Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an American actress. Her breakthrough came in 1990 with the Coen brothers' film Miller's Crossing. She received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Pollock (2000) and Mystic River (2003), winning for her portrayal of artist Lee Krasner in the former. Her other notable film credits include The First Wives Club (1996), Flubber (1997), Space Cowboys (2000), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), and the Fifty Shades film series (2015–2018).
Harden made her Broadway debut in 1993, starring in Tony Kushner's epic play Angels in America for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She returned to Broadway in 2009 in Yasmina Reza's comedic play God of Carnage, with her performance earning her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Harden's television credits include guest roles in the HBO series The Newsroom (2013–2014) and the ABC series How to Get Away with Murder (2015–2020), as well as main roles in the CBS series Code Black (2015–2018) and So Help Me Todd (2022–2024). She received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her guest roles in the crime drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2005) and the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, and supporting role in the television film The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009).
Early life Harden was born in the La Jolla area of San Diego, California, the daughter of Texas natives Beverly Harden (née Bushfield), a housewife, and Thad Harold Harden (1932–2002), who was a Captain and fighter pilot who served 30 years in the United States Navy. She has three sisters and one brother.
Harden's brother is named Thaddeus, as are her father and her former husband. Harden's family frequently moved because of her father's job, living in Japan, Germany, Greece, California, and Maryland.
Harden graduated from Surrattsville High School in Clinton, Maryland in 1976. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in theater from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980, and a Master of Fine Arts from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1988.
Career Harden's first film role was in a 1979 student-produced film at the University of Texas. Throughout the 1980s, she appeared in several television programs, including Simon & Simon, Kojak, and CBS Summer Playhouse. She appeared in The Imagemaker (1986), her first film screen role, in which she played a stage manager. She appeared in the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990), a 1930s mobster drama in which she first gained wide exposure. Even so, at the time, living in New York City, she had to go back to doing catering jobs "because I didn't have any money".
Harden debuted on Broadway in the role of Harper Pitt (and others) in Tony Kushner's Angels in America in 1993. The role earned her critical acclaim and she received a Tony Award nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Play).
Harden played actress Ava Gardner alongside Philip Casnoff as Frank Sinatra in the 1992 made-for-TV miniseries Sinatra. Throughout the 1990s, she continued to appear in films and television. Her notable film roles include the Disney sci-fi comedy Flubber (1997), a popular hit in which she co-starred with Robin Williams; the supernatural drama Meet Joe Black (1998), playing the under-appreciated daughter of a tycoon (Anthony Hopkins, co-starring Brad Pitt); Labor of Love (1998), a Lifetime television film in which she starred with David Marshall Grant; and Space Cowboys (2000), an all-star adventure-drama about aging astronauts.
In 2000, Harden won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of painter Lee Krasner in the biographical film Pollock. In 2004, she received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the mystery crime drama Mystic River.
Harden guest-starred as FBI undercover agent Dana Lewis posing as a white supremacist in "Raw", an episode of the popular crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. This role earned Harden her first Emmy Award nomination for best guest actress in a drama series in 2007. She reprised the role in the series' eighth-season premiere and again in the 12th-season episode "Penetration" as a rape victim.
Harden appeared in several 2007 films, including Sean Penn's Into the Wild and Frank Darabont's The Mist (opposite Thomas Jane and Laurie Holden), based on the novella by Stephen King. Also in 2007, she shared top billing with Kevin Bacon in Rails & Ties, the directorial debut of Alison Eastwood. Harden played a woman who has a mastectomy in Home (2008). (Her character in Rails & Ties also had a mastectomy.) Scenes in both films required her to bare her breasts, with the missing breast removed using computer-generated imagery. In Home, her co-stars include her daughter, Eulala Scheel. Harden starred in the Christmas Cottage, a story of the early artistic beginnings of the painter Thomas Kinkade.
Harden appeared as a regular on the FX series Damages as a shrewd corporate attorney opposite Glenn Close and William Hurt in 2009. She received a 2009 Emmy nomination for her role in The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a TV film also starring Oscar-winner Anna Paquin. She was a Best Supporting Actress in a TV Movie/Miniseries nominee and lost to Shohreh Aghdashloo. If she had won this Emmy, Harden would have entered the elite group of "triple-crown" actors, those who have won the profession's three highest honors: the Academy Award (film), the Tony Award (stage), and the Emmy Award (television).
Harden co-starred with Elliot Page and Drew Barrymore in 2009's Whip It, which proved a critical success. She also appeared in the comedy The Maiden Heist (2009) with Christopher Walken and Morgan Freeman.
Harden returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, co-starring with James Gandolfini, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels, in 2009. All three actors were nominated for a Tony Award; Harden won Best Actress in a Play.
Harden reunited with her former Broadway co-star Jeff Daniels as a new cast member on HBO's series The Newsroom in 2013. She played Christian Grey's mother, Grace Trevelyan Grey, in the Fifty Shades film series from 2015 to 2018. Also in 2015, she began a starring role in the TV series Code Black. She stars in the 2022 CBS drama So Help Me Todd, since renewed for a second season.
Personal life In 1996, Harden married Thaddaeus Scheel, a prop master, with whom she worked on The Spitfire Grill. They have three children."Marcia Gay Harden says her kids, who 'are all queer', inspire her LGBTQ advocacy", nbcnews.com. Accessed July 1, 2023. "Marcia Gay Harden opens up about her 3 children identifying as queer", etonline.com. Accessed July 1, 2023. In February 2012, Harden filed for divorce from Scheel.
Harden once owned property in the Catskills and a townhouse in Harlem. She sold the townhouse in 2012.
