Marcia Gay Harden

I'm gonna be real honest with y'alls; I'm really only putting all of this in a post because I've been drinking malt liquor for a few hours. So, I'm sorry and you're welcome all at once.

For the past couple weeks I've been on a Marcia Gay Harden kick.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, SHFACE?!

Well, ya fuckin' idiot, it means that I enjoy the work of Marcia Gay Harden and I've been watching it profusely. Not in a creepy way. I'm not a weirdo... in THAT sense. Or maybe I am. Either way, I'm not creepy... but I'll come back to that.

Also, I just remembered I paid my ComEd bill today. Go me.

Anyhow! "How did you get on this Marcia Gay Harden kick?", you might not be asking yourself. Well, dumbass, allow me to explain.

On Christmas Day, I was at my grandmother's visiting her and my mother and my aunt. The television was on in the background, as it always is there and an episode of Trophy Wife came on. I vaguely remembered the advertising for it and had no idea Miz Harden was in it. (For more on all that stuff and my feelings on it and all that that garbage - find my Trophy Wife post. It's in there. God damn, I am eloquent!) I spotted her immediately on the Christmas episode and got so excited that I was instantly hooked on the show.

These Cran-brrr-itas are goin' down smooth, y'all.

Anyway. So after the episode ended, I was thinking about Miz Marcia Gay Harden and what a fan of hers I've been over the years. To be honest, I don't know if I saw First Wives Club or Flubber first... probably Flubber.. because I was relatively young and entirely in love with Robin Williams as a child (maybe I am a weirdo!) and I recognized Marcia when I saw First Wives Club. Yes. It was Flubber. (Welcome to a stream of consciousness. You can unsubscribe anytime...) I remember thinking how great she was. And First Wives Club was another gem, although her part was small. No small parts, only small actors, ya jerks.

But the first moment I truly knew I loved this woman was when I saw Meet Joe Black. I was going through an Anthony Hopkins phase. Daddy issues. Don't ask. So, when MJB came out, I was all over it. I was so drawn to Marcia's character - Allison, I believe her name was - that it completely deterred me from everything else... in the film, not in life. That'd be weird. And being the child actor wannabe that I was, I knew I wanted to be like her. I was around 12/13 when that movie came out and I knew that's what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. A couple years later came Pollock - which the queen of queens won an Oscar for - and I remember being so ecstatic that she won. I watched it before the Academy Awards and though only about 14 and relatively naive to the world of art, I loved it. I loved her in it and I thought no other actor could be quite as deserving as she was in that moment. Elegant and poised and perfect.

With zero disrespect to the great Meryl Streep, I think Marcia Gay Harden has more talent. Meryl is brilliant and so highly regarded - and deservingly so. But there's an ease to Marcia's acting abilities that I don't see in any other actors, from an outside perspective. You never see the work of an actor in her performance. You see a transformation into a character. You see this woman becoming another human being. It's breathtaking and often heartbreaking. Her transition to comedy roles is nothing to shake a stick at either - also, as a sidenote, I just misspelled the word "stick". And good christ - God of Carnage! The Tonys do not lie. Men named Tony sometimes do, but I digress. I've never seen a flawed performance from Marcia Gay Harden. There's never acting. It's embodiment. I don't think that's something you can learn. I think that's something you're born with.

Through the years, I've sort of come to terms with the fact that I'll never be the prestigious actress I always wanted to be as a child. But I am a comedienne. And I enjoy comedy. I enjoy performance. I enjoy the art of empathy. But watching Harden work is probably the closest I'll ever get to being that close to it. That sentence literally didn't make sense, but her brilliance cannot be denied, starring or supporting role be damned. She's incredible.

Now that I'm done blowing smoke up her ass with the truth, in a third party fashion, I must also say that Miss Harden is also in the top three on my list of female crushes. She has been since Flubber. Now, I've never labeled my own sexuality (and I'm not about to now, nor am I really about to discuss it), but even as a child, I've always found women appealing. Maybe I'm bisexual, maybe I'm not. Who knows? Who cares? I'm attracted to humans, regardless of gender, I suppose. But MGH was one of the first of my female crushes. The vulnerability of her characters really cut me to the core, and still does. And I swear to god this woman is barely aging a day. She's beautiful. Stunning. Classic beauty. Super sexy. Just.. aesthetically perfect.

All that being said, I have a little bit of trouble with some of my favorite famous people being a part of this media century, I guess. Not that I'm a fuckin' spring chicken, but celebrities I loved as a child participating in new media is always kind of awesome, but like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs at the same time. Not that the people in question are too old for it, but that they're too honorable for it. They're on a pedestal. In a league of their own. Not the movie. No crying in baseball.

So after Trophy Wife, I discovered that MGH was on twitter. And normally, this would have been one of those instances... but it wasn't. She's still elegant and charming and lovely and twitter has merely humanized her for me. She's SO good at what she does that in my mind she's almost a goddess.. above human potential. So her natural life as a woman, a mother, a human on semi-display on twitter is wonderful to see. Because not only was the image of her I'd created in my mind lovely all these years, but the real thing is even lovelier.

Now that my buzz has worn off, I'm beginning to wonder if I'll regret writing this later because it sounds like a creepy fucking love letter to an actress I will probably never meet. Growing up as an only child of divorce - quiet, shy and sort of a loner, my only outlet into other peoples' brains was films. I watched films constantly. I devoured them. And then I'd watch them again and again. I don't think there's a movie I own that I do not know by heart. I found company and comfort in characters, in actors, in movies. I still do. That's where I learned about people. That's where I learned about emotion. So when I obsess about an actor/actress or a film or a writer or a comedian, it just means that I spent a lot of time learning that person or that text or that film. That person or thing likely kept me going when my life was far too shitty. That person or thing was a companion on my road to mental maturity, my love of the arts, my participation in the arts and my own personal growth as a human being.

I know, deep as fuck, right?

So, I assure you, reader, I am not creepy. Just passionate and curious and harmless... and sometimes drunk.