If there is one adjective that can sum up what Megan Follows was not destined to be, it is "unnoticed." How could she be, as the youngest child of Canadian theatre veterans Ted Follows and Dawn Greenhalgh? Nicknamed the Fighting Follows for their recurrent and often public conflicts, the couple would eventually end their marriage in the late 1970s, but not before spawning a rich and stimulating family environment anchored in the exciting life of theatre for their children. The youngest of four, Megan (pronounced "Mee–gan") was born at the Toronto Grace Hospital on the 14th of March, 1968. Along with her three siblings – Edwina, born 1961; Lawrence, born 1963 and Samantha, born 1966 – Megan grew up with parents who juggled family and career, playing theatre across North America, touring with the Canadian Players – a company of theatre pioneers who played Stratford, summer stock, as well as live television – and becoming founding members of many Canadian theatres along the way.

       Megan was thus exposed early on to the world of entertainment and the blurring boundaries between fact and fiction. Describing her parents' passionate career, Megan recalls, "My parents lived, breathed, ate and slept theatre. Emotions were right on the surface. Growing up, the unreal had as much importance as the real." Such an environment nurtured the siblings' resilience and ability to entertain themselves. Edwina choreographed dances to Helen Reddy songs which Samantha and Megan performed, while Lawrence wrote, produced and directed home movies for his sisters to act in. An example of these family movies is Killer Doll, a horror film for which Lawrence remembers Megan displaying early acting dedication. Indeed, to act out his elaborate staging of the doll's deadly dive down the stairs, Lawrence recalls how Megan would "just willingly at the top of the stairs come crashing down at the bottom."

       Despite Megan's initial wish to become an archeologist, her acting career came as a surprise to no one. The first of her siblings to express interest in becoming an actor, she made her professional debut in a Bell Canada commercial at the age of 9, already disregarding expectations and forging her own path. She recounts her “inauspicious” acting debut: “It was a commercial, and we had to make funny faces out of the back of a bus – you know, sticking your tongue out, that sort of thing. Instead, I made a rude gesture, something I would have seen my grandfather do . . . So after my vulgar gesture, the commercial’s director had to cut the cameras and say, ‘Um, no, dear, you can’t actually do that. [The advertiser] Bell Canada’s not going to go for it.’”

       Megan's wish to take the reins rather than let someone else lead the way was granted through work opportunities which luckily came her way. Appearing in a number of TV series such as Matt and Jenny, The Great Detective, The Mating Season, The Baxters and The Littlest Hobo, as well as movies like Clare's Wish, The Olden Days Coat, and Jen's Place, Megan quickly became a recognizable face on the Canadian small screen. However, at the age of 14, Megan made the decision to go south of the border for other opportunities.

       Megan's mother, who began to feel a Canadian backlash of casting directors asking to "Get somebody like Megan Follows but don't get Megan Follows," accompanied her daughter to L.A. in 1982 to search for bigger and different work. Following a role in the Academy Award–winning film Boys and Girls, Megan starred in a special episode of NBC's hit series The Facts of Life, then in its third season, as the cousin of Nancy McKeon's character, Jo. The episode was intended to serve as a pilot for a possible spin–off, tentatively called Jo's Place or After Grace, for which Megan had won the role of Donnelly Rhodes' tomboy teenage daughter. The series was to revolve around Megan's character hitting puberty without a mother and dealing with the strong male presence in her life. Despite Megan's successful guest–starring episode, the series didn't follow through. However, she was afterwards cast as Martin Mull's daughter in the short–lived CBS series Domestic Life in 1984, and in the same year, appeared in the movie adaptation of Stephen King's Silver Bullet with Corey Haim and Gary Busey.

       Still in 1984, Megan starred in the popular TV movie Hockey Night, playing the role of a female goaltender hoping to play on the local boys' team, despite her surroundings' hostile reactions. The movie's later airing in Sweden proved to be so successful that it aired for a second time shortly thereafter, prompting Megan to receive fanmail from the hockey–loving Nordic country. However, this success remains undeniably small next to the international fame Megan's next role brought her.

       After an international search during which producer–director Kevin Sullivan saw more than 3,000 girls hoping to interpret Lucy Maud Montgomery's beloved red–haired orphan, Megan was one of three finalists hoping to star in his movie adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Despite reservations that she was too old for the role, Megan persevered, constantly re–reading the books while auditioning and sticking notes which read "I am Anne of Green Gables" all over her house. On wanting the role, Megan recalls, "I knew the story and, after reading the screenplay, I was really fascinated by the role. I saw how much range there was and what there was to do. I had to do it." Her determination ultimately won her the highly coveted role and she gained instant critical acclaim and eventually, international recognition, for her stunning portrayal. Indeed, few can deny it today: Megan wholly and perfectly became Anne of Green Gables, immersing herself in the demanding character with a passion that radiantly transpired on screen.

       Sullivan's movie was a Canadian classic in the making. Co–starring veteran actors Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth, as well as newcomers Jonathan Crombie and Schuyler Grant, the two–part movie drew 4.2 million viewers on its first night and 5.8 million on its second. To this day, Anne of Green Gables remains the highest–rated drama in Canadian television history. Winning a Gemini Award for her performance in the 1985 movie, as well as in the 1987 sequel, Megan became a Canadian darling, with her claim to fame solidly established. For better or worse, Anne remains Megan's most recognized role, something she has made peace with. On Anne following her throughout her career, she says, "I've totally come to terms with that. It hasn't been a problem for me. It hasn't hindered me to do other work. I'm obviously associated with that and what a great thing to be associated with."

