Page 85 - AVN August 2020

“I realized I had such a passion in me for
doing sexual performance.”
Maitland Ward wanted to experiment—but she did not expect fanfare would follow in the way it did.
No stranger to being asked to leave ComicCon for too revealing of a costume or getting kicked off
Instagram and Snapchat for “little infractions like the shadow of my nipple,” Ward ventured deeper
into exploring her sexuality.
“And people wanted to see and I wanted to have them see,” Ward recalls. “And then it kind of—it
just evolved. It really evolved the whole way.”
Did it ever.
The seasoned mainstream actress from Long Beach, Calif., best known for her role as Rachel
McGuire on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World more than two decades ago, in less than a year
went all in with porn performing, became the face of an emerging brand, co-starred in a high-stakes
feature and won three AVN Awards in January at the 37th annual ceremony in Las Vegas.
Few performers in the modern era of adult have made as big an impact on the market in such
a short time.
“I realized I had such a passion in me for doing sexual performance,” Ward tells AVN. “I don’t
know where it came from.”
The reigning Best Supporting Actress, whose sensational performance as a shadowy mystic/
Domme in Drive helped lift the movie to the 2020 Best Drama award, also took home trophies for
Favorite Camming Cosplayer—a fan-voted honor—and Best Three-way Sex Scene - Girl/Girl/Boy for
her liaison with six-time AVN Male Performer of the Year Manuel Ferrara and Ivy Lebelle in Drive. The
title was the first feature produced by two-time Director of the Year Kayden Kross’s Deeper.
com imprint, which was launched by Vixen Media Group in April 2019.
“Maitland and I connect first and foremost over a shared appreciation for writing,” Kross tells
AVN. “She read the screenplay for Drive and saw it for what I intended it to be. Physically, the
combination of her flaming red hair and ice-blue eyes and incredible stature are arresting and
intimidating and a little mysterious, which I loved for the character.
“But it was the way she immediately just understood all of the layers that every line was supposed
to speak to when her character spoke that sold it.”
Ever since Ward started a naughty Patreon page in 2018 that rocketed to No. 1 in the adult
category, it’s been apparent that her foray into more explicit fare is must-see TV. She says when
she first considered doing racier content she wasn’t sure “if people are going want to buy it.”
“I thought maybe they enjoyed it on Snapchat and Instagram but I wanted to do more nude stuff
and Playboy-eque—and definitely sexier cosplay,” says Ward, who also is known for her first acting
role as Jessica Forrester on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful from 1994-96.
M A I T L A N D W A R D | 8 . 2 0 | A V N . C O M 8 5