TVSquad

It's always a good thing when an Oscar winner deigns to do TV, and based on her past efforts, I have high hopes for The Tower knowing that Marcia Gay Harden has joined the cast. The Tower, is a new CBS pilot about a group of Chicago reporters. Marcia Gay Harden is going to play Zoe, the millionaire owner of the newspaper, the leader of the pack.

Since winning the 2001 best supporting Oscar for Pollack, which was directed and co-starred her husband Ed Harris, Marcia's gone back and forth between TV and features. She received another Oscar nom for Mystic River in 2004, and last season did a memorable -- and Emmy nominated -- turn as a determined, driven FBI agent on Law & Order: SVU.

Ms. Harden was also in the short-lived series The Education of Max Bickford, as a well as a 2006 pilot with Jason O'Mara and Chazz Palminteri called Drift. Like many actors these days, she clearly likes going back and forth between film and television, taking the best roles no matter the media.

The Tower is shaping up to be an interesting project. In addition to Ms. Harden, the cast has also added Rosamund Pike to mix as a political reporter. Pike, best known for her showy role in Die Another Day as a Bond girl, has recently appeared on TV in Pride & Prejudice (2005). Others in The Tower include Cole Hauser (K-Ville) and the dynamic CCH Pounder (The Shield).

Executive producers for the show are Cold Case's Meredith Stiehm and Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim (for An Inconvenient Truth). As I said, The Tower is shaping up to be a drama series to keep an eye on -- assuming the pilot is picked up, of course.

[via PopCandy]