       In the years following Anne of Green Gables' resounding success, Megan continued gaining constant work both in the United States and Canada, successfully balancing televion, film and theatre roles. In the summer of 1986, she shot the feature film Stacking, next to Christine Lahti, and the next year, she began shooting A Time of Destiny, alongside William Hurt and Timothy Hutton. During the same years, she appeared in television movies such as Seasonal Differences and Sin of Innonce with Dermot Mulroney. 1987 saw her prompt return as Anne, this time as a twenty–something schoolteacher in Anne of Avonlea, the sequel to the original movie. After the movie's production wrapped up, the cast and crew watched as Megan burned Anne's corset, saying a definitive goodbye to Anne . . . at least, until the third movie in 2000. In 1988, she made her stage debut at Toronto's then Young People's Theatre in Paul Zindel's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, playing opposite her mother and her sister Samantha, and garnering great reviews for her performance as Matilda.

       That same year, Megan moved from L.A. to Hell's Kitchen, New York, looking for some stage work. She became a member of an experimental young theatre group, committed to writing and performing new plays. The following year, Megan continued to distance herself from Anne by appearing in Termini Station opposite her Anne of Green Gables co-star, Colleen Dewhurst, who played the mother to her character, a prostitute struggling to come to terms with her troubled past and her alcoholic mother. During the same time period, she also appeared in numerous TV movies, such as Cry in the Wild: The Taking of Peggy Ann, The Chase and Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It was on the set of her next feature film, Deep Sleep, that she met her ex-husband and father of her two children, Christopher Porter, a gaffer and a photographer. The couple eloped to Las Vegas and tied the knot on April 27, 1991, eventually divorcing in 1995.

       After returning to Los Angeles and only months after giving birth to her daughter Lyla Ann, Megan accepted the role of Juliet in Stratford's production of Shakespeare's play, which co-starred Antonio Cimolino as Romeo. She would eventually reprise her role in Los Angeles the following year. Three years later, she gave birth to her son, Russell, during a period when she spent a lot of time on the stage. For the next decade, Megan mainly alternated television and theatre roles. She gained positive reviews for her performance as Constanze in Stratford's 1995 production of Amadeus, as well as for her respective roles of Nora and Kate at the 1996 Atlantic Theatre Festival's productions of A Doll's House and She Stoops to Conquer. 1996 turned out to be a special year for Megan, for in addition to these successful stage roles, it was the year she appeared in the Harbourfront Centre production of Seven Lears and met her co-star Stuart Hughes, now her partner.

The following year, Megan continued her successful stage work, starring as Desdemona in both productions of Othello at Edmonton's Citadel Theatre and at Ottawa's National Arts Centre. Meanwhile, her television career also continued to grow as she won the role of one of the lead characters in the CBS series Second Chances (1993-1994), starring Connie Sellecca and a then unknown Jennifer Lopez. The series was unfortunately cancelled during its first season, after only a handful of aired episodes. However, this did not stop Megan from shining elsewhere on the small screen. She gained rave reviews for her role as Rosetta, an autistic young woman, in Under The Piano, co-starring Amanda Plummer and Teresa Stratas. During the next few years, she also appeared in the television movies Major Crime and What Katy Did, and guest-starred on The Outer Limits and Murder, She Wrote. Her next feature film came in 1998, an indie movie called Reluctant Angel, co-starring Jaimz Woolvett and James Gallanders.

       In 2000, Megan revisited the role of Anne Shirley one last time in Sullivan's third Anne movie, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, for which she earned a Gemini nomination. 2000 also saw the beginning of a long succession of guest-starring stints, with Megan playing a wide variety of characters. For example, in the same year, she played the character of a woman accused of murdering her child on Law & Order, the child star Mandy Forward of "Adele of Beaver Creek" – a spoof on Anne of Green Gables – in Made in Canada, and the sister of an outlawed brother on The Fugitive. The following years, Megan appeared on popular series such as ER, The X-Files, CSI, CSI: Miami, Robson Arms, Cold Case and Crossing Jordan. Dividing her time between Los Angeles and Toronto, she also took the time to appear in the feature films Christmas Child and A Foreign Affair, and to shoot a few television movies, such as The Stork Derby, Plainsong, Open Heart, and Shania: A Life in Eight Albums. She received back to back Gemini nominations for her performances in the last two movies.

      In 2001, Megan starred alongside her entire family in the Gravenhurst Opera House production of Noel Coward's play Hay Fever (later remounted in 2003 for Markham Little Theatre). 2005 signaled what would turn out to be her regular return to the stage as a member of the Toronto-based Soulpepper Theatre Company, of which her partner Stuart Hughes is a founding member. She appeared in a production of Sam Shepard's A Fool for Love with Stuart. The next year, she earned positive reviews as Annie in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, playing in both the Ottawa and Toronto productions. In 2007, she took on roles in two Soulpepper plays, Caryl Churchill's Top Girls and Chekhov's Three Sisters, once again earning rave reviews for both productions and earning two Dora Awards nominations. This year, Megan will once again appear in two Soulpepper plays. In the summer, she will star opposite her mother in Marsha Norman's 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama 'night, Mother and at the end of the year, she will reprise her role of Marlene in Soulpepper's 10-year anniversary remounting of last year's Top Girls.

       Her most recent TV credits include the two movie adaptations of Bernice Thurman Hunter's "Booky" series, Booky Makes Her Mark and Booky and the Secret Santa, which notably starred Stuart as her husband. Her most recent feature film is Laurie Lynd's Breakfast with Scot, starring Tom Cavanagh, Ben Shenkman and Noah Bennett, in which she makes a cameo.

       Needless to say, Megan's prolific career continues to thrive and enchant both critics and fans. Here's to her prolonged, continued success.

Written by DV.
Last updated: June 23, 2008