I didn't want to mis-t this top role

Jul 4 2008 By Shereen Low

THERE are very few women in Hollywood who at the age of 48 can pick and choose their roles, but Marcia Gay Harden, pictured, is one of them.

A seasoned film, TV and stage star for almost 30 years, Marcia, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2000 for her role in Pollock, is a constant favourite with critics - although she has managed to escape the celebrity spotlight given to contemporaries like Cate Blanchett.

Perhaps as a result, she has a happy, private marriage and enjoys a regular family life with her three child ren in New York.

But when we meet it's obvious that she hasn't escaped all the perils of Tinseltown - in fact, she is so full of California-style 'wisdom' that it's hard to understand exactly what she's talking about a lot of the time.

At one point she tells me: "I love good stories and I love humanity and the possibility that we are grace-filled in a way."

Despite the lovie-lingo, Marcia is clearly a clever woman, who happens to take her profession very seriously.

We meet in a room suite in the swanky Regency hotel in New York, where the actress is promoting her latest film The Mist, a thriller based on the Stephen King novel which opens in the Midlands today.

While she always wanted to be in a scream movie, it had to be an intelligent one - as befits her status as a quirky, independent actress.

In The Mist, Marcia plays Mrs Carmody, a deeply religious woman who stirs paranoia and panic when a thick and mysterious mist surrounds a small town.

A coveted actress, she gets sent a lot of scripts, but Harden said she was instantly drawn to this complex character.