Marcia Says "Hi"
by Nathaniel R
Putting the Gay Harden in Gay Pride! Just a brief note from a slammed day to share the wonderful news that yours truly met Tony and Oscar winning Marcia Gay Harden at New York City's pride parade yesterday. How perfect is it that the original Harper Pitt in Angels in America was out to see the festivities with her kids... and sporting rainbow colors, too!?!
We didn't speak for long but she seemed delighted when I mentioned her brief comic genius in Grandma (2016) -- it's probably not the title most people bring up first! She was so warm and friendly. One things for sure: This was much a happier outdoor parade moment than her despairing final scene in Mystic River (2003)!
Reader Comments (20)
That parade scene in Mystic River is brilliantly acted by Harden and Linney.
An Emmy shy of the triple crown.
I still believe she should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for "Into The Wild".
So good and scary and real in "The Mist"! Awesome photo! Happy Pride!
Next to the word Surprise in the dictionary there should be a pic of MGH holding her Oscar.
Her Oscar win is nowhere near Tomei in the surprise department. She had the best Oscar clip: you keep needing and needing and needing!
I think they are both level,nothing to do with clips,MGH and MT were both 5th in the category of expected winners
I really liked in Grandma too. I'm so glad her TV-Show is finally canceled so she can move to other things... but tell us ALL about it! What's was your opening line? That is really important if you want to get celebs attention for more than two seconds.
I love her. Too bad her Oscar is the definition of category fraud.
She should've gotten an Emmy for her Law & Order: SVU guest appearance as the undercover FBI agent posing as a white supremacist. Scary (and sadly, prophetic) stuff.
Grandma was great, and she was also terrific as the uptight mom in Drew Barrymore's charming movie Whip It.
Every Marcia Gay scene in Pollock was an Oscar clip.
@Suzanne: I'm SO with you on MGH in Whip It. Should have been nominated for sure. One of my favorite moms in recent movies.
Suzanne & Nick - with you 100% on Harden's performance in "Whip it". I really love that movie and think she is a big reason why it works so well.
She is the kind of actress that should have a recurring role on "The Good Fight", I would love to see her with Christine Baranski.
I don't think she's a lead in Pollock at all.
She was the only one deserving of her Oscar nomination for Mystic River. That movie is trash outside of her performance.
I wasn't a huge fan of Mystic River, but I thought Robbins and Penn were also quite good. Penn especially. I love Laura Linney but I remember thinking that her accent was all over the place in that film and that she was actually the weak link in the cast.
Re: Marisa Tomei--as unpopular as her win was with a lot of people, I remember that at the time there was a sense that she stood a very good chance of winning. It's always felt like a bit of revisionist history when people claim that it was a "shocking" win. Shocking, no. Unpopular in some circles, sure. It's worth remembering that around that time (late 80's/early 90's), winning for a comedic role in a mainstream film wasn't that unusual! You had Jack Palance winning for City Slickers, Whoopi Goldberg winning for Ghost, Kevin Kline winning for A Fish Called Wanda. This sort of thing rarely happens anymore, so it probably seems impossible to believe that it ever could have happened.
@JJM
It absolutely was a shock, hence its enduring legacy when discussing WTF wins.
JJM: Yes, I remember Tomei's win considered a stunning surprise. Interesting to hear otherwise.
Troy H.: I wouldn't be as harsh on Mystic River as that - it's pretty gripping stuff. But the wrong actors were rewarded. MGH and Kevin Bacon are the best ones in it, and Laurence Fishburne is pretty good too.
I'd like to see Whip It.
#isaidwhatisaid
Tomei's win is the mother of all surpises on Oscar night. Don't rewrite histoy.