The Globe and Mail - December 21, 1995

"Research aided Follows in new role; Actress studied behaviour of autistic savants to play film character"

Research aided Follows in new role Actress studied behaviour of autistic savants to play film character

It's the same tilted head, wringing of hands, shuffling walk, middle- distance stare, and repetitive, monotone voice.

But Megan Follows isn't worried people will compare her performance as an autistic savant with Dustin Hoffman's famous Rain Man.

Follows is part of a powerhouse trio of actresses starring in Under the Piano, a Sullivan Entertainment film premiering on CBC-TV next month (Jan. 7).

Along with Amanda Plummer and opera soprano Teresa Stratas, they tell the story of Rosetta, a handicapped girl torn between a domineering, poisonous mother who tries to inhibit her daughter's development, and a loving sister who wants to nurture the savant side of Rosetta's mind.

Like Hoffman, Follows met and studied real autistic savants for her role, including an elderly woman from Boston who was the real-life inspiration for the script's character.

But she insists that while the American actor did an "amazing job" in his 1988 film, her take on the disability was different.

"I wouldn't say I felt the need to embellish or change (the role) based on his performance as being the ultimate of something," she says.

The diminutive redheaded actress, known to most Canadians for her Anne of Green Gables miniseries of a decade ago, concedes she had some misgivings about tackling the Rosetta role at first.

For her, the challenge would be playing a character who could not express emotion.

"What I learned through the process wasn't that there was any less emotion," she says. "It was just a different means of expressing the same things that you or I or anybody else might feel."

Under the Piano is the latest in a varied string of performances Follows has attempted over the years after the Anne Shirley part that gained her worldwide fame.

Source: The Globe and Mail