The Gazette - August 5, 1995

"Megan Follows goes home to Stratford"
Pat Donnelly

To many of us, Megan Follows will forever be Anne, spelled with an "e," a fiery little red-haired girl who lived in a house named Green Gables dreamed up by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The Anne of Green Gables series was first aired on CBC television in November 1985. The reruns are frequent and the videos are still available, but real life has flashed forward. Follows, who began playing Anne at the age of 17, is now a grownup married woman and the mother of two.

This summer, she's living in Stratford, Ont., where she's portraying Constanze Weber, the wife of Mozart, in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival.

This will be her second Stratford season. She played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the festival three years ago. "It's the greatest place to work if you have children," Follows, looking as youthful as Anne Shirley, said during a recent interview at festival headquarters. "The hours in the theatre are possible. Not easy. But possible."

Anne of Green Gables fans aren't the only ones who have trouble with the idea of Follows growing up. She's having trouble seeing herself as a mature adult, too. "Sometimes I think, `Oh my God, I'm a mother now!' "

That's why she appreciates having her own mother, Dawn Greenhalgh, at Stratford this summer. A grandmother within shouting distance is a great comfort to anyone adjusting to life with a pair of pre- schoolers. Follows's son is one year old. Her daughter is 31/2.

And the town itself is a comfort, too. Follows did some of her own growing up at Stratford, in the early days, when both her parents worked at the festival. Her mother was recruited right out of the Montreal High School for Girls' graduating class to perform in Stratford's first season in 1953.

Five years later, she and fellow actor Ted Follows became the first theatrical couple to get married at Stratford. They continued to act with the company for many years.

Greenhalgh is understudying Martha Henry in Long Day's Journey Into Night this season. This isn't the first time Follows and Greenhalgh have worked for the same theatre company. They once played mother and daughter in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds at Young People's Theatre in Toronto.

Follows firmly believes it's possible to be an actor and a good parent. After all, her parents managed it, with four kids. "It was actually quite commendable because we always lived in one house in Toronto.

"I grew up there and went to school there. My parents worked but often one would go away and the other stayed home. They were exchanging a lot. During the summers we would often go off with them, when they worked in Stratford, or in Montreal."

Follows has fond memories of Montreal. She actually got her start in show business here, at the age of 8, as a miniature con artist.

"My brother Laurence and my sister Samantha and I used to go down to the metro station," she recalled, "and they would get me to tell people that I'd lost my money and that I needed money to get on the train to go home. I think it cost a dime, at that point, for a child to get on the train. Then, when we got the money, we would go to one of those photo booths, the ones with the black-and-white photos, and we would get our pictures taken. We thought this was just great."

But one day, Megan's luck ran out. She gave her usual lost-waif story to a woman who insisted on escorting her home. "She grabbed my hand and put me on the train." To the horror of her brother and sister, Megan disappeared into the distance. Fortunately, she escaped a couple of stops later and made her way back.

"I was the youngest," Follows said. "My brother set me up for all kinds of things."

Growing up in the Follows family made acting an obvious career choice for Megan. "I've been around theatre all my life." But there was a time when she wanted to become an archeologist. Only things just didn't work out that way. Her two sisters, Edwina and Samantha, took up acting, too. Laurence Follows is now a highly successful producer. His company recently brought Forever Plaid to Montreal.

Megan started working as an actress when she was 9. By the age of 11 she was steadily employed. At 16 she starred in the CBC film Hockey Night, about a girl determined to play hockey on a guys' team. Then along came Anne of Green Gables. She was chosen from among 3,000 aspiring Annes.

The series has opened a lot of doors for Follows, who now lives mostly in Los Angeles, where her husband, Chris Porter, works as a "gaffer," or head electrician, in the film business. "I've gotten some great work down there. But it's a very different environment," she said. "It's kind of like switching gears."

After working on film and television sets, rehearsing at Stratford is like gearing down. Follows can't get over "the luxury of having days to figure out what you're doing." To her, working with an experienced director like Richard Monette and performing in elegant period costumes, alongside the likes of Brian Bedford, as Salieri, and Stephen Ouimette, as Mozart, is a treat.

As a working professional, she appreciates the backup given by people like Stratford voice coach Ann Skinner. "Much is expected of one here. One needs to speak well and to be heard. It's a learning opportunity. You're getting paid and you're getting classes at the same time."

Stratford actors even get assistance with researching their characters. Studying up on Constanze Mozart convinced Follows that she was "an outrageous, saucy lady." Both the Mozarts were "very childlike," she has concluded.

Performing live at Stratford may be an enriching experience for Follows, "but you can do incredible things on television, too," she said. Especially if you're working with Anne of Green Gables producer-director Kevin Sullivan.

"I just worked for Mr. Sullivan again," Follows said, "in a film called Under the Piano, with Amanda Plummer and Teresa Stratas. They're putting it together right now. It's about two sisters, Amanda and myself, and I have autism. I'm an autistic savant. She's an advocate for her sister at a time when there was no understanding of what autism was and no support for the family. It's based on a true story."

What does Follows want to do next? "As a mother of two small children, I take it one day at a time. Having children gives you a completely different set of goals. And it puts everything into perspective. Just going through a day where you've actually gotten the kids up and made their food ready and everybody has eaten and dressed and they're OK and you've read them a story and you've gone for a walk and you've fed the dog - to achieve all of that with a relative amount of peace is an accomplishment."

Source: The Gazette