Megan Follows supports any superlative so far applied to her. She is a total natural and well entitled to the success that surely awaits her.

   Follows is superb at both sides of the spectrum. In the early sequences, she performs comic wonders on her precociously inflated dialogue ("My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes"), making the lines seem funny yet not ridiculous, unlikely yet not unnatural. Later, when the girlish smocks give way to the stylish gowns, she blooms as convincingly as a confident deb at a coming-out ball. The lens loves her and so do we - this young lady is quicksilver on the small screen.

   Her emotional range, from the tragic through to the eccentric, is breathtaking. On a single location we have her do as many as five age changes. It will be a showpiece of what she can do. She's thought of as a contemporary actor, but this is a period piece, about an eccentric kid. It will be her big performance.

   Megan (Follows, who played Anne), is absolutely the most adorable girl that you'd ever want to meet. She is just a perfect professional. She's always right there, knows absolutely everything she is supposed to know. And she's a darling backstage; she's not some twit who's realized she's got a lead in a hit and whatnot. To ring the variety of changes in that role - she's fabulous. I think she's going to be a huge star. And she's as pretty as a picture. She's just got it all.

   Follows never falters in her portrayal of Anne. She has spent virtually half her young life as a professional actress and it shows. No matter how corny the line, how contrived the scene or how heated the behind-the-scenes squabbles between Sullivan and the CBC, Follows stays in character to the tip of her turned-up nose. It is a pleasure simply to watch such professionalism.

   Director [Allan] King says simply that 'Megan is a wonderful actress, the best of her age in the country'.

   Megan, when we first see her, is sitting on the floor preparing cards for her school project, a study of irradiated marigold seeds. She is so intently buried in the reality of the character that you hardly recognize her at first, seeing only a 13-year-old child, careless of her appearance, bony knees protruding from a short skirt, hair fly-away, absorbed in sorting and writing.

   It's a big leap from TV chatter-box to tongue-tied science student, but Megan Follows has accomplished the transformation from bubbly Anne of Green Gables with exceeding grace in her first professional stage appearance. As her mouthy on-stage mother puts it, 'Some people were born to speak and others were born to listen. 'Follows, as the bright but repressed Matilda in Paul Zindel's award-winning play The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, is a listener. And she does it enchantingly - her narrow, chalky face reflecting every tiny joy, her fear of a boozy, outlandishly free-wheeling mother, and her gentle love for the doomed pet rabbit Peter.

   'She's absolutely beautiful,' says handsome Antoni Cimolino, following a rehearsal as Follows's star-crossed lover in Romeo and Juliet . . 'She just beams, she becomes Juliet,' Cimolino adds. 'When she's on that balcony, let me tell you, she's just gorgeous.'

   And Megan Follows discovers an unexpected level of emotional truth in her portrayal of Mozart's childlike wife, Constanze.

   [Rosetta] is a provocative character trait within a compelling character drama. This is partly the result of Blair Ferguson's sensitive script, but most of the credit goes to Follows, whose stunning performance brings a complex humanity to a character who otherwise might have been only a dramatic device.

   As the mother who was axed from history, Megan Follows is an inspired bit of casting. Well known in Canada as a child actor for playing the title role in "Anne of Green Gables," Follows has matured into a serious talent whose work here is exemplary. She emerges as the strongest force onstage, a child bride deprived of innocence and grown into the inflexible bearer of unbearable truths that must be excised from history. Perhaps it's no coincidence that costume designer Charlotte Dean has dressed Follows in a medieval get-up reminiscent of Joan of Arc.

   At any given moment Megan Follows as Nora commands the stage. She is charmingly capricious, with the tunnel vision of undeviating self-absorption, in the first three-quarters of the play, and after her thunderclap conversion she rebuilds herself with an inquisitive honesty, taking nothing on trust.

   In an industry that casts women not by talent but by millimetres, Megan Follows represents more than just beauty. Strength, intelligence and a fearlessness to control her own destiny--hopping from the mega-hierarchy of the Stratford Festival to independent films, documentaries-- Follows has never rested on her laurels.

   Megan Follows plays Myra, the calculating visitor invited by Simon, but with a lightly suggested lesbian interest in Sorel and a mercenary interest in the wealthy father. Of the four siblings, she is clearly the one with stellar presence and authority in this kind of drawing-room setting. She hits every drawling syllable at exactly the right moment and displays herself to advantage in doorways and on staircase landings.

   This is one of the bravest, most searing performances in a made-for-TV movie in a long while, and there are moments so heartfelt, as when a small girl, placed in her care, gently kisses her on the cheek, that they're practically heartbreaking. Never mind glossy trash like ER. If you want genuine insight into the working life of a scrub nurse on medicine's front lines, watch Follows in Open Heart instead.

   Without a doubt, Megan Follows is one of the finest actors I've everworked with. She has an amazing range and is nuanced and subtle but can be funny and silly too. Her performance is so remarkable--compelling, riveting, emotional engaging, so real. Megan is smart, and it shows in her work.

   Megan Follows delivers yet another solid performance as Twain's mom - it's impossible to imagine Follows delivering a single sour note these days, no matter what she plays.

   It's hard to think of a better choice for Marlene's ball-breaking executive than Follows. For sure, this luminous stage and screen actor plays steely disturbingly well, but few can rival her in those moments when the mask falls off and the tears come out. This is why her Marlene is not a spokeswoman for a generation but a complex human being who transcends time and gender.