Marcia Gay Harden
Birthday:
Birthplace:
La Jolla, California, USA
Often noted for her striking feature debut as a gun-toting seductress in the Coen brothers' noirish gangster crime thriller Miller's Crossing (1990), Marcia Gay Harden has since bounced between disparaging disappointment and critical prosperity, and is commonly praised for her chameleon-like ability to immerse herself in characters that are often the polar opposite of the cheerfully optimistic actress.Born in La Jolla, CA, on August 14, 1959, as the third of five children in a military family, Harden's clan moved constantly. Her passion for drama sparked by a period that the family spent in Greece (when she attended Athenian plays), Harden studied drama in college, earning a B.A. in theater from the University of Texas, and an M.F.A. in theater from New York University. After graduation, Harden continued to hone her acting talents on stage in Washington, D.C. Immediately evincing an innate ability to portray a wide range of characterizations, Harden earned two Helen Hayes Award nominations - one for her role in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart and one for her role in The Miss Firecracker Contest. Angels in America brought Harden to Broadway, where she found further success in earning both Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations, as well as winning the Theater World Award for Best Actress. Though she had made an impressive screen debut in Miller's Crossing, disappointment soon followed with a slew of critically shunned successes mixed with a series of creative misfires. Though discouraged in the critics' failure to recognize what Harden considered to be some of her best work, Harden began to focus less on Hollywood validation for happiness, and instead shifted her attention to refining her acting abilities. Moving from quirky dramatic roles, such as her manipulative character in Crush (1992), to quiet dramas like 1996's The Spitfire Grill, and such mainstream efforts as The First Wives Club (also 1996) and Meet Joe Black (1998), Harden felt comfortable in a wide variety of roles. She also occasionally compromised on her choice of material during this period (perhaps out of necessity) - such as the dumb-dumb comedy Spy Hard, with Leslie Nielsen, and the 1997 Absent Minded Professor rehash Flubber (starring Robin Williams).But her fortunes began to turn with a supporting role in Ed Harris' long-anticipated Jackson Pollock biopic Pollock (2000) that finally brought the actress much-deserved, mainstream critical recognition for her work. Reunited with Harris from their pairing in an earlier stage production of Sam Shepard's Simpatico, Harden's role as Pollock's dysfunctional muse earned her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar at the 2000 Academy Awards. The dawning years of the new millennium were undeniably kind to the tireless actress, and after a trio of made-for-television movies in the year 2000 Harden essayed the role of a stylish but enigmatic catalyst to a mystery with decidedly comic undertones in Susan Seidelman's Gaudi Afternoon, and portrayed the NASA engineer love interest of Tommy Lee Jones's crop duster, Hawk, in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys; Harden and Eastwood forged a strong professional bond and would work together again, several years later.A brief foray into sitcom territory followed soon thereafter, when Harden co-starred with Richard Dreyfuss in shortlived television series The Education of Max Bickford (2001), and the following year, she stuck to the small screen for the mini-series Guilty Hearts and the made-for-television feature King of Texas (the latter earning her a a Golden Sattelite nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Made for Television). An adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear set in the Old West, King of Texas found Harden essaying the role of cattle-baron John Lear's (Patrick Stewart) eldest daughter. Equally busy in 2003, Harden abandoned the small screen to work with some of the most acclaimed filmmakers in Hollywood. Following her second onscreen assignment for Clint Eastwood - in h
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Highest Rated Movies
Filmography
MOVIES
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | BOX OFFICE | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|---|
100% | Pink Skies Ahead |
|
— | 2020 |
38% | Point Blank |
|
— | 2019 |
No Score Yet | Love You to Death |
|
— | 2019 |
11% | Fifty Shades Freed |
|
$95.6M | 2018 |
11% | Fifty Shades Darker |
|
$114.4M | 2017 |
5% | Get a Job |
|
— | 2016 |
No Score Yet | The Wine Of Summer |
|
— | 2015 |
44% | After Words |
|
— | 2015 |
91% | Grandma |
|
— | 2015 |
No Score Yet | Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant |
|
— | 2015 |
25% | Fifty Shades of Grey |
|
$189.9M | 2015 |
32% | Elsa & Fred |
|
— | 2014 |
48% | You're Not You |
|
— | 2014 |
51% | Magic in the Moonlight |
|
— | 2014 |
50% | Parkland |
|
$0.7M | 2013 |
9% | Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You |
