Marcia Gay Harden likes to be close with her co-stars. She's currently filming here opposite the man she asked to father her child, if she wasn't married by the age of 38.

Now art is imitating life for Harden, who's wrapping up production on a U.S. cable movie, Labor Of Love, about a woman approaching 40 who asks her gay friend to inseminate her.

David Marshall Grant, who co-stars in the movie, is also the man who agreed to father a child with her five years ago.

They co-starred in the New York production of Angels In America and "had a conversation on the subject," says Harden.

"I was in my early thirties and feared that motherhood would pass me by." They agreed that if neither was involved with someone else, they would have a child together and work it out.

Now in her mid-thirties and married, Harden no longer requires David's services, but she's grateful for his offer.

A closeness with co-stars is important to Harden, who says it's hard to fake friendships for the screen.

About a month-and-a-half ago she was in negotiations for the role in Labor Of Love when Marshall Grant walked in for the part of the gay friend.

"I said, 'David, this is perfect. We don't have to fake our friendship.' "

Harden compares their real life closeness to the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck characters in the current hit, Good Will Hunting.

"When they banter in the car, you can tell they are friends," she says about the real life college buddies.

California-born Harden studied theatre at University of Texas, and her early training was mainly on the stage. Her first big film was the Coen Brothers' Miller's Crossing.

Later films include Flubber, The First Wives Club, and the upcoming Meet Joe Black. She's currently on screen with Michael Keaton and Andy Garcia in Desperate Measures.

Last summer, while filming the comedy Meet Joe Black in Rhode Island, Harden became close with co-stars Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt.

Pitt stars as the Grim Reaper, who comes to earth and falls in love with Hopkins' favorite daughter and Harden's younger sister. Harden plays Hopkins' needy daughter.

Of Hopkins, she says, "He's to die for. The cream of the crop." Of Pitt, she says, he made "a good-looking death!"

Harden has taken roles to pay the bills, but craves characters whom she can relate to.

Which brings us back to Labor Of Love.

"I've had to face some of these same issues," she says. "I know I'm fertile, but I'm at the age when women do lose children. I am these women."

And now that she's married -- to Thaddaeus Scheel, a documentary filmmaker-- she plans to have a child very soon.

"Walking into Baby Gap is definitely an incentive."

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