
Jennifer Ward-Lealand
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jennifer Cecily Ward-Lealand CNZM (born 8 November 1962) is a New Zealand actor and director whose screen credits includes the in 1993 movie Desperate Remedies as well as appearances in The Footstep Man, the soap Shortland Street and Australian comedy series Full Frontal. Ward-Lealand was born in Wellington, New Zealand to Philippa "Pippa" Mary (née Ward) and Conrad Ainsley Lealand. She has an older sister, Diana Mary Ward-Pickering and a half brother Simcha Lindt. She is married to actor Michael Hurst of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys fame. They have two sons, born in 1997, and 1999. Her first ongoing television role was as Jan in Close to Home (1978–1980). After leaving school she spent a year touring New Zealand in a community theatre group, performing clown shows and Chekhov. In 1982 Ward-Lealand completed a year-long diploma in acting from Auckland's then influential Theatre Corporate. In between the theatre work that followed, Ward-Lealand appeared in short-lived TV drama Seekers, before her breakthrough television role in "Danny and Raewyn", an episode from the About Face series. Filmed largely in an Auckland flat so cramped the cameraman sometimes had to sit on the stove, this tale of working class relationship breakdown would win Ward-Lealand a GOFTA Best Actress Award. The same year Ward-Lealand made her big screen debut as nightclub singer Costello – and sang three songs – in Wellington crime thriller Dangerous Orphans. From 1989 to 1990 she appeared with Harry Sinclair and Don McGlashan in theatre/musical group The Front Lawn, winning a number of awards and accolades, and acting in Front Lawn film Linda's Body. In 1993 she appeared in the first series of TV skit comedy show, Full Frontal. As an actress, singer and director of theatre, Ward-Lealand has a number of credits and accolades, and acted in New Zealand plays The Bach, Via Satellite, and The Sex Fiend. In 2007, she toured her acclaimed Marlene Dietrich cabaret show, Falling in Love Again (also the name of her first solo CD) in New Zealand and Australia. She later toured with the same show in 2018. Jennifer Ward-Lealand is fluent in Te Reo Māori, the native language of New Zealand. Ward-Lealand, who herself is not Māori, started learning the language after not being able to respond to a traditional mihi or welcome speech. Ward-Lealand has also been an advocate for improving actors' working conditions and pay.
Known For

Xena is an infamous warrior on a quest to seek redemption for her past sins against the innocent. Accompanied by her comrade-in-arms Gabrielle, the campy couple use their formidable fighting skills to help those who are unable to defend themselves.
Xena: Warrior Princess

The legendary son of Zeus journeys across the earth fighting monsters and helping people.
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys

Investigator Alexa Crowe, cannot help fighting the good fight – whether it is solving murders or combatting the small frustrations of everyday life. Fearless and unapologetic, Alexa's unique skills and insights into the darker quirks of human nature, allows her to provoke, comfort and push the right buttons as she unravels the truth behind the most baffling of crimes.
My Life Is Murder

The four Johnson brothers have inherited the powers of the Norse gods. Because the gods lived eons ago, however, time has diluted the powers. The unique ability that each brother possesses isn't very strong, and they still have the same desires and faults that mortals do. Their lives include sibling rivalry, trying to get girls, and hanging out; but they also want to be stronger, and so they embark on a quest to fulfill an ancient prophecy in hope of gaining the full strength of their abilities.
The Almighty Johnsons

Auckward Love is show about women doing women stuff. Follow Alice, Vicky, Zoe and Grace as they experience love, lust , and everything else.
Auckward Love

The Jaquie Brown Diaries is a satirical New Zealand sitcom in which real-life television personality Jaquie Brown plays a fictionalised, over-ambitious, status-obsessed version of herself. The series was created by Gerard Johnstone, Jaquie Brown and Hayley Cunningham and premiered 25 July 2008 on TV3. The US cable television channel Logo began broadcasting the series' episodes to date 12 June 2010.
The Jaquie Brown Diaries

The Raffertys are a typical NZ family. But their entire life is based on a very dirty secret...
Dirty Laundry

