'The Thorn Birds' star Rachel Ward traded 'empty' Hollywood for farm life in Australia
"The Thorn Birds" star Rachel Ward candidly opened up about leaving Hollywood behind to become a farmer in Australia.
Born to an aristocratic family in Britain, Ward, now 68, launched a successful modeling career across London, Paris and New York City before moving to Los Angeles in the early 1980s to pursue acting.
However, during a recent episode of the Australia Broadcasting Company (ABC)'s docuseries "Australian Story," War explained that she quickly became disillusioned with the entertainment in LA and the roles that she was being offered.
"You soon find it's a very vacuous place to inhabit … it's very empty and it's very unsatisfying," Ward said. "I was just make-up, I was fantasy."
She noted that she had hoped to follow in the footsteps of Oscar-winning British actress Julie Christie, who achieved stardom in the 1960s with roles that Ward viewed as "romance rather than sexuality."
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However, Ward recalled that by the time she arrived in Los Angeles, she discovered that female actors were increasingly cast for their physical appearance with an emphasis on revealing outfits and sex appeal.
"You were really not of any value unless it was your sexuality," she said.
In 1981, Ward earned critical acclaim for her role as the beautiful escort Dominoe in the action thriller "Sharky's Machine," receiving a Golden Globe nomination for "New Star of the Year" for her performance. She landed her breakthrough role as Meggie Cleary in the hit television miniseries "The Thorn Birds," starring opposite Richard Chamberlain, Barbara Stanwyck and Christopher Plummer.
The sweeping romantic drama earned 16 Emmy Award nominations including a best actress in an outstanding lead actress in a limited series or a special nod for Ward, winning six. "The Thorn Birds" also received eight Golden Globe Award nominations and won four. That same year, Ward was reportedly voted by American audiences as one of the ten most beautiful women in the world.
During the filming of "The Thorn Birds," Ward met Australian actor Bryan Brown, who played her on-screen husband Luke O'Neill, who her character marries to escape her forbidden love for the family priest Father Ralph de Bricassart (Chamberlain).
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Ward and Brown fell in love on set and tied the knot in 1983. Shortly after marrying, the two moved to Australia and later bought a farm on a 865-acre property in the New South Wales Nambucca Valley in 1986.
During a January interview with Women's Weekly, Ward shared her initial impression of Australia and how her priorities changed after the couple welcomed daughters Rosie, 42, and Matilda, 39 and son Joe, 34.
"I thought it was completely exotic and fabulous," she told the outlet with a smile. "It was very foreign, very different. I was definitely romanced by it."
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"We were going to spend half our time in America because that’s where I was getting my work, and half here," Ward continued. 'But the minute you have kids things change. America wasn’t my country, and it then became obvious that we were going to be here."
Following her relocation to Australia, Ward continued to appear in some international TV shows and movies, but her career mostly shifted toward Australian projects rather than pursuing full-time Hollywood stardom. In addition to acting, Ward also embarked on a filmmaking career, making her directorial debut with her 2009 film "Beautiful Kate."
Thr devastating bushfires that ravaged parts of Australia from 2019 to 2020, also known as Black Summer, became a turning point for Ward. Though her farm emerged mostly unscathed after the crisis, Ward was badly shaken by the experience and fears about climate change which led her to fall into a depression.
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"I felt very impotent to do anything, and I think that was why I had a bit of a crumble because I just could not see the way forward to change it, to take real responsibility about what was going on now," she said on "Australian Story."
"It's a major existential issue that we are dealing with," she added.
In addition to her climate concerns, Ward was also experiencing a lull in her acting and directing career, which she said left her feeling directionless.
"Purpose gives everybody a sense of life, doesn't it? And a passion," Rachel says. "I definitely went through stages when I just didn't really feel I had any kind of purpose, any reason for getting up in the mornings."
Ward had previously battled depression on and off over the years. At times, she struggled with homesickness for Britain and struggling to find a sense of belonging in Australia.
She recalled that first major experience with depression came when she was a young mother raising her children far from home in a foreign country.
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"Changes are confronting and hard … and then you get right to the bottom, and then you just have to change, and that's what happened to me just around when the fires hit," she said.
"My film career had really not delivered quite as I had hoped it would," Ward continued. "I probably thought I was better than I really was, and I questioned why I wasn't working more."
Ward said that her lowest point came when she stopped taking her antidepressants too abruptly and was hospitalized after a car accident.
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"That was a pretty big moment," her daughter Matilda said on "Australian Story." "I think she scared herself."
Following the fires, Ward became convinced that conventional farming was no longer sustainable. Though Ward and Brown had managed the farm conventionally for decades, they decided to make the shift to regenerative farming.
"We started to talk about how we could change the management of the farm," Ward recalled.
She explained that she threw herself into learning about regenerative farming practices, which she began implementing.
"It was exciting because it was new," she says. "The fires were the catalyst to go, 'We have to change, we have to start doing things differently.'"
Over the past few years, Ward has turned her full attention to the transition and embraced the life of a full-time farmer.
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In 2023, she decided to share her passion with others, making the documentary "Rachel’s Farm" about sustainable agriculture and soil restoration.
While appearing on "Australian Story," Brown said that his wife, who became the farm's manager three years ago, is "very hands-on."
"She's bloody loving it and fully involved," he said. "I can't get over how much she does, but she loves it. That's all that counts."
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"She got onto this regenerating of the land and in doing so, regenerated herself and came back to life," Matilda said.
"The farm is this place where she's powerful and she's in control and she's calling the shots and she's busy and challenged," she explained.
"It's her without all the chatter and noise and all the stuff that she's contended with," Matilda continued. "She doesn't change her clothes for a week. She swims in the dam."
"She's free at the farm."
However, Ward faced ageist backlash last December when she shared a glimpse at her life on her Australian farm. In a video she posted on Instagram, the actress appeared makeup-free and sporting short gray hair while driving an ATV.
In the clip, she thanked her neighbors, one of whom was seen helping fix a water pump on her farm and also expressed gratitude to people who had shopped at her "paddock-to-plate" grocery network FarmThru.
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While Ward's post was met with many supportive comments from fans, several critics left negative remarks about her appearance.
"Omg!! What the hell happened to her. Wow!! She has aged really really bad," one social media user wrote.
"Oh my goodness I am in shock..did not recognize you until you said your name," another detractor added.
"NO LOVE NO WHAT HAPPENED TO U DEAR GOD SHOCKING," one critic chimed in.
While speaking to "Australian Story," Ward admitted that she was surprised by the reaction to her post but dismissed the online criticism.
"A few trolls were a bit shocked about my grey hair, who maybe hadn't seen me since I was 24, and then went, 'Oh my God, that's what you end up looking like,'" she joked.
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"I was a catalyst for a conversation that I think people had been challenged by," Ward explained. "Women weren't allowed to have a wrinkle, weren't allowed to go gray. Why do we feel we've got to pretend that we're still 40 when we're 68?"
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"That whole harping … that we still have to be sexual beings is terrifying," Ward continued. "To have to have our bums lifted and our breasts lifted and our faces drawn back. It just becomes grotesque."
"All I can say is that it's great to put that behind you, how you should look and be."
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Joking about the attention that she had received following her post, Ward said, "The more wretched I looked, the more followers I have."
"How ironic that my going grey actually garnered me more attention than if I'd taken my top off?" she said.
At another point in her "Australian Story" interview, Ward explained that her priorities had shifted since her younger years.
"I'm so past caring about what people think about one's appearance or age," she said. "All I want to hear is, 'Actually, Rachel's cows are looking pretty good.'"