"A Million Little Things" Taps Marcia Gay Harden to Play Gary's Estranged Mom
by Kimberly Roots
January 27, 2020


Someone get "A Million Little Things‘" Gary a rack, because he’s about to have a slew more mommy issues. Marcia Gay Harden has been cast as his mother, TVLine has learned exclusively.

The Oscar winner will play Alice, whom viewers will recall left home a few months after Gary’s seventh birthday. Per the official character description, Alice took off “to follow her acting dreams, knowing that the silver screen and Hollywood were calling.”

She’ll first appear in Episode 12, which is slated to air on Thursday, Feb. 6 (ABC, 10/9c).




Series star James Roday tells TVLine he couldn’t wait to film his scenes with Harden.

“I don’t want to understate how cool it was that she came up to do an episode of our show,” he says. “I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember. It was a real privilege for me to get to watch her do her thing, share the space and pick her brain.”

https://tvline.com/2020/01/27/a-million-little-things-marcia-gay-harden-season-2-cast-garys-mom-mother/

Gary could never figure out why his mother took off when he was a kid… and Harden — who played that mom in a Season 2 guest spot — says she understands his confusion.

“The cast is really wonderful and warm and welcoming,” she says, but “I’m not sure I completely understand the mother.”



Harden took the part after EP David Marshall Grant, with whom she worked on "Code Black" “had called me to go to try to play her and to bring some gravity to her,” she says.

“So that was the journey: to figure out how to, in this very small moment of presenting her, how to present someone that had been so callous to leave her son and have no communication.”

https://tvline.com/lists/marcia-gay-harden-tv-roles-law-and-order-svu-the-newsroom/marcia-gay-harden-tv-roles-the-morning-show/