The Mist: Star Marcia Gay Harden
By: Kara Warner
Marcia Gay Harden is so good as the frightening religious freak, Mrs. Carmody, her performance has audiences yelling for her death.
BD: How much of Mrs.Carmody’s problems are tied to her religious fanaticism and how much is just her personality?
Marcia Gay Harden: I don't think religion is the bad part, but I think extremism allows a consistency of behavior that is bad. Certainly she had a mania, which I discovered only in shooting. When they first called her the "kooky" lady in the script I thought that's what you call somebody you don't like. But in shooting it, I actually understood that she was probably a paranoid schizophrenic because I felt she was hearing god. She was negotiating, she was exacting her negotiating, for her own self-preservation. Like, "Oh dear lord if I save one person, then I too can be saved." There something almost bossy, and pleading to her. Is religion the bad part of her? No. But this is a huge conversation. What is religion?
BD: What religious research did you do for the role?
Harden: I bought the "Idiots Guide to Revelations." [Laughs.] So I could make all those words make sense. You know, The Four Horseman, and all that stuff. When you look at dialogue on a paper, and as an actor, if it's "bible-speak" it might as well be Shakespeare. … It was a very real process of dissecting language and making it very specific and personal to the character.
BD: How much were you on the same page with director Frank Darabont? Did he want you to go over the top or downplay things?
Harden: It's a rare occasion that I a feel a director has little ego attached and Frank has tremendous ego, in the best way, but only a little ego attached to my performance. He's helping me sculpt it, not control it. It was very collaborative. There were moments where I thought I could've done more. But then there were other times where I felt like, had the camera been in a different place it would feel different. I would tell the camera guys, "There's this great shot happening on right now. As I'm talking about blood and death, there's a girl in the background sobbing, and I said ‘How bout you come in on me on my line and then go out on her and then back on me.’ Frank would be like, "That's great, I love it, let me see it." And so we would do it. There was one particular take, one of the preaching scenes, I'm preaching and I'm done now with the lines and I expect the camera to stop, but it keeps rolling. The extras are all around me and they're in it. And they also have a very religious background and they were completely surrendering to the process of this and they were there. One lady was stamping her feet, crying, brother John who was a Vietnam vet, who is win this coma for like a month after he fell down this mine shaft--they're all like right there. So Frank kept on rolling and I had to preach my own words for like four minutes. He kept that bloody camera rolling. [laughs] I had to come up with all kinds of things. The first minute, a fraction of a second, I'm halfway Marcia and halfway "Carmody." And at first, the first second is embarrassing because I can' preach, where's the script? But then the words just came out. It was really fun.
BD: It seems that this role really struck a chord in you. Did you have that immediate reaction when you first read the script? The whole idea of fear?
Harden: The Bible speech didn't strike a chord in me. The most interesting part for me was the "Lord of the Flies" element. What do human beings do? What would I do? And I don't know I would be so noble, you would think you would. But if there's bugs out that window or dinosaurs, grabbing you and eating your head off? Then I would think it would be the end of the world. And I would justify that by showing you where it says in the bible, or Nostradamus, and whatever.
**Spoiler alert**
BD: What's your thought on the second bullet?
Harden: Frank put that back in? Ooooh, I love him.
BD: Did you like the second shot?
Harden: I love it.
