Marcia Gay Harden Wants to Dance

Tony and Academy award-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden has had a long list of great roles.  She won her Tony for her role in Gods of Carnage on Broadway, won and Oscar for her work in the movie Pollack, and has also had great roles in Into the Wild, Meet Joe Black and of course, Millers Crossing.  She stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about her role in the TNT original movie Innocent.

Ron Bennington: The last time we saw you, you got Amanda Knox freed.

Marcia Gay Harden: Isn’t that amazing?

Ron Bennington: It is. When you came in, there were a lot of people who didn’t think there was a chance in hell that she would see the light of day. Do you think the fact that the film came out, people started talking about it again…

Marcia Gay Harden: You know…I’d like to say I think so, but we specifically didn’t talk to the family. Maybe it raised the issue but I’d like to think the law was the law and it wasn’t moved by the media and our film. Although, at the end of the day, we’re human so they might have redressed certain issues. And I’m just…now I can say, I had believed in her innocence, and I’m just grateful that she’s been proved innocent and that she’s back with her family.

Ron Bennington: Kind of makes you wonder though how many people there are that have stories that we just don’t know about at all.

Marcia Gay Harden: I think there are many many many. We know what we’re told. We know what we watch. Depending on which radio show you listen to or depending on which news channel you listen to, you get a completely different perspective of what’s going on out there in the world. And looking at the New York protesters– there’s 9,000 different opinions, and depending on who you interview, it’s going to sway the slant of whether you think these are crazy protesters or whether you think, look, corporate America is getting these big fat bonuses and we are the people by the people of the people so why shouldn’t there be a different kind of a system.

Ron Bennington: When I walk down the street in NY, and we will get protests of all different kinds here, I’ll always stop when I see people lined up whether it’s outside of a hotel or a building. You can learn stuff by seeing whose got passion out there.

Marcia Gay Harden: Well that’s it. This looks like people saying, I’m tired of it. I want health care. I want life insurance. I want social security. I want the things that you made me put my hand over my heart everyday and say I pledge allegiance to the flag at school for. I want those, and I don’t want to give those up to ‘I pledge allegiance to whomever the corporation would be.’ Listen, I’m not a spokesman for it. But what I do know is that I see people who are terrified of getting sick and people who are terrified of getting old and dying. And people who are terrified of not having pensions. It’s time to re-look at how capitalism best can serve the country.

Ron Bennington: Do you think it difficult for each generation now to connect with the generations coming up because technology changes so much. If you were around at the beginning of last century, your kids kind of came into the same life that you did. Now life changes within a four, five year gap.

Marcia Gay Harden: What I really believe is that at the end of the day, human values are the same regardless of the generation. I really believe that. And yet I could talk myself right out of that when I say generations ago elders were valued. And this is a symptom of life in America that elders are in nursing homes and there’s a lack of community. But I feel the basic need for community, even if it’s alternative community, is still there. I feel the basic human and basic human desires are universal across time. Love, family, children, marriage, accomplishment– I think those are the same.

Ron Bennington: I’ll go back to your film here, “Innocent” on TNT. Look at the lineup we have for a television movie– to me these are all film stars and at one point– it wasn’t all that long ago– that would have been a strange thing to do, to go from film to tv, but now everybody seems to do it without effort.

Marcia Gay Harden: I’m glad about that. I used to think, while I was pounding the pavement in New York, how come in England the actors can do a commercial and a tv show and a play and a movie, and they’re just actors doing work. Why do we have this whole snobbery here, that says you can’t do this, you can’t do this, and oh my god if you did this it would just end your whole career. I would love to do Dancing with the Stars but my agents and managers won’t allow it. But just the idea of dancing up there and having a blast– I’d love to do it. But we still have this kind of snobbery. Fortunately the snobbery about television and film and theater and strong boundaries between them all– I think some of those have dissipated. And so you see a lot of film actors doing television. I feel really fortunate I’ve been able to do that. Films with stories are rarer and rarer to find. War movies occupy– there’s 15,000 roles for guys in their 20s and 30s– there’s one role for a great commander, a Morgan Freeman, or somebody else in their whatever age. There’s one role for a girl in her twenties who is crying about her husband who is never coming back and that’s it. Even though I love them dearly, I need Joel and Ethan Coen to make a movie that’s got a cast of 18 women in it. Any film noir gangster movie is going to be all guys with one girl. Reality television is not actors. The parts, the stories get smaller and smaller. And so we’re hungry. We’re totally thrilled that TNT is doing movies like this– mystery movies. It’s fantastic. And doing things like this. Playing this woman who is…bipolar. This character is bi-polar and if you want to do it responsibly, you have to know a little bit about it. But it means you’re going to have to go someplace.

Ron Bennington: It’s a frightening moment. I mean right from the beginning, you do it, where you’re totally still, the first scene that you see. This is not the average American family, but you’re not moving at all, and it’s a very scary scene.

Marcia Gay Harden: Good. Thank you. There is this very tenuous string in Scott Turow’s Innocent that at any moment you feel could snap. And that’s what I love about his writing. I love that it becomes a page turner because you want to hear what happens with these characters and these people. Interestingly enough in Scott Turow’s book he gives you three different perspectives– the Judge’s perspective, the son’s perspective and the mistresses perspective, but he never gives you the wife’s perspective, which I think is fascinating. Because then you don’t know if she actually did commit suicide or if he actually murdered her, because you won’t know it unless she tells you. Because if he murdered her, from his perspective he’s going to tell you that she did it. But from her perspective she would tell you if she was murdered or if she committed suicide. So that’s the interesting thing about writing and movies. We hear it really from Bill Pullman’s perspective. So to me, it’s left at the end of the day, as a little bit of a mystery.

Ron Bennington: So for you, every time you get a chance to grab something like this, is it a surprise?

Marcia Gay Harden: It’ a relieved expectation. I expect there to be these things out there in the universe. I expect there to be good writing about women and issues and life. And yet I know that those are few and far between. So when they show up it’s actually a little bit of relief, ah there it is! There’s one. And hope there’s more.

Ron Bennington: I think this goes on for as long as you want it to. I think you’re just going to keep doing great parts for a long long time. Innocent is on TNT, Tuesday November 29. It’s great to see you again and we’ll see you next time.

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