CCH Pounder is an award-winning actress as well as a painter, jewelry designer, and art gallery owner. A true global citizen, she was born in Guyana, educated in England, lived for many years in New York, and now divides her time between California and Senegal.
For her portrayal of Captain Claudette Wyms in the The Shield, CCH Pounder received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series; two Golden Satellite Awards for Performance by an Actress in a Series, Drama; NAACP Image Award nominations for Best Actress in a Drama Series; the MIB Prism Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Drama; the Genii Excellence in TV Award and the "LOOP" Award from Lupus LA. In addition, she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for ER and an Emmy nomination for The X-Files for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Other television appearances include memorable roles in Millennium, L.A. Law, Sweet Justice, The West Wing, The Practice, Law & Order: SVU and HBO's Disappearing Acts, Boycott and Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives.
Pounder is also a veteran of almost 20 feature films including Bagdad Cafe, Prizzi's Honor, Postcards from the Edge, Benny & Joon, Face/Off, Robocop 3, End of Days and the upcoming Maria Govan's Rain and James Cameron's Avatar. She also received a GrammyÆ Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Grow Old With Me, The Best Is Yet To Come.
Pounder has appeared in numerous television and cable films including Go Tell It On The Mountain (her breakthrough film opposite Paul Winfield and Ossie Davis) and Booker for PBS. Hallmark's The Resting Place; HBO's Third Degree Burn; The Atlanta Child Murders; NBC's highly acclaimed Murder in Mississippi; The Ernest Green Story; Funny Valentine; Zooman and If These Walls Could Talk are among others. She portrayed "Winnie Mandela" in FX's original movie Redemption, for which she received Best Supporting Actress, TV from the 2005 FAAAF/Black Reel Awards.
Her theatrical credits, both on and off-Broadway, include Open Admissions at the Music Box; Coriolanus and The Mighty Gents for the N.Y.S.F.; Shelter Estates at The Wonderhorse; The Frog at the Grande Finale; Mumbo Jumbo at Lincoln Center; and The Lodger at Theatre of the Open Eye. Pounder also starred as Hedda Gabler at the Old Globe Theatre and in The Old Settler at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Pounder is a Founder and Board Member of Artists for a New South Africa and is involved in other organizations working in Africa including Musee Bouribana, Senegal's only contemporary art museum, which she co-founded with her Senegalese husband, Boubacar Kone, and the African Millennium Foundation, which seeks to break the cycle of abject poverty in Africa.
