CSI: Sela
The TV drama veteran dissects her first season on the crime series
By ROBERT RORKE
One look in the mirror in the makeup room at “CSI: NY” convinced actress Sela Ward that her career had taken a strange turn. The glass reflected photographs, taped to the wall behind her, of prosthetic makeup of wounds, dismembered limbs and other assorted “blood and gore” that now “live on in my psyche,” she says.
It took five full episodes for her to get used to her new environment. “My very first episode was a double-up,” she says. “We were shooting two shows at the same time. It was trial by fire.”
Ward won her two Emmys on the family dramas “Sisters,” where she played bohemian alcoholic Teddy Reed for six seasons, and “Once & Again,” where she played Lily Manning for four seasons, and says, “I knew how to be married and raise kids on TV shows. I had three days before starting ['CSI: NY'], three days before I got the script, to wrap my brain around murder and bludgeoning.”
Sela Ward has signed for three seasons on the CBS procedural.
With her dramatic background, Ward seemed, at first, a surprising choice to play Assistant Supervisor Jo Danville, replacing Melina Kanakaredes, but she had been approached years ago to take the female lead, the role eventually played by Kim Delaney, on “CSI: Miami.” She turned it down.
“I didn’t want to take the lead on another TV show with my kids at the ages they were. I still don’t want to do that,” Ward says. “But Gary [Sinise] is the lead and I thought it would be a walk in the park, but it’s so not. The dialogue is not in my comfort zone.”
On her second day of shooting they did an autopsy scene where they were peeling the prosthetic scalp back. “You could see the skull, and it was so visual. Being a painter, these things haunt me,” she says.
In person, Ward is on the tall side and strikingly pretty, but in an approachable way. After all those episodes of “Sisters” and “Once & Again,” “House” and now “CSI: NY,” viewers feel like they know her. What most viewers don’t know is that she turned down Teri Hatcher’s part on “Desperate Housewives.” Again, the timing was off, largely because Ward’s mother had just died and she had just finished “O & A.”
“I was just burned out. I didn’t care what it was — name the best TV show on the planet — I couldn’t have done it. I was just physically exhausted. But I did watch it and it’s really fun. At another time and place, I would have done it,” she says.
After all the tears Ward has shed in those TV dramas, it’s good that she has a sense of humor. But how could she not when, at the end of the “Sisters” run, she decided to audition for the James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” and was told that they were interested in Sela Ward, but the Sela Ward from 10 years ago.
“That was devastating. I was 38 or so and thought I was just so fine. I thought I was vibrant and relevant and all those yummy things,” she says. “You feel you’re at a point in life where you feel that you finally have something interesting to offer. Or that you could have given an interesting performance.”
Swallowing her disappointment, she addressed her concerns about ageism in Hollywood in a documentary for Lifetime called “The Changing Face of Beauty.” She also wrote a best-selling memoir, “Homesick,” about growing up in Meridian, Miss., where she keeps a second home and operates a charity called the Hope Village for Children.
In her honor, the city of Meridian named a stretch of 22nd Avenue after the actress. Not everyone on the City Council favored the special designation.
“Some people said, ‘We’re going to name a street after her? Well, what if she gets into drugs out there in Hollywood? Then what do we do?’ “ Ward says.
Ward lives in Los Angeles with Howard Sherman, her husband of nearly 19 years. She credits her long marriage to “getting married late,” she says. “I got married when I was turning 34, 35. You’re just smarter about who you pick.”
They have two children, Austin, 17, and Annabella, 13. They are all going to Italy this summer on her hiatus from “CSI: NY.” She wishes the show could film in New York City, where she moved right out of the University of Alabama in the 1980s.
“I loved it. Remember when they were ripping gold chains off girls’ necks?” she asks, sounding almost nostalgic. “It was intense.”
With her roots in the South and her strong family ties, Ward remains a private person. Even though she has devoted her life to acting, she doesn’t socialize much with actors.
“Actors don’t like to be friends with other actors. I’ve tried many times,” she says wearily. “They’re too competitive.
"I even made contact with a big movie star — I can’t tell you who she was — and I said, ‘Let’s have lunch.” After discussing the challenges facing older actresses, and thinking that she could "glean" some wisdom from, Ward found that the star looked at her like “I don’t know what planet you’re on.’ Just in total denial. As we were leaving, she said, ‘You’re very interesting.’ Like she was studying an animal. But not her kind of animal. What I realized is that whole adage about swimming with sharks — just make sure you don’t bleed. I bled. I bled.”
CSI: NY
Friday, 9 p.m., CBS
. Foreshadowing lol. That's a great pic of them 
