This Day in Indie History: Pollock

Ed Harris’ directorial debut, Pollock, was released (albeit limitedly) in the U.S. on this day in 2001. The film starred the actor as abstract painter Jackson Pollock, the first American artist to become a household name. It was a longtime dream for Harris to put this movie together after reading the artist’s biography more than 10 years earlier. The labor of love earned him an Academy Award nomination for his lead role and Marcia Gay Harden the trophy for Best Supporting Actress. Harden played Pollock’s wife, Less Krasner, an artist in her own right, who helped push the renowned artist to fame. The movie was filmed in New York City and at the renovated Pollock/Krasner home in Easthampton, Long Island.

Film Star Factoid: To become the characters they were playing, Ed Harris and Marcia Gay Harden both spent time creating their own art–attempting to get inside the heads of the celebrated artists. Harris even went so far as to build his own studio where he could work in larger scale, much like Pollock himself had done.