"Megan Follows Unable To Shake Plucky Anne Shirley"
John McKay

But now the former young heroine gets to play moms, as in this new CBC drama.

Although she will likely forever be linked in the public's mind to TV's Anne of Green Gables, Megan Follows is stubbornly reluctant to be defined by her performance as the plucky, iconic Anne Shirley.

She has slid comfortably into diverse adult roles in recent years -- in both Canada and Hollywood. And yet there are inescapable echoes of the Anne experience in much of her new work.

Follows has been nominated for a Gemini for her role as the mother of another spunky youngster in the recent Shania Twain TV movie, Shania: A Life in Eight Albums. And in her latest project, Booky Makes Her Mark, she is once again a mom, this time dispensing parental wisdom to a teenage daughter who aspires to be a writer in Depression-era Toronto.

The film, airing tonight on CBC-TV, is based on a trilogy of popular novels by renowned children's fiction writer Bernice Thurman Hunter that feature young Booky Thomson, a character based largely on Hunter's own childhood.

Follows says it hasn't been difficult for her to make the transition from playing young heroines to playing their mothers, partly because she has a teenage daughter of her own.

Surprisingly, though, 14-year-old Lyla is not especially enamoured with Anne Shirley.

Her mother isn't sure Lyla has read the books and didn't show her the videos.

Instead it was friends from school that first played them for her.

"It wasn't one that I was pulling out," explains Follows. "I'd certainly been saturated with it."

And she says it was purely coincidental that Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery makes an appearance in Booky Makes Her Mark in a scene in which the author is seen offering some advice to would-be author Booky.

"It's in the book," Follows says defensively. "Trust me, do you think I would have put that in there?"

And then there's the fact that both Anne of Green Gables and Booky Makes Her Mark had the same screenwriter, Joe Wiesenfeld.

Follows says, though, that there's been no need to offer advice to the aspiring young actresses she's worked with lately, especially Tatiana Maslany (of the TV show RenegadePress.com) who delivers an endearing performance as Booky.

"She's wonderful, I was really impressed, " says Follows. "Just the professionalism and the work ethic. And those are certainly things that when I was growing up were extremely important to me and I think also to my parents in the way one behaved.

"This was something that you felt privileged to be having a chance to do as a young performer and you showed up prepared and you did your work."

In the story, set in a squalid industrial area of Toronto circa 1936, young Booky wins a newspaper essay contest and is quickly swept away with her initial success as a writer. While her parents struggle to make ends meet, even to put food on the table, Booky's self-centred attitude begins to alienate friends and family, until her mother tries to navigate the difficult course between bringing her daughter down to earth and not squelching her dreams of success as a creative talent.

"Believe in yourself but know your faults," Booky is told. Naturally it proves emotionally devastating for her, at first.

Again, having an adolescent daughter of her own helped Follows appreciate the situation.

"Everything impacts them hugely and everything is taken terribly personally. I mean that is the fun thing, the journey of Booky, because she loses sight of something.

"There's definitely the element with the mother, the pragmatist, that part that wants to protect the daughter from how big that fall's going to be when she falls. But at the same time recognizing that spirit in the kid."

Follows also got to play opposite to her real-life partner Stuart Hughes, as Booky's parents. The actress says it was director Peter Moss who wanted an actual couple in the roles. Did it work?

"It was great," says Follows. "There's definitely a shorthand."

Source: Edmonton Journal