Polley embarrassed by Avonlea

Post by **Timothy** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:39 am

Polley again is bashing Avonlea...

Excerpts:

From TV starlet to director, via a road less travelled
The Globe and Mail By Leah McLaren

TORONTO -- "No one should have to go through puberty in a period costume," says Sarah Polley, fixing her interviewer with an unnerving, blue gaze that makes it almost impossible to tell whether she's joking. She cracks a smile and the clouds part. "It's really embarrassing."

As she sits in the Café Diplomatico, in Toronto's west end, there is little of the crinoline-clad child star Canadians came to know in the '90s. Tiny and unmade-up in jeans and hooded sweatshirt, Ms. Polley is contemplating her transition from CBC Television's petticoat-sporting darling on Road to Avonlea to full-grown writer/director.

At the not-so-ancient age of 27, she has just completed her first feature film. Away From Her, starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent, will have its gala opening at the Toronto International Film Festival next week. Critics are already humming with delight over the film, which promises to catapult the ever-beyond-her-years actress/director to the first tier of Canadian filmmakers her first time out.

Still, Ms. Polley doubts it will entirely change the way Canada -- or the Canadian film industry -- sees her.

"I've been working since I was so young, I think in a way people will always see me as a child actor. I'm so used to it I'd probably be alarmed if people just started treating me like an adult."

...Today, she lives in a modest house in downtown Toronto with her husband, film editor David Wharnsby, who also worked on the film. Ms. Polley's life is defiantly un-Hollywood. She rarely travels, except for work, and her income as a director is, she says, "not as luxurious as an actor's, but comfortable compared to all those people who do jobs they hate."

If it is a strange thing to watch a person grow up in the public eye, one can only wonder at how strange it would be to actually be that person. Imagine if your adolescent angst -- and subsequent rebellion -- made news?

That's what it was like for Ms. Polley, who spent much of her childhood filming Road To Avonlea.

"The crinoline years were not good years," she concedes. "I had signed on to a contract I couldn't get out of. All I wanted to do was go to school."

SIX FACES OF SARAH POLLEY

CANADA'S LITTLE SWEETHEART

A prepubescent Polley is

contracted for seven long years

in the early 1990s as Sara Stanley in The Road to Avonlea.

A DISENCHANTED ADOLESCENT

Polley as an angry young white

supremacist in the 1998 TV movie White Lies.

INDIE BEGINNINGS

Polley plays Sister Sarah in Clement Virgo's Love Come Down (2000).

THE ART HOUSE IT-GIRL

Polley plays Margaret in Peter

Wellington's Luck (2003).

HOLLYWOOD PAYDAY

Polley pays off some debts as Ana in the 2004 zombie action thriller Dawn of the Dead.

THE WRITER/DIRECTOR

On the set of Away From Her,

working alongside director of

photography Luc Montpellier.

Source

Shelly · Post by **Shelly** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:36 pm

Which, once again, she has every right to do, whether one agrees with her or not.

Post by **Timothy** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:23 am

No one said she didn't have a right. I question why she had initially agreed to attend ROM and bask in the glory of Road to Avonlea when she thinks that the series is horrible and an embarrassment?

sweetheart · Post by **sweetheart** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 8:56 am

Well i guess i can totally understand why she felted like that,it must be very hard to grow up in the bussin.....

Shinnen · Post by **Shinnen** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 9:19 am

I'm going to be eighteen this year, and I don't think the series is 'a horrible little kids show'. I think she looked lovely in those costumes; every now and then people enjoy dressing up as people from the past (although I know she had to dress up a lot for the show) and I always have fun looking at historical outfits.
Well, that's my two cents

.

sweetheart · Post by **sweetheart** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:45 am

Nope it sure was not,RTA was a great show.

Georgiana · Post by **Georgiana** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:29 pm

Shinnen wrote:I'm going to be eighteen this year, and I don't think the series is 'a horrible little kids show'. I think she looked lovely in those costumes; every now and then people enjoy dressing up as people from the past (although I know she had to dress up a lot for the show) and I always have fun looking at historical outfits.
Well, that's my two cents .

So do I.

Post by **Timothy** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:40 am

Georgiana wrote:
Shinnen wrote:I'm going to be eighteen this year, and I don't think the series is 'a horrible little kids show'. I think she looked lovely in those costumes; every now and then people enjoy dressing up as people from the past (although I know she had to dress up a lot for the show) and I always have fun looking at historical outfits.
Well, that's my two cents .
So do I.

Sarah could have said "I think my contract was horrible." When she called the series horrible, she basically called the acting of her co-stars horrible (Jackie, Mag, etc...)

Shinnen · Post by **Shinnen** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:19 am

Right; she did have other people working with her, so she has nothing to be embarassed about (also with Avonlea's fanbase!). Her co-stars are being polite to their fans if they feel the same way.

Georgiana · Post by **Georgiana** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 5:03 am

Shinnen wrote:Right; she did have other people working with her, so she has nothing to be embarassed about (also with Avonlea's fanbase!).

I agree.

sweetheart · Post by **sweetheart** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:02 am

Yeah,I agree too.

sweetheart · Post by **sweetheart** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 11:04 am

So is that the reason why sarah left RTA for the last 2 seasons?? Or was it becuz she wan't to do movies ??

Post by **Timothy** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:06 pm

sweetheart wrote:So is that the reason why sarah left RTA for the last 2 seasons?? Or was it becuz she wan't to do movies ??

According to her comments in the article, she wanted to go to school and big bad Sullivan Entertainment was keeping her from this:

"The crinoline years were not good years," she concedes. "I had signed on to a contract I couldn't get out of. All I wanted to do was go to school."

I was just about to get teary eyed when I remembered an article, stating that she had dropped out of school at 16 to pursue political activism:

Polley who has been known to speak her mind and has acted since the age of 4. She moved out at 14 and dropped out of high school at 16 years of age to devote her time to political activism.
Source

I guess she didn't want to go to school that badly.

sweetheart · Post by **sweetheart** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 10:52 am

wow...Why would she droup out of school,if she wanted to go to school so badly,I don't understand that...Unless she drouped out cuz he would't let her out.!!!!

Georgiana · Post by **Georgiana** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 12:36 pm

It all is rather confusing