Ward, born on September 24, 1969, in Los Angeles, California, was the youngest of four siblings, and her parents were both professional actors and acting coaches. When Ward was four years old, the family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. At the age of nine, she began doing commercials for local department stores. In her early teens, she went to Japan for modeling jobs and stayed for several years. Having previously learned to speak the language from her schooling in Hawaii, she landed a job hosting a Japanese television show, "Science Q," a science TV program broadcast in NHK from 1988 to February 1989.