Micheal Ward is a Jamaican-British actor and former model. His films include Blue Story (2018) and The Old Guard (2020). On television, he appeared in Top Boy and The A List. Ward was awarded the 2020 BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Micheal Ward was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica and then moved to Hackney, East London with his mother and sister at the age of four, with the help of his aunt and uncle who ran a Caribbean restaurant in Chadwell Heath. The family later moved to Romford. He attended Chadwell Heath Academy and then studied performing arts at Epping Forest College after dropping out of sixth form. He worked delivering food for his aunt's restaurant as a teenager and then later worked at a bookmakers shop.
Ward began his career while he was at college when he signed the talent agency his teacher Ellie Nelson worked at and introduced him to. Through the agency, he landed roles in music videos for artists such as Lily Allen and Tom Walker.
At the age of seventeen, Ward won the Face of JD Sports modelling competition. He has since modelled a number of brands and was handpicked by Virgil Abloh to model for Louis Vuitton's AW20 menswear campaign in August 2020.
Ward made his film debut in Brotherhood in 2016. He starred in the first series of the teen thriller The A List on BBC iPlayer in 2018 and reprised his role for its second series on Netflix. Ward's breakout year came in 2019, when he starred as Jamie in Netflix's revival and third series of Top Boy. He also appeared in a leading role in the film Blue Story in the same year. The film received critical acclaim, and Ward won the BAFTA Rising Star Award for his performance.
Ward appeared in Steve McQueen's Small Axe: Lovers Rock in 2020, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He was cast alongside Bill Nighy in the upcoming film The Beautiful Game.
Ward is to star alongside Olivia Colman, Colin Firth and Tanya Moodie in Sam Mendes' 2022 film Empire Of Light. The film is due for release in the USA in December 2022, with the release in the UK slated for January 2023.
