Year End Issue 2023

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Marcia Gay Harden’s Favorite Things at Home

has. I like my eyes to be able to rest on negative space. But I’ve been here for 25 years with the kids, and I haven’t done my ‘Marie Kondo’ yet,” she says. “There's a lot to look at, but fortunately, the beautiful woods and the natural colors can take it.” Here are five of the actress’s favorite things from her upstate home. SELF-MADE PINCH POT “I didn’t throw it on the wheel. You pinch a ball out into the shape, then you attach a handle. I made it years ago when I was doing Angels in America,” Harden says. For the actress, the appeal of pottery is more than the beauty of what she can create, but the process. “It’s centering, it’s meditative, and, for me, it’s a practice in patience—of which I have zero,” she says. “You have to throw the piece, let it dry a bit, trim the piece, let it dry some more, fire it, wait for that, glaze it, let it dry, and fire it again. It can take a week or more to get a beautiful piece of pottery.” In this case, the result speaks for itself, but, as Harden points out, fate plays a role. “You know what? Even after all that, it may be a complete failure. Maybe the glaze didn’t work, or maybe it bubbled up.” Nevertheless, she’s committed to the hobby— she’s even devoted her boathouse to the pursuit.

An heirloom dresser with family scratchiti and an elegant set of binoculars for birdwatching are among the items that bring the actress joy at her upstate New York bolthole

BY LAURA MORGAN

parks with their beautiful lodges, those wooden banisters, the atten- tion to detail, and all those gorgeous woods. That’s what inspired us.” Harden, a veteran of screen and stage, has a knack for inhabiting intimidating women. She can cur- rently be seen as Maggie Brener, a steely journalist on AppleTV+’s The Morning Show, and past roles have seen her play everyone from Lee Krasner (in Pollack , for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2001) to a fiery FBI agent on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit . But she can be funny, too. Case in point: So Help Me Todd , her CBS series. “I have so much fun bringing humor to this lawyer who’s suppos- edly so formidable. I’ve been allowed to play these roles that have incred- ible gravitas, and I’m grateful for

was a practitioner of ikebana , which is the Japanese art of flower arrang- ing. We lived in Japan at one point, and she’d say, ‘Oh look, the lilies are in bloom, I’d like to cut a spread of that for my flower arrangement.’ ” As for her Harden’s lakefront perch, it’s not just the spectacular natural surroundings that make it special, it’s the many meaningful objects she keeps inside. “I’ve definitely come to prefer a little less cluttering than this house

Actress Marcia Gay Harden raised her family primarily in Manhattan, and the city still has a hold on her. “The kids grew up in Harlem, and it was fantastic. I loved going to the Apollo, I loved going to Broad- way and seeing shows,” she says. And though she’s now based in the Catskills, she never stays away for too long. “I was just at the Metropolitan Opera the other night. I’ll be going to the symphony soon. I love going to great restaurants with friends. My feet are still planted in the culture of the city.” Still, her upstate New York abode, bought as a weekend home with her then-husband Thaddaeus Scheel, is an escape hatch she wouldn’t trade for the world. “It’s influenced by that old Adirondack Park feeling, com- bined with a touch of Mohonk Moun- tain House,” she says. “I love national

that—I get to play intelligent women with strong thoughts—but I’ve played other characters,” she says. “I just love good writing. That’s really what I love.” Growing up, Harden traveled far and wide. Her father was a Navy pilot, while her mother, to whom she paid tribute in her 2018 book, The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family, and Flowers , was a proper Texan lady. “I’ll lay credit for my love of nature to my mother, who

“ I’ve definitely come to prefer a little less cluttering than this house has. I like my eyes to be able to rest on negative space.”

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