Playboy's 20Q: Sela Ward

Here's heartening news from the TV wasteland. Amid the smirky sitcoms and bimbofests, this year's best actress Emmy went to a womanly sex symbol who's 44. That's became Sela Ward, the star of Once and Again (and whom you might know best from Sprint commercials), happens to be a terrific actress, even if she started out as a University of Alabama cheerleader.

In fact, she was planning to be a painter. But while in New York to cheer the Crimson Tide at a basketball game, she fell in love with the city. After graduating from college, she moved to New York and submitted photos to Wilhelmina Models. Several years as a top-paid model were followed by a small role in a Burt Reynolds film, The Man Who Loved Women. She then appeared on hit TV shows Night Court and LA Law and in telefilms The King of Love, The Haunting of Sarah Hardy and Bridesmaids. She enjoyed a five-year run on NBC's dramatic series Sisters, during which Ward won a best actress Emmy. She also received acclaim for her starring role in one of cable television's highest-rated movies, Almost Golden: The Jessica Savilch Story, portraying the late NBC anchorwoman.

On the big screen, Ward has appeared in The Fugitive opposite Harrison Ford, My Fellow Americans with Jack Lemmon and 54, co-starring Mike Myers.

Robert Crane caught up with the elegant Ward at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. He reports: "Sela Ward is terribly sexy in her Sprint ad campaign and she is naturally beautiful in person. Fans, both male and female, stopped at our table to say hi. I have heard that some producers claim she's too attractive. To which I would respond: Is that so wrong?"

1

[Q] Playboy: What are the love secrets of Southern women?

[A] Ward: Someone remarked that Southern women are born to flirt, and it's absolutely true. They know how to charm the pants off a man. They know how to zero in and make a man feel like he's the center of the universe. And it works, because you'll see those guys just puff up. Southern women couldn't be more attentive, they couldn't be more gracious, they couldn't bat those eyes any faster. It's an art. There's not a Southern woman I've met who's not incredibly charming, incredibly gracious and incredibly focused on a guy if she wants to be.

Sex is sort of like the immaculate sport in the South. Nobody talks about it. You can just smell it everywhere. It's a cultural way of relating.

2

[Q] Playboy: Under what circumstances do you use your Southern accent?

[A] Ward: When I need Trent Lott to help me with my pet projects in Mississippi, like the Grand Opera House. Any time I'm talking to a Southerner, for sure. I wish I could say I used it often, but I think people have, historically, associated a Southern accent with a lack of intelligence. There's something about the accent—it's so foreign to their ears and it's such a lazy tongue. But then there are people like Trent Lott, who has a beautiful accent—that sort of plantation Southern. And Clinton, in his own way, has a charming Southern accent, and people respond to that.

3

[Q] Playboy: Is it easier to win an argument using a Southern accent?

[A] Ward: It's like talking to somebody in a foreign language. By the time they get through with all their "fixin's" and "y'alls" you're just trying to decipher what the hell they said. So you might end up giving them their point. When I call back home to somebody, and because I've been gone for so long, I speak quickly to get the point across. But they'll give you little anecdotes, throw in how their mama's gall bladder is doing and what the heat index is today, and then get back to the point. But Southerners are the most colorful, interesting, neurotic, incredibly intelligent and brilliant people, particularly Southern writers—Willie Morris, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams.

4

[Q] Playboy: You've described yourself as feeling "ripe and juicy, like a delicious piece of fruit." Are you peeled first or should one bite right through the skin?

[A] Ward: Why waste time peeling? Bite through the skin—that way you get all the textures and flavors at once.

5

[Q] Playboy: You didn't marry a football player. You didn't marry an actor. Are there certain professions that just don't work out?

[A] Ward: Actors, for sure. Basically, I've learned that you have to stay away from any man who has to do it in front of a crowd. The male actor is a peculiar breed. The industry is fraught with toxicity, first of all. As for men who choose to work in a business that is driven by a tremendous amount of narcissism and egocentricity, you are dealing with someone who is rarely able to give back in a relationship in a way most people would require. It's tough to ride that wave of job insecurity. One moment they're on top of the world. Then they can't get a job. You have to be an extremely strong character to be able to survive in this business, and I haven't met a lot of males with extremely strong characters.

6

[Q] Playboy: Sela—what's that short for?

[A] Ward: I'd like to make up something really interesting, but I was named after a friend of my mother's cousin's daughter. It's not short for anything. In Hebrew, it (continued on page 140)Sela Ward(continued from page 115) means Amen, Hallelujah, Lift up. My version is without an h at the end. A woman named Sela from upstate New York sent me a note, telling me she got her name because she was the last of seven children, and the name means Amen. I'd love to steal her story, but I'm the oldest of four.

7

[Q] Playboy: As a Sprint spokesperson, do you get free phone cards or anything? And what's your average phone bill?

[A] Ward: I got a cell phone from Sprint last Christmas. I'm a phoneaholic. My cell phone bill is $300, my Internet bill is $100, my DSL is $59, the phone at my home in Mississippi is $200, my LA home phone bill is $500—Sprint loves me! I'm on the cell phone all the time. If I'm not working, the house phone bill is that much, too. I'm always on the phone. I call my mother every day to check on her. She hasn't been in good health. I check on my sister in Miami, or talk to my friends. I love the phone.

