is to replace self-
righteous rants with Miss World-style eulogies:
“I’m very grateful and proud,” “We were so
blessed,” and, “Those Middle East peace
accords are so important.”
I’ve been ordered not to ask about actual
politics. “I think it’s obvious that I’m very
liberal, but I don’t get involved in any of it,”
she says, breezily.
As a liberal, though, it must have felt pretty
jarring to have her 2017 wedding officiated
by Mike Pence, the former vice-president, an
anti-abortion, pro-gun evangelical Christian
who has actively opposed LGBTQ rights.
When she moved with Mnuchin from LA to
Washington DC in late 2016, “I felt incredibly
lonely and isolated. I was a real fish out of
water,” she says. “I didn’t have any friends and
Steven would leave the house at seven in the
morning and come back at seven at night.”
And there were strange new scenarios to get
used to, such as having to take his five-personsecurity team with them to SoulCycle, where
they would commandeer bikes and form a
sweaty circle surrounding their charge. “But the
biggest challenge was just feeling so lonely,” she
says. “In LA, I have my work and my friends,
but moving to DC, I put making movies on
the backburner for a while because it was
so challenging, relocating our entire lives.’’
Eventually, she did forge some friendships,
particularly with former CIA director (and
later Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo and his
wife, Susan. She also became friendly with
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Frequently
characterised as a real-life version of House of
Cards’ Frank and Claire Underwood, with the
entitlement of Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf
from Gossip Girl thrown in, what are those two
like behind closed doors, I ask. “Intelligent,
charming... [she pauses for dramatic emphasis]
kind. I really only see the good in people,” she
claims. What about Melania? I mention that
I saw they’d been seated together at a “cabinet
spouses’ luncheon” last September, with Linton
posting a picture to Instagram, rhapsodising
about the former first lady: “There is no one
more elegant, beautiful, regal and kind than our
stunning first lady, Melania,” she wrote. “Her
poise, grace and strength touch and inspire me.”
“I didn’t get to know her very well,” she
says today. “But the times that I did see her,
I found her so kind. Just kind. Really kind.
Always warm.”
I ask whether, now that Mnuchin is no
longer in the West Wing and their base is
Bel Air once more, she’ll stay in touch with
her Washington DC crew, with the Pompeos
and Jared and Ivanka. A slight hesitation. “I
like the Pompeos a lot and I would definitely
hope to be able to stay in touch with them.”
What Mnuchin will do next, she isn’t at
liberty to tell me, but his plans do not involve
politics. “No, I think we’re done,” says Linton.
Her own plans, however, are public. Now
that Me, You, Madness has been released,
she’ll be looking for a distributor for another
romcom that she stars in, Serial Daters
Anonymous, and she’s working on a treatment
for a television series based on the book
Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by
Bill Mason and Lee Gruenfeld.
She’s also working on a third film, which
she’s written and will direct but not star in: Slay,
“a modern-day Kill Bill, about an actress who
goes out for revenge on all the reporters that
have lied about her. She may also go after a
few of her trolls.” It will, she says, be a comedy.
I don’t really need to ask where the
inspiration came from. “It’s very cathartic,”
she laughs. “You have to be able to respond
with humour. Or just not respond at all.” nmeyoumadness.com‘STEVEN IS FEROCIOUSLY INTELLIGENT. WE NEVER HAVE A DULL MOMENT’