Battlestar Galactica

MARY MCDONNELL

President Laura Roslin

The former Colonial Secretary of Education was forced to assume the presidency of the 12 Colonies on the day of the Cylon attack. Though she has risen to the challenge of leading the fleet with class, confidence, intelligence and stoicism, she also battled breast cancer before it was sent into remission by a stem-cell treatment from Hera, the human-Cylon infant. Throughout her journey, Roslin has experienced visions that inspire her to believe she is destined to lead humanity to a new home on Earth. With the recent relapse of her cancer, however, she must confront the possibility that she will not live long enough to see her quest fulfilled.

Two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated actress Mary McDonnell has transformed both period and present-day screen roles into dynamic character portrayals. Among McDonnell's film credits are Richard Kelley's Donnie Darko; Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon and Mumford; John Sayles's Matewan and Passion Fish, with Alfre Woodard; Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves; Sneakers, with Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier; Blue Chips; and Independence Day (her first foray into science fiction).

On television, McDonnell appeared in Mrs. Harris for HBO, opposite Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley. Before that, she appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in The Locket, for Hallmark. She received a 2002 Emmy Nomination for her work as Eleanor Carter on ER. Her other television credits include High Society, with Jean Smart; Replacing Dad; For All Time; and Behind the Mask — all for CBS. She also lent her talents to Arthur Miller's American Clock for TNT, and to O Pioneers! for PBS, with her husband, actor Randle Mell.

Equally at home in film, television and theater, McDonnell starred on Broadway in the title role of Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Heidi Chronicles; in Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke (as Miss Alma); and in Execution of Justice (as Maryanne White). Off-Broadway, she performed in many New York and world premieres of some of the finest American playwrights — among them, Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child and John Patrick Shanley's Savage in Limbo. She received an Obie Award for her performance in Emily Mann's Still Life. Some of her other credits, both off-Broadway and regionally, are Three Ways Home, A Weekend Near Madison, The Vagina Monologues, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Three Sisters and A Doll's House.

McDonnell last appeared on the stage in Los Angeles as Troy, in the play James and The Handless Maiden, directed by Randle Mell. She is also in the process of adapting the renowned Irish columnist and novelist Nuala O'Faolain's Are You Somebody into a one-woman show.