|
— | 2012 |
57% | Detachment |
|
$49.4k | 2012 |
13% | If I Were You |
|
$9.7k | 2012 |
No Score Yet | Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy |
|
— | 2011 |
90% | Scott Turow's Innocent |
|
— | 2011 |
No Score Yet | The Maiden Heist |
|
$0.5M | 2009 |
84% | Whip It |
|
$13.1M | 2009 |
94% | Home |
|
$10k | 2009 |
No Score Yet | The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler |
|
— | 2009 |
No Score Yet | Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage |
|
— | 2008 |
No Score Yet | Sex and Lies in Sin City: The Ted Binion Scandal |
|
— | 2008 |
No Score Yet | Sinatra: The True Story Of The Man And The Legend |
|
— | 2008 |
71% | The Mist |
|
$25.5M | 2007 |
34% | Rails & Ties |
|
— | 2007 |
83% | Into the Wild |
|
$18.2M | 2007 |
78% | Canvas |
|
— | 2007 |
60% | Fog City Mavericks |
|
— | 2007 |
20% | The Invisible |
|
$20.6M | 2007 |
86% | The Hoax |
|
$7.1M | 2007 |
76% | The Dead Girl |
|
— | 2006 |
70% | Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner |
|
— | 2006 |
No Score Yet | In From the Night |
|
— | 2006 |
38% | American Dreamz |
|
$7.2M | 2006 |
39% | American Gun |
|
— | 2006 |
No Score Yet | Felicity: An American Girl Adventure |
|
— | 2005 |
48% | Bad News Bears |
|
$32.8M | 2005 |
No Score Yet | Willa Cather: The Road is All |
|
— | 2005 |
54% | P.S. |
|
$0.2M | 2004 |
13% | Welcome to Mooseport |
|
$14.3M | 2004 |
No Score Yet | She's Too Young |
|
— | 2004 |
No Score Yet | See You In My Dreams |
|
— | 2004 |
34% | Mona Lisa Smile |
|
$63.7M | 2003 |
88% | Mystic River |
|
$88.8M | 2003 |
58% | Casa de los Babys |
|
$0.4M | 2003 |
50% | King of Texas |
|
— | 2002 |
No Score Yet | Guilty Hearts |
|
— | 2002 |
29% | Gaudi Afternoon |
|
— | 2001 |
57% | Fever |
|
— | 2001 |
No Score Yet | Walking Shadow |
|
— | 2001 |
81% | Pollock |
|
$7.3M | 2000 |
78% | Space Cowboys |
|
— | 2000 |
No Score Yet | Curtain Call |
|
— | 2000 |
No Score Yet | Small Vices |
|
— | 1999 |
45% | Meet Joe Black |
|
— | 1998 |
24% | Flubber |
|
— | 1997 |
No Score Yet | Path to Paradise: World Trade Center Bombing |
|
— | 1997 |
19% | Desperate Measures |
|
— | 1997 |
73% | The Daytrippers |
|
— | 1997 |
No Score Yet | Far Harbor |
|
— | 1996 |
50% | The First Wives Club |
|
— | 1996 |
36% | The Spitfire Grill |
|
— | 1996 |
8% | Spy Hard |
|
— | 1996 |
No Score Yet | Convict Cowboy |
|
— | 1995 |
54% | Safe Passage |
|
— | 1995 |
No Score Yet | Crush |
|
— | 1993 |
No Score Yet | Sinatra |
|
— | 1992 |
44% | Used People |
|
— | 1992 |
58% | Late for Dinner |
|
— | 1991 |
No Score Yet | In Broad Daylight |
|
— | 1991 |
92% | Miller's Crossing |
|
— | 1990 |
No Score Yet | The Imagemaker |
|
— | 1986 |
TV
RATING | TITLE | CREDIT | YEAR |
---|---|---|---|
55% |
Barkskins
2020
|
|
|
33% |
Reef Break
2019
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Talk
2010
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Code Black
2015-2018
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Today
2017-2019
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
Rachael Ray
2015
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Doctors
2008
|
|
|
94% |
Royal Pains
2009-2016
|
|
|
88% |
How to Get Away With Murder
2014
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Late Late Show With James Corden
2015-2019
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Chew
2011-2018
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The View
1997
|
|
|
76% |
Trophy Wife
2013-2014
|
|
|
59% |
The Newsroom
2012-2014
|
|
|
78% |
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
1999
|
|
|
83% |
Bent
2012
|
|
|
76% |
Body of Proof
2011-2013
|
|
|
91% |
Damages
2007-2012
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
POV
1988
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
American Masters
2001
|
|
|
79% |
The Education of Max Bickford
2001-2002
|
|
|
No Score Yet |
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno
1992-2014
|
|
|
91% |
Homicide: Life on the Street
1993-1999
|
|
|
Quotes from Marcia Gay Harden's Characters
Jane: | The point of this trip is to create some beauty that plays at the end of the hopeless eleventh hour of a pitiful life. |
Jane: | The point of this trip? To create some beauty to play at the end, in the hopeless 11th hour of a pathetic life. |
Jane: | Where's the beauty in a wasted life? |
Chris Marino: | Why can't you act normal? |
Mary Marino: | You're a big boy now, you're a young man now. There's something wrong with me. But I think it's treatable. |
Verna: | I bet you think you've raised hell... |
Tom Reagan: | Sister...when I've raised hell you'll know it. |
Verna: | I don't know Leo's business but he's a big boy. |
Tom Reagan: | He used to be. |
Allison: | Nevermind favorites, you're allowed to have one, the point is you've been mine. |
Mrs. Carmody: | We have Judas in our midst! |
Mrs. Carmody: | I'll tell you what. The day I need a friend like you, I'll just have myself a little squat and shit one out. |
Mrs. Carmody: | If you hit me again, if you dare, you'll be on your knees to me before this is through. |