“What a thrill,” Harden said when she arrived at the podium. The other women in the category - Judi Dench ( Chocolat), Kate Hudson ( Almost Famous), Frances McDormand ( Almost Famous), and Julie Walters ( Billy Elliot) - had higher profiles, and so did their movies. She hadn’t been nominated for a Golden Globe or Screen Actors Guild Award that year, and Pollock, for which she won, was an intimate Ed Harris passion project that opened nationwide a mere two days before the ceremony. When Nicolas Cage declared Marcia Gay Harden the winner of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2001, no one could believe it - especially not Marcia Gay Harden. Photo-Illustration: by Vulture Photo by Sony Pictures Classics
