Women We Love: Gemma Ward

Check Her out in Pirates 4 , out now/ 

Ward's brush with modeling was an accidental one.^[4] She was discovered in 2002, at the age of fourteen,^[5]while accompanying her friends to the Australian modelling competition Search for a Supermodel.^[3] As she said herself in a Teen Vogue interview, she ended up being scouted herself:

I had come straight from my auntie and uncle's farm, and I was wearing this big gray barn jacket with mud all over it. When the scout came up to me, I said, 'No, thank you.' They forged my mum's signature [for mandatory parental consent], and pushed me in front of the cameras.^[3][6]

Ward didn't win the competition, but her fragile, unique look, got the attention of a spotter from Vivien's Model Agency who saw her potential and made a show reel.^[3][4] The show reel then landed on the desk of ace model scout David Cunningham from the New York agency IMG. "Look how confident she is. I mean, she looks like she's been doing this for years, and she's a 15-year-old kid walking in an alleyway in Perth [...] She's asupermodel, for sure," Cunningham said.^[4]