The Gazette - May 30, 1992

"Megan Follows: from Anne to Juliet"
Rod Currie

Megan Follows - TV's Anne of Green Gables turned Shakespeare's Juliet - arrives for an interview with her 4- month-old daughter Lyla in her arms.

Neither has a whole lot to say.

Megan Porter Follows - her billing for her first big Shakespearean role - is a new mom in a demanding assignment, but she gives every sign of accepting the challenge in her cool, almost shyly undramatic manner.

What makes it possible, says Follows, who looks not much more than a freckle-faced kid herself, is Christopher Porter.

"My husband is the best," she emphasizes in a burst of enthusiasm. "I could not be here without his support."

In person, the 24-year-old Follows looks like neither the gingery, gabby Anne Shirley of the Lucy Maud Montgomery novel nor Romeo's tragic Juliet. She's petite and pale, her mid-blonde hair long and straight, with nothing theatrical about her rehearsal clothes - a bulky sweater and jeans.

If you passed her on Ontario St., Stratford's main thoroughfare, you'd probably not glance twice.

But in performance, everything changes.

"She's absolutely beautiful," says handsome Antoni Cimolino, following a rehearsal as Follows's star-crossed lover in Romeo and Juliet, opening at the main Festival Theatre on Tuesday.

"She just beams, she becomes Juliet," Cimolino adds. "When she's on that balcony, let me tell you, she's just gorgeous."

Stratford is familiar territory to Follows, who used to spend summers in the town as a kid with her theatrical family. Her mother, Dawn Greenhalgh, was in Stratford's first season; her dad, Ted Follows, worked at Stratford with his wife in the 1960s and '70s.

Megan (she pronounces it Meegan) began performing at age 9 in a TV commercial. But, aside from the Anne Shirley role, her acting assignments have been sporadic.

She met Porter, a native of Chester, N.S., who is in his early 30s, while both were working in Vancouver on the feature film Deep Sleep. They married a year ago.

He's a film technician, lighting designer, occasional househusband in Stratford and is doing some writing and photography.

"He's also my best friend."

The couple had just bought a hilltop house near Los Angeles, hoping to score in the Hollywood entertainment industry, when Follows got a call from Stratford director Richard Monette asking if she would consider Juliet.

Although Follows was pregnant, she was anxious to ease out of the Anne of Green Gables mold and thought it was a great idea.

"As it turned out, everything worked out well."

She had studied Juliet years previously when she auditioned for a production of the play elsewhere, but didn't land the role.

"It's funny how a part will come around at the right time, when you're ready, emotionally and otherwise, to play it."

Source: The Gazette