"The Importance Of Being Anne"
Matthew Hays

Megan Follows on Reluctant Angel and her return to Green Gables

Megan Follows plays identity crisis to a T. In her latest film, Reluctant Angel, she plays a young artist who partakes in rather sick, psycho S&M mindgames with her con artist, petty criminal boyfriend. The two stumble along in a terrifically dysfunctional manner until they happen upon a drunk, who Follows decides to help out. Her friendship with the suicidal alcoholic soon sets off one of the strangest relationship triangles in movie history.

"This was certainly a difficult character to play," says Follows from her Nova Scotia home. "She's fooling an awful l ot of people, but mainly herself. You're playing a concept, and you can't really play a concept; you have to figure out how all of that manifests itself. I could have played a lot of her insecurity as anger, but anger gets boring after a while."

Despite Reluctant Angel's darker moments, Follows also exhibits her canny comic flare in the role. "I love to do comedy--which is harder to pull off than drama, quite frankly. It's a ball to do, but it also requires a lot of thinking."

While plugging her new movie, Follows is now also talking about her return to the role which made her world famous, Anne of Green Gables. Despite the fact that the role made Follows Canada's sweetheart, she says she doesn't for an instant resent being pegged as Anne of Green Gables now and forever.

"I made a choice after the sequel that I would do Termini Station, something entirely different [a film in which Follows played a bitter teen prostitute.] I was nominated for a Genie for that.

"The role of Anne didn't come easily, I really had to fight for it. Anne was really a difficult character to play--she was huge. With the work that I've done since, I think what I've proven to myself and to others as well is that what I am is an actor, which is what I've always really wanted."

In the years since her notorious turns as Anne, Follows has spent much of her time onstage, receiving raves for roles in the plays of a wide range of playwrights, from Shakespeare to Ibsen. She has also done TV guest appearances in shows like Outer Limits.

Follows begins the next Anne of Green Gables shoot late this September. Set during World War I, Follows reports that the latest miniseries based on L. M. Montgomery's books will be "a big, sprawling epic."

Did Follows have any trepidation about heading back into Green Gables' fabled territory? "I'm really looking forward to it. I think there's potential for a lot of humour, which I'm really going to enjoy.

"I guess it's always funny to go back to something. The point is to go back but not to go back, to do something that completely stands on its own."

Source: Montreal Mirror