8

[Q] Playboy: Is bed a proper place for a dramatic series?

[A] Ward: Where else is there more drama than in bed? You've got screaming, you've got crying, begging, moaning. All the active verbs. Every drama in the world could be played out between the sheets. Every great drama.

9

[Q] Playboy: Will there be a line of Sela Ward bedsheets?

[A] Ward: There should be, because it's my obsession. It's my fetish. I buy sheets and dishes. Every time I'm in Italy I'll hit a Frette or Pratesi linen store and stock up. I love those really soft Egyptian cotton sheets. I'd spend all my money on sheets, or great-looking dishes, even if I had to resort to eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There's nothing more important than how sheets feel on your skin when you crawl into bed.

10

[Q] Playboy: Give us the Sela Ward primer on sexuality.

[A] Ward: The three Ms—mood, method and madness. I didn't want to get married until I was 35. If you make it to your early 30s still single, it's such a great ball game. You have a different vantage point. You're down on the field. You're not up in the bleachers. You're there in a way that I don't think is available to one at a younger age. I'm obviously speaking from my own experience. I'm sure there are many exceptions.

11

[Q] Playboy: Do you still have your cheerleading outfits?

[A] Ward: Oh, I'm sure—at Mama's house somewhere. I still have them from junior high school. In fact, I just brought home my little dance review costumes for my daughter—they had been packed away in a chest at my mother's house. I save everything like that. I'm very sentimental and nostalgic.

12

[Q] Playboy: Is cheerleading always sincere?

[A] Ward: Of course not! What in the performing arts is? I remember cheering for basketball games. I loved football, but I couldn't care less about basketball. I couldn't tell you who was a forward or a guard. Wasn't interested at all. But I sure acted like I was. I cheered my little heart out! I loved cheering for football. You really felt you were part of something amazing, because Alabama football was a religion. Huge!

13

[Q] Playboy: Any embarrassing moments on the field or court? Ever forget anything?

[A] Ward: I did get run over by the players. Fell flat on my face. You know how you lead them when your team is coming out and the cheerleaders go ahead of diem? Everybody was coming so fast, I fell flat on my face and they all stepped around me. The guys didn't even stop to pick me up. That's pretty embarrassing. A mouth full of Astroturf. That happened on the home field. As for forgetting anything—you mean like underwear? It's hard to forget your panties when your partner is staring up your crotch 75 percent of the game.

14

[Q] Playboy: There are more porno films with story lines involving homecoming queens, cheerleaders or sorority girls. And then there are stewardesses. How would you account for that? Are these categories overrated?

[A] Ward: There's an obsession with how cute and perky and pure they look, but you know that they're secretly doing the quarterback. They connote purity, all-American, apple pie, the untouchable, no access to, the forbidden unpicked fruit! As to their being overrated, I don't think so, because I was all three! Actually, I started to be a stewardess. Wouldn't that have been ironic? I was offered a job at Eastern Airlines when I was taken on by Wilhelmina Models. That would have been really strange. Thank God. That saved me from being a cliché.

15

[Q] Playboy: You dated Richard Dean Anderson for a while. Could MacGyver fix everything at the last minute?

[A] Ward: Obviously not.

16

[Q] Playboy: Our readers want to know—on Once and Again it looks like you're naked under the covers. Are you?

[A] Ward: Well, when the bare bum is showing, there ain't much else underneath. We're one close, happy family.

17

[Q] Playboy: What is the unwritten etiquette to filming nude scenes?

[A] Ward: I'll cover yours if you'll cover mine. You totally disrobe and there are 50 people standing around being voyeurs, and everybody is respectfully trying not to look at anything. It is so technical. Half the time—particularly doing television—getting Billy Campbell to put his arm here to cover this part of my anatomy, and his leg there so it covers another part of my anatomy, is excruciating to orchestrate. Not that it's not enjoyable. The etiquette comes in trying to protect your co-star—he may be a bit too heavy around the waist or he hasn't worked out enough. You find ways to take care of each other. That's not a very sexy answer. You just hope you really like the person you're in bed with.

18

[Q] Playboy: Did anything unexpectedly happen to crop up?

[A] Ward: 'Cause he's having sex with himself? Well, I would never tell.

19

[Q] Playboy: Do you have to sign a waiver to your husband?

[A] Ward: To have legal cheating? No, I've just got to take real good care of him the night before and the night after. Bless his heart. I have to say, he's one of those guys with a really strong center. He's a very successful man with a Harvard MBA. But I am his woman. He won't look at the dailies, and he probably looks with one eye as he's watching the finished product. And, you know, I can't blame him. He never says a word; he knows it's my job. It would be easier, maybe, if he were an actor and had that experience. I came home one day and I had just had this love scene with Billy. I flew out of the trailer to get home. I had lipstick smeared all over my face. My husband looked at me and said, "Honey, did you have a love scene tonight?" I said, "Oh yeah, yeah I did." It's a strange thing, crawling into bed with your husband after just making out with another guy 30 minutes earlier. It's an odd set of circumstances.

20

[Q] Playboy: Under what circumstances can you hear a pin drop?

[A] Ward: When you're having sex and the kids are playing in the next room. Any time you're in bed and there are people milling around the house. I can hear everything.

You disrobe and there are 50 people standing around, respectfully trying not to look at anything.