Mary McDonnell is an American actress, best known for Donnie Darko, Independence Day, Passion Fish, and Dances with Wolves. Other film credits include Margin Call, Scream 4, Mumford, Mariette in Ecstasy, Blue Chips, Sneakers, Grand Canyon, Matewan, and Garbo Talks.

Television credits include Sharon Ryder on TNT’s Major Crimes/The Closer and President Laura Roslinon Sci-Fi's Battlestar Galactica.

Theatre credits include her Broadway debut as Mary Ann White in Execution of Justice (Virginia Theatre), Heidi Holland in The Heidi Chronicles (Plymouth Theatre), and Alma Winemiller in Summer and Smoke (Criterion Center Stage); and Off-Broadway, as Sharon in Three Ways Home and Nessa in A Weekend Near Madison (Astor Place Theatre), Simon Engel in Black Angel (Circle Repertory), Shelly in Buried Child (Lucille Lortel/Circle Theatres), and Mary Alice in The Death of a Miner, Sylvia in Letters Home, and her OBIE Award-winning performance as Cheryl in Still Life (American Place Theatre).