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| Sarah Polley |
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“I think you have to keep your distance from mainstream Hollywood in order to be a normal human being. I mean, I work there, and I like being there, but I love having an anonymous life. I think there’s definitely such a thing as being too famous.”
| Date of Birth: January 8, 1979 |
| Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
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| Sarah Polley first became famous as a child star on the TV show Road to Avonlea in Canada. But she has long since built a reputation as an actress in The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Go (1999) and Dawn of the Dead (2004), and as a director in Away from Her (2006). |
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| She has the talent to keep us glued to the movie screen, and the looks to make any movie she’s starring in a pleasure to watch. For us, Sarah’s wit and independence are just icing on an already delicious cake. |
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Sarah Polley was born on January 8, 1979, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is the youngest of five children, and her parents, Michael and Diane Polley, were both in their mid-40s when she was born. Sarah’s parents worked in show business, and her older brother, Mark, was already an actor when Sarah was growing up. At her insistence, Sarah’s parents arranged for her to take acting parts as early as age 4. She debuted in the Disney movie One Magic Christmas (1985), and had a number of film roles in the late 1980s, culminating with a lead in Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).
Sarah became a huge star in Canada when, in 1989, she was cast as the young Sara Stanley on the TV show Road to Avonlea, set in turn-of-the-century Prince Edward Island. Garnering ratings even greater than Hockey Night in Canada, Road to Avonlea was picked up for American distribution on the Disney Channel under the shorter title Avonlea.
Sarah clashed with Disney executives when, during an awards dinner, she spoke out against the first Gulf War, and was reportedly blackballed by Disney afterward. But Sarah was already tiring of Road to Avonlea, which she later called a “sugary sweet horrible kid’s show,” and left in 1994; the series was cancelled the following season.
Independently wealthy from Avonlea, Sarah had a controversial adolescence. She acted onstage at Canada’s Stratford Festival, but had to bow out for surgery to correct scoliosis. Sarah’s mother died of cancer when she was 11, and when Sarah was 14, she moved out of her father’s house in rural Ontario to live with an older man in Toronto. Sarah quit school and acting to become a full-time activist for socialist causes. In 1995, she even lost a few teeth when protestors and police clashed at an anti-government rally.
Sarah’s return to acting came when Atom Egoyan, who directed her in Exotica (1994), cast her to play a lead in The Sweet Hereafter (1997). Originally, Sarah thought it would be a one-off role, but it soon gave her a renewed interest in film. It also proved to be her breakout role for American audiences, and critics on both sides of the border hailed her now-mature talent. Sarah continued to appear in Canadian films like Don McKellar’s Last Night (1998) and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999), while taking roles in American movies like Guinevere (1999) and Go (1999).
Sarah was cast to play the lead in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000); when she felt uncomfortable in the role and left the project, co-star Brad Pitt quit too, and Crowe nearly cancelled the film. Not regretting leaving a potentially star-making role, Sarah returned to Canada to star in The Law of Enclosures (2000) and direct a short film, Don’t Think Twice (1999), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. She attended the Canadian Film Centre’s Director’s Lab in 2001, and made another short film, I Shout Love (2001).
Meanwhile, Sarah continued to act in unconventional films. These included Kathryn Bigelow’s The Weight of Water (2000), Michael Winterbottom’s The Claim (2000), Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing (2001), and Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me (2003). She married editor David Wharnsby in 2003, and the next year, she starred in Dawn of the Dead, taking the role in the studio zombie movie because of its anti-consumerism allegory. After dealing with more monsters in Beowulf & Grendel (2005), Sarah returned to the director’s chair to make Away from Her (2006), starring Julie Christie. |
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© George Pimentel
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