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Gemma Louise Ward (born November 3, 1987) is an Australian model and actress. Born in Perth, Western Australia, Ward was first scouted at the age of 14, and made her Australian Fashion Week debut aged 15. She later became one of the youngest models to appear on the cover of the American edition of Vogue, subsequently appearing on the covers of both Teen Vogue and Time. Vogue Paris would later declare her as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s. Ward is widely considered to be a supermodel.

Ward's first major acting appearance was in the 2008 Australian film The Black Balloon, and she has since also appeared in the films The Strangers (2008) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011).

Early life
Gemma Ward was born in Perth, Western Australia, the second of four children of Gary Ward, an Australian doctor, and Claire, an English nurse. She has an older sister, Sophie (who also became a model), and younger twin brothers, Oscar and Henry. She was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College and Shenton College. Gemma was the family clown whose ambition was acting. Her passion for acting was born in 1997, when she was cast as the witch in a school play of Hansel and Gretel at age ten.

Ward's brush with modelling was an accidental one. She was discovered in 2002, at the age of fourteen, while accompanying her friends to the Australian modelling competition Search for a Supermodel. As she said 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 , and pushed me in front of the cameras.

Ward did not 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. The show reel then landed on the desk of ace model scout David Cunningham from the New York City 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 a supermodel, for sure," Cunningham said.