Mary McDonnell

Mary McDonnell, a two-time Oscar(r),-nominated actress, is most well famous for her performance on screen in both contemporary and historical roles. She has also had a long line of roles on stage as well as screen. Mary Eileen McDonnell was the daughter of John McDonnell (a computer consultant) and Eileen (Mundy), the daughter of a Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania native. Raised in Ithaca, New York, she graduated from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia. Later, she attended drama school , and was accepted into the prestigious Long Wharf Theatre Company on the East Coast. A decade later she was offered her first film role, in Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves (1990), playing "Stands with a Fist" who is a white woman raised by the Sioux Indians. The role was so well-loved that she earned her first Academy Award nomination. McDonnell's film credits include Lawrence Kasdan films Grand Canyon (1991) and Mumford (1999) (opposite such experienced actors as Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier as well as Ben Kingsley); Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (1996) (starring Will Smith); acclaimed art house cult hit Donnie Darko (2001); and Margin Call (2011) (opposite Kevin Spacey), which won her the Robert Altman Award at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards. On the small screen, McDonnell starred in four seasons on the Syfy Network's award-winning series Battlestar Galactica (2004) in her critically praised performance as President Laura Roslin. Her regular guest role as host on the TV show ER (1994) was rewarded with an Emmy nomination. The wildly popular TNT drama Major Crimes (2012) stars her as Captain Sharon Raydor. It is McDonnell's second season and she received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy(r). As a paraplegic soap-opera actress in John Sayles’s critically acclaimed film Passion Fish (1992), she won a Best Actress Academy Award(r), nomination, and a Golden Globe nomination.