California-native Marcia Gay Harden has been gracing the big screen for decades, but now she’s also making the rounds on television. Check her out in CBS’ new dramedy So Help Me Todd, for instance. Harden began her acting career appearing in television programs throughout the 1980s. She made her Broadway debut in 1993, starring in Tony Kushner’s epic play Angels in America, which earned her a Tony Award nomination. Her other notable film credits include The First Wives Club (1996), Flubber (1997), Space Cowboys (2000), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), and the divisive Fifty Shades trilogy.
Harden’s notable TV credits include HBO’s The Newsroom, CBS’ Code Black, and ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. She received her first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her role as FBI Special Agent Dana Lewis in the crime drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and earned a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her performance as Janina Krzyżanowska in the television film The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009). Here’s a closer look some of Harden’s other top-notch performances from over the years.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
5 The Morning Show (2019-)
Echo Films
The acclaimed Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show was recently renewed for a third season, and no main character is safe. Through the first two seasons, we’ve watched Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston (in an epic small-screen return) as the face of the series, playing Bradley Jackson and Alex Levy, respectively — two women who work at a news show and help represent what it’s really like in today’s modern workplace. After a fallout with their previous morning show co-host, the popular but #MeToo-scandal-ridden Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), a New York City TV station hires a new spunky journalist, Bradley, as the new co-host. The scheming station head manager Cory Ellison (Emmy-winner Billy Crudup) sees in her the chance to push his career further. Alex, disgruntled by the fact that she has to take in a newbie, tries to use this new situation to make her own power move and turn Bradley into an ally. In the handful of scenes she’s in, Harden steals the show as a conniving journalist willing to go to great lengths for a story. It’s a most perfect role to show off Harden’s talents.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
4 Miller’s Crossing (1990)
20th Century Fox
The last film long-time cinematographer Barry Sonnenfield would shoot with the Coens — before becoming a successful director in his own right — is a period piece dripping in existential dread and fine criminal detail. Miller’s Crossing taps into the moral dilemma all great gangster films do, but soak up the characters in the unique Coen brothers syntax that none could repeat and some of their great Tommy-Gun littered set pieces. With incredible supporting performances from rival bosses Albert Finney and Jon Polito, along with Harden’s central role as a scene-stealing femme fatale, Miller’s Crossing is arguably the best Coen Brothers film to date.
3 Home (2008)
Haverstick Films
After undergoing intense cancer treatments, pensive poet Inga (Harden) finds comfort in her wide-eyed daughter, Indigo (Eulala Scheel), and in murky recollections of her own charmed upbringing. Home follows Inga as she discovers a property in rural Pennsylvania that’s very much like the home she knew as a child, and becomes determined to buy it. And when her emotionally distant husband, Hermann (Michael Gaston), refuses to move, it throws their strained marriage even further into turmoil. Harden is dynamite in this leading-lady role. It’s refreshing seeing her play a protagonist after years of supporting roles.
2 Mystic River (2003)
Village Roadshow Pictures
In Mystic River, Sean Penn plays Jimmy Markum, an ex-con whose daughter is murdered, forcing him to look into the roles his childhood friends (who suffered a tragedy in their youth, themselves) may have played in her death. It’s a story of murder, betrayal, and trauma that will have you hooked from beginning to end. The cast is incredible, from Penn to Tim Robbins, both of whom won Academy Awards for their roles in the film. Harden was also nominated for an Oscar as a wife in distress driven to the breaking point with suspicions about the film’s ultimate mystery. Clint Eastwood as the director is a big reason why Mystic River is so successful. In addition to Mystic River’s two Oscar wins for acting, it was also nominated for four other Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
1 Pollock (2000)
Sony Pictures Classics
In August 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: “Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?” The 2000 biopic Pollock is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called “an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew.” As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock (played by Ed Harris, who also directed the film) began a downward spiral aided by alcoholism. His wife in distress is played by an Oscar-winning Harden, who’s there to pick up the pieces throughout the storyline. It’s her finest role to date and not to be missed.
