Marcia Gay Harden Looks Back at SVU, The Newsroom, Code Black and More

First TV roles can leave an indelible mark on a young actor, imprinting themselves in detail and serving as a seminal reminder of how far one has come in one’s career.

And then there’s 1990’s Kojak: None So Blind, a TV movie that Marcia Gay Harden… kinda recalls?

“I was playing a character, a young girl,” she tells TVLine, laughing. “I remember climbing a step — that’s all I remember — in a short skirt on Kojak and thinking, ‘God, I hope they can’t see my panties.'”

Since then, the in-demand actress has appeared in more than 30 TV movies and series, not to mention several feature films. She’s played a conflicted Chicago Hope patient and a couple of notable legal eagles. She’s been an aloof-and-fabulous Trophy Wife predecessor, a take-no-bull Code Black doctor and one very surprising SVU FBI agent.

Harden’s latest series, the historical drama Barkskins, airs Mondays at 9/8c on Nat Geo. In it, she plays a tough, pioneer widow named Mathilde who’s changing societal norms in the perilous wilds of New France. Scroll down to hear the Oscar-winning actress reminisce about some of her more memorable television stints, starting with the time she was asked to channel “the most beautiful woman in the world.”