Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder (born December 25, 1952), known professionally as C. C. H. Pounder (styled "CCH Pounder"), is a four-time Emmy Award-nominated Guyanese-American film and television actress. She has appeared in numerous films, made-for-television films, television miniseries, plays and has made guest appearances on notable television shows.
She plays Mo'at, the Tsahìk of the Omatikaya clan in James Cameron's Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Pounder was born in Georgetown, Guyana, the daughter of Betsy Enid Arnella (née James) and Ronald Urlington Pounder. She was educated in England and moved to the U.S. in 1970. Pounder made her acting debut in the 1979 film All That Jazz.
Career[]
Pounder starred in the film Bagdad Café (a role played by Whoopi Goldberg in a short-lived television sitcom). Pounder has made smaller appearances in many other successful films. She has focused primarily on her television career. In the early 1980s, Pounder first appeared in guest roles on Hill Street Blues, and then on several other popular shows (Miami Vice, L.A. Law, The X-Files, Living Single and Quantum Leap) before landing a long-running recurring role as Dr. Angela Hicks on ER from 1994 to 1997. In the midst of this she had a large co-starring role in the 1995 Tales From the Crypt feature film Demon Knight. She then returned to guest appearances on other shows, including The Practice, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Millennium, The West Wing (where she was considered for a the role of C.J. Cregg) and the short-lived sitcom Women in Prison.
From 2002 to 2008, she starred as Detective Claudette Wyms in the FX Networks police drama The Shield. For this role she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2005. She had previously been nominated for Emmys in 1995 (for guest starring in The X-Files) and in 1997 (for her supporting role on ER). She has also lent her voice to several video games and animated projects, including Aladdin direct-to-video second sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves, True Crime: Streets of LA, Gargoyles as Desdemona and Coldfire, and most recently Justice League Unlimited as Amanda Waller. It has been has been announced that she has been cast for the animated movie adaption of the comic book Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, reprising her role from Justice League Unlimited. She currently appears on the Syfy series Warehouse 13.
Personal Life[]
Pounder planting a tree with James Cameron
Pounder is married to Senegalese anthropologist Boubacar Kone. The couple was married in an African ceremony in Dakar, Senegal and again remarried in Los Angeles, California six months later. Kone is the founder of The Boribana Museum in Dakar, Senegal for the study of cultures of the African diaspora.
Pounder used to own a jewelry shop called Banji Girls with her business partner Conni Marie Brazelton but now she sells jewelry through requests via her website cchpounder.com.
Advocacy[]
As one of the founders of ANSA (Artists for a New South Africa), Pounder has energized awareness of post-apartheid and HIV/AIDS issues. In an interview, she said about the pandemic: "When it's this massive disease, and it's affecting things in five thousand different ways, it requires great strength and power—and there is power in numbers. So we need to involve as many people as we can, like we do with ANSA. I call it my little engine that could. It is a remarkable, tiny organization with a huge outreach. We use actors and artists with the biggest voices so they can use every opportunity to talk about AIDS."
Avatar series[]
Mo'at in Avatar
For the role of the queen-like Mo'at, James Cameron wanted an actress who could convey a powerful, authoritative figure. Although Mo'at could be viewed as a queen, Pounder did not want her to feel like one in a human sense, and she did not want to draw inspiration from any familiar human-like ideas of royalty.[1]
For the sequel, Pounder was not informed if Mo'at would become the sole leader of the tribe due to Eytukan's death, and wondered if the clan would be led by a matriarch. She reprised Mo'at in The Way of Water, and while Mo'at remained the clan's Tsahik, Tarsem became one of the two leaders alongside Mo'at.
Filmography[]
- Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996; direct-to-video)
- Avatar (2009)
- Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
- Avatar 3 (2025)
Trivia[]
- She was originally supposed to work with James Cameron on The Abyss.
External Links[]
- CCH Pounder at the Internet Movie Database