"I'd like to misbehave a little," says Sela Ward, 53. "I keep playing these moms who are so nice. I have a wonderful underbelly that I'd like to share."
The actress does get to kick ass in her new film, the serial-killer thriller The Stepfather. And in the October issue of MORE, on newsstands now, she tells Johanna Schneller, "I've lived enough life now to give an amazing performance." The past year has been difficult for her: She lost two beloved aunts as well as her father (her mother died seven years ago after a grueling battle with ovarian cancer). "My father's death was easier for me, because the last chapter of his life was a really good one," Ward says. After a lifetime of alcoholism, he'd given up drinking. "Growing up in an alcoholic family . . . while it wasn't physical abuse, there is a certain amount of neglect, because if you're an alcoholic, you're not there," she says. "But I got to see a different part of him [at the end of his life], and that was awesome to experience. And totally unexpected. A little late, but amazing."
Ward, who has two children with her entrepreneur husband, Howard Sherman, took stock of her own life after turning 50. “It’s not about aging, it’s just, wow, life is flying," she says. "I haven’t gone through menopause yet, but I know it’s coming. This Chinese doctor where I get acupuncture told me they call menopause the second spring. Which is the most fabulous way to put it. We’ve got a whole second life ahead of us to pursue our passions.”
She plans to make the most of that time. "I used to be terrified to stand up for myself, worried that I didn't have the right to a creative voice," she says. "I'm not afraid of much anymore. Except flying. But dealing with people, no."
And when all else fails, she has her salty sense of humor. A few years ago, she was next in line to play the villain in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle if Demi Moore didn't take the part. Moore did, of course, and soon appeared on the cover of People in a bikini. “I’ll never forget it," says Ward. "I was 48 or 49, on a boat trip in the Caribbean. I looked at the picture and went, ‘I am never going to look like that again.’ I just said, ‘Screw it, can I have another glass of wine?”
Read the full story in the October 2009 issue of MORE, on sale now.
Click here for Sela's beauty rules and regimen.
View a video interview with Sela and go behind the scenes of her photo shoot for MORE.