Harden is an avid potter, which she learned in high school, then took up again while acting in Angels in America. She is a practitioner of ikebana, the art of Japanese flower arrangement, which her mother learned when they lived in Japan. Harden gave a brief demonstration in 2007 on The Martha Stewart Show, and presented some works of her family.
In May 2018, a memoir called The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers was published. The book details the story and bond of mother and daughter throughout time and how they are dealing with the largest struggle yet, her mother's Alzheimer's disease. Harden created works of ikebana specifically for this book to illustrate the different seasons of her mother's life.
Acting credits Film Year Title Role Notes 1990 Miller's Crossing Verna Bernbaum1991 Late for Dinner Joy Husband In Broad Daylight Adina Rowan1992 Crush Lane Used People Norma Schulman 1994 Safe Passage Cynthia1996 The Spitfire Grill Shelby Goddard The Daytrippers Libby The First Wives Club Dr. Leslie Rosen Spy Hard Miss Cheevus Far Harbor Arabella 1997 Flubber Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds1998 Desperate Measures Dr. Samantha Hawkins Meet Joe Black Allison Parrish Curtain Call Michelle Tippet2000 Space Cowboys Sara Holland Pollock Lee Krasner 2001 Gaudi Afternoon Frankie Stevens2003 Mystic River Celeste Boyle Casa de los Babys Nan Mona Lisa Smile Nancy Abbey2004 Welcome to Mooseport Grace Sutherland P.S. Missy Goldberg2005 Bad News Bears Liz Whitewood Willa Cather: The Road Is All Willa Cather Voice role American Gun Janet Huttenson2006 American Dreamz First Lady Staton The Dead Girl Melora Kutcher The Hoax Edith Irving Canvas Mary Marino2007 The Invisible Diane Powell Into the Wild Billie McCandless Rails & Ties Megan Stark The Mist Mrs. Carmody2008 Home Inga Thomas Kinkade's Home for Christmas Maryanne Kinkade2009 The Maiden Heist Rose Whip It Brooke Cavendar 2010 A Cat in Paris Jeanne Voice role2011 Detachment Principal Carol Dearden Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You Marjorie Dunfour2012 Noah's Ark: The New Beginning Aamah Voice role If I Were You Madelyn2013 The Wine of Summer Shelley Parkland Head Nurse Doris Nelson2014 Magic in the Moonlight Mrs. Baker You're Not You Elizabeth Elsa & Fred Lydia Barcroft Unity Narrator Documentary2015 Grandma Judy Fifty Shades of Grey Grace Trevelyan Grey Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant President of the FAFAFA After Words Jane Taylor 2016 Get a Job Katherine Dunn 2017 Fifty Shades DarkerGrace Trevelyan Grey 2018 Fifty Shades Freed 2019 Point Blank Regina Lewis 2020 Pink Skies Ahead Pamela 2021 Moxie Principal Marlene Shelly 2022 Gigi & Nate Claire Gibson Confess, Fletch Countess Sylvia de Grassi Tell It Like a Woman Dr. Partovi2023 Daughter of the Bride Diane York Knox Goes Away Ruby Knox 2025 Renner Salenus (voice) 2026 The Dreadful Morwen Street SmartDr. Partovi Post-production
Television Year Title Role Notes1987CBS Summer PlayhouseKimEpisode: "In the Lion's Den"1988Simon & SimonJoanEpisode: "Ties That Bind"1989Gideon OliverLilaEpisode: "Sleep Well, Professor Oliver"1991In Broad DaylightAdina RowanTV movieFeverLacy1992SinatraAva Gardner1995Fallen AngelsMarieEpisode: "Good Housekeeping"Chicago HopeBarbara TomilsonEpisode: "Internal Affairs"Great PerformancesPerformerEpisode: "Talking With..." Homicide: Life on the Street Joan GarbarekEpisode: "A Doll's Eyes"1997Path to ParadiseNancy FloydTV movie1998Labor of LoveAnnie Pines1999Spenser: Small VicesSusan Silverman2000Thin Air2001Walking Shadow 2001–2002 The Education of Max Bickford Andrea Haskell 22 episodes2002Guilty HeartsJenny MoranTV movie King of Texas Mrs. Susannah Lear Tumlinson2004She's Too YoungTrish Vogul 2005 Felicity: An American Girl Adventure Mrs. Martha Merriman 2005–2013 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit FBI Special Agent Dana Lewis 4 episodes2006In from the NightVicki MillerTV movie2008The TowerZoe CafritzSex and Lies in Sin CityBecky Binion2009 Damages Claire Maddox 7 episodes The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler Janina KyzyzanowskaTV movie 2010 Royal Pains Dr. Elizabeth Blair 3 episodes2011 Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy Edda MellasTV movieInnocentBarbara Sabich2012Body of ProofSheila TempleEpisode: "Sympathy for the Devil"BentVanessa CarterEpisode: "Mom" 2012–2013Tron: UprisingKellerVoice, 2 episodes 2012IsabelFrances LorenzTV movie2013–2014The NewsroomRebecca Halliday10 episodesTrophy WifeDiane22 episodes2015How to Get Away with MurderDr. Hannah Keating4 episodes2015–2018Code BlackDr. Leanne RorishMain role, 47 episodes2019Love You to DeathCamile StollerTV movieBoJack HorsemanDenise/McCaitlyn/Melodie Voice, 2 episodes 2019–presentThe Morning ShowMaggie Brener 10 episodes2020A Million Little ThingsAlice Episode: "Guilty"BarkskinsMathilde GeffardMain role 2022UncoupledClaire LewisRecurring roleThe Cuphead Show!Sally Stageplay Voice, 2 episodes2022–2024So Help Me ToddMargaret WrightMain role, 31 episodes2025Murder in a Small TownMayor Christine HolmanMain role, season 2 only2026Margo's Got Money TroublesElizabeth GableMiniseries, 2 episodes
Theater