Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actress Sela Ward continues to score strong, powerful roles in both film and television. She was last seen on the big screen as the president of the United States in Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). The project reunited Ward with director Roland Emmerich, with whom she first worked on The Day After Tomorrow (2004). Additional feature film credits include Gone Girl (2014), The Guardian (2016), and The Fugitive (1993).
Her career started in advertising, but soon after, she was approached by the Wilhelmina Agency and embarked upon a successful modeling and television commercial run. A move to Los Angeles catapulted her into the world of acting when she was cast in the film The Man Who Loved Women (1983). Ward is a two-time Emmy Award winner for her work on the television series Sisters and Once and Again, for which she earned a Golden Globe Award as well. She also starred in the made for television movie Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story (1995), which earned her Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.
She is a native of Mississippi, and she founded Hope Village for Children there to provide a safe haven and an alternative to the traditional foster care system. The organization offers a more permanent home that delivers a continuum of specialized treatment programs, services and facilities to meet the individual needs of neglected and abused children.
Ward is a graduate of the University of Alabama. When not working or tending to her philanthropic projects, she is an accomplished painter and New York Times bestselling author. Her first book, Homesick, is part inspirational story, part memoir, describing Ward's quest for a balance of the comforts of her small-town childhood and the big city way of life.