The series is a spoof comedy that follows four hapless wannabes - a model, a stuntman, a dwarf entertainer and a stand-up comedian who are all chasing fame in Auckland's ridiculously small entertainment industry. Starring a number of local talents including Millen Baird (The Millen Baird Show), Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Xena: Warrior Princess), Natalie Medlock (Shortland Street) and Glen Levy, the stuntman described by National Geographic as "the 20th deadliest man on the planet". Auckland Daze takes the interactive experience that made Reservoir Hill a success to the next level. Screening on TVNZ Ondemand, which has over three hundred thousand unique viewers per month, Auckland Daze will also be embedded into Facebook where viewers will be able to watch, "like" and share the episodes with their friends without having to leave their Facebook profile. After the episode, the audience will be prompted to say what they think.
Auckland Daze
Duggan was a TVNZ police drama from 1997, featuring New Zealand actor John Bach as Detective Inspector John Duggan and Fiona Mogridge as Ruth Duggan. Unlike other New Zealand police drama series, Duggan was produced as a series of one-off programmes, akin to British crime series of the time such as Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders. In all, 13 episodes were made between 1997 and 1999.
Duggan

Cheerful slacker Deano and uptight city guy Oscar discover they are brothers when, much to their surprise, they both inherit a holiday camp from their estranged and recently dead father, Gary Wilde. Dad had one stipulation: these two have to run the camping ground together or they lose it - they can only sell it if they both agree. It’s Dad’s way of bringing his family together, even if it’s after he’s dead.
Sunny Skies

A female psychologist wants to understand the minds of a confessed serial killer who spent the last five years in a mental hospital because of his state.
The Ugly

A young solo mother loves her son and his needs are formost, but she still has room in her heart for her very broken brother, even as her fundamentalist mother rejects her. But when the brother is responsible for a woman's broken neck, during his burglary of her house, families are changed as crisis amplifies and at times the young mother seems to be the only adult.
Fracture
For Kane Harris and Vera Smith, what starts as an easy task of murder becomes a tangled web of deception and betrayal. Their target, Kane's wife, is no easy victim.
A Game With No Rules

Young crook turned detective, Terry Teo is on a mission to avenge his father's murder. The 80s comic book hero is back!
Terry Teo

Dane ‘Marbles’ Marbeck can see ghosts, thanks to a homemade drug: his late father’s neurological medication mixed with marijuana. Officer Jayson Tagg, a wannabe super-cop on the trail of a serial killer, ends up murdered. So when Marbles’ mum plans to sell the family farm, and the only way of buying the house off her is taking the money offered by Tagg in exchange for his help, Marbles accepts. The unlikely duo of stoner medium and ghost cop struggle to reconcile their differences while they navigate their way through ghouls, perverts, a mysterious hooded figure, and an unexpected shot at love. It becomes clear the only way Marbles and Tagg will solve the case with their souls intact is to confront their deepest regrets and overcome their prejudices.
Dead

Siggy (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) is a teenage "bad girl" who lives and works in a red-light district of Auckland, New Zealand. Just like her fellow streetwalkers, Siggy constantly dreams of leaving "the life" behind. When she learns one day that her pimp is planning a big drug score, Siggy decides to seize the day -- and her future -- by grabbing the loot.
I'll Make You Happy

In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose from the clutches of Fraser, a fortune hunter. A local politician, William Poyner, is desperate for cash and thinks marriage to Dorothea will save him. Dorothea hires Lawrence Hayes, a rough but handsome Argonaut, to bribe Fraser with jewels and to marry Rose; Hayes desperately loves Dorothea and may marry Rose to stay close to her. But Dorothea has a lover, the ravishing Anne Cooper, who encourages the match with Poyser to give the lovers cover. Are these remedies, each desperate in its turn, going to make anyone happy?
Desperate Remedies

Sam is a sound technician, who must literally walk in the footsteps of the characters on the screen. A "film within a film" that connects the world of modern film-making to the Paris of painter Toulouse-Lautrec and his model/lover Mireille.
The Footstep Man
In this mockumentary, Kevin Smith plays himself covering the story of a New Zealand town after the discovery that a local shellfish, the geoduck (pronounced "gooey duck") has the properties of Viagra.
Love Mussel

Three orphaned boys - O'Malley, Rossi and Moir - become blood brothers. When they grow up, they plot revenge on the crooks who got away with shooting O'Malley's father. The crooks are doing very nicely importing heroin and laundering money. The boys begin by killing one of the crooks, stealing his indentification and cleaning out the guy's Swiss bank account. But their revenge does not stop here... And the American end of the operation is getting very curious.