Marcia Gay Harden will forever be introduced as “Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden.” She took home the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in the 2000 film “Pollock” ― and she still pinches herself today thinking about winning for her role in the movie about painter Jackson Pollock.
“I wasn’t nominated for a Golden Globe. I wasn’t nominated for a SAG,” she told HuffPost at Build Series in New York as she discussed the film, which co-starred Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly. “I was nominated for an Academy and I won. And so, I look back and I’m like, ‘Wow, that happened to you. You were so lucky. You were so blessed. That happened to you.’”
Harden admits that she doesn’t think that would happen in 2019, given how the Hollywood landscape has changed.
“Today, I don’t know that would happen to me,” she said. “It seems to me, it’s like a different world. It seems astonishing that it did. And wonderful that it did.”
Following her win for “Pollock,” Harden received another Oscar nomination for her role as Celeste Samarco Boyle in 2003′s “Mystic River.”
Although she didn’t win that year (the award went to Renee Zellweger for “Cold Mountain”), she still has a special place in her heart for the Clint Eastwood-directed movie.
“It’s a beautiful film. In the film, every good and moral decision gets someone hurt … I think that was something that Clint Eastwood was investigating in the movie,” she said. “What is the moral right? And who do you go to?”
Harden, 59, doesn’t have a shortage of projects on her plate these days. She can be seen in the new Lifetime movie “Love You to Death,” and will soon appear in a remake of “Point Blank” on Netflix, alongside Anthony Mackie.
“I’m a single, working mom with three kids to support. And what I do is work. I’m not super picky. I used to be more picky,” she said. “What I do want is something that can be illuminating about the character.”
There is one type of role, though, that Harden would still like to take on.
“I love period films. I love “Game of Thrones-y” things. I think it’s fantastic to be in all the garb of the time,” she said. “That’s something I would love to do.”
As for where she keeps her Academy Award?
“It’s actually on a bookshelf at home with all the kids’ trophies from basketball and soccer. It’s right there with all the family trophies!”