Mary McDonnell

Mary McDonnell is an actress who has been nominated for two Oscars(r). She is famous for her portrayals of characters from both contemporary and period screen roles. Mary Eileen McDonnell was the daughter of John McDonnell (a computer consultant) and Eileen (Mundy) who was who is a Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania native. She was born in Ithaca and attended Fredonia State University of New York. She attended drama school, and was then accepted into the Long Wharf Theatre Company (East Coast). At the age of 22, she was when she scored her first film part in Dances with Wolves (1990) in which she was "Stands with a Fist" Sioux Indian woman that is white. For the role, she earned her first Academy Award nomination. McDonnell's film credits also include Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon (1991) & Mumford (1999) in which she starred alongside veteran actors like Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier and Ben Kingsley; Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996) (starring Will Smith); the acclaimed art house cult-hit Donnie Darko (192001); and Margin Call (2011). The film won her the Robert Altman Awards at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards. McDonnell was president Laura Roslin in the critically popular show Battlestar Galactica (2004) on Syfy. She was the lead for four seasons. McDonnell received an Emmy for her regular guest role on the TV series ER (1994). The wildly popular TNT drama Major Crimes (2012) stars her as Captain Sharon Raydor. It is McDonnell's second season and she was nominated for a primetime Emmy(r). For her role as the soap opera star who is paraplegic in John Sayles’s critically acclaimed film Passion Fish (1992), she won a Best Actress Academy Award(r) nomination and a Golden Globe nomination.