Marcia Gay Harden once described winning an Oscar as a double-edged sword: Although it is a wonderful honor, it does have its pitfalls.
“It’s disastrous on a professional level,” the actress said in 2003, a few years after winning a supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of artist Lee Krasner, the wife of troubled painter Jackson Pollock, in Ed Harris’ “Pollock.” “Suddenly the parts you’re offered and the money become smaller. There’s no logic to it.”
Those drawbacks seem to have had minimal impact on Harden during the last few years, as she’s ridden a steady flow of featured roles in several high-profile projects on stage and screen. She has injected her blend of warmth and smooth toughness to recent films (“Grandma”) and vehicles such as HBO’s “The Newsroom,” ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” and NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” She scored a Tony Award in 2009 for lead actress in a play for “God of Carnage” and last year played Christian Grey’s mother in the hit film version of “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
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