Sarah Polley

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Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley (born January 8, 1979, in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress, singer and film director. She has starred in such films as Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997) (she also contributed several songs as lead vocalist), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), My Life Without Me (2003), and Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).

Polley is the youngest of five children born to Michael Polley, a British-born actor (he attended acting classes with Albert Finney in England before moving to Canada), and actress and casting director Diane Polley, who died of cancer just before Sarah's 11th birthday. Though she was a brilliant student^{[citation needed]}, she did not graduate from Earl Haig Secondary School.

Her first cinematic appearance was at the age of 4, in the role of Molly in Disney's film One Magic Christmas. At age eight, she was cast in the title role in the television series Ramona, based on Beverly Cleary's books. Though the series lasted but one season, Polley burst into the public eye the following year as Sara Stanley on the popular CBC television series Road to Avonlea, produced by Kevin Sullivan. The series made her famous and financially independent, and she was hailed as "Canada's Sweetheart" by the popular press.

After seven years with the program, she became irate over the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the U.S., eventually dropping out of the show. A short time later, the show itself was canceled (to which she publicly claimed indifference), although she did return as Sara Stanley for the final episode.

Her disenchantment with Disney was rooted in an incident during the Gulf War, when she was invited by Disney to appear at a Children's Awards Show in Washington, D.C. The 12-year-old Polley wore a peace symbol to the event, refusing requests from producers to take if off. She has reportedly been blacklisted by Disney since then.

Following the row with Disney, Polley dedicated more of her efforts to left-wing politics, becoming a prominent member of the New Democratic Party, where Ontario legislator Peter Kormos was said to be her political mentor. Financially independent by the age of 14, in 1993 the young maverick left home to live with a man nearly 20 years her senior in her own house. (Of the situation, she now says her father probably should have stopped her.)

In 1995, she lost several teeth to riot police while protesting against the Provincial Conservative government of Mike Harris in Queen's Park, Toronto. ^{[citation needed]} She was subsequently involved with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Not wanting to be seen stealing the spotlight, she has recently scaled back on her political activism but remains one of the most engaged young actors in North America.

After the Toronto incident she returned to acting, and her role in The Sweet Hereafter (1997) brought her considerable attention in the United States; she was a fan favorite at the Sundance Film Festival.

She was cast in the role of Penny Lane in the big-budget film Almost Famous, but dropped out of the project to return to Canada for the low-budget The Law of Enclosures.

In 2003, she was part of newly-elected Toronto mayor David Miller's transition advisory team, and that September she married David Wharnsby, with whom she had been involved a total of seven years. "My relationship is the thing I'm proudest of in my life. I had a lot of opportunities to end up in some pretty bad situations and, despite all my faults, I had the sense to find someone like him and make the decision to be with him. You spend a lot of time wanting to be with the wrong person and I just feel incredibly lucky because I've succeeded at that one thing. I figured that out."

She made her feature-length film directing debut with Away From Her, based on the Alice Munro short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain. The movie, starring her sometime co-star Julie Christie, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2006 as part of the TIFF's Gala showcase. The movie drew rave revues from Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, and the three Toronto dailies, both for the performances of Christie and her co-star, Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, and for Polley's direction.

Many movie reviewers were startled that such a young director could create such a thorough and empathetic understanding of a couple in their 60s and 70s who had been married for more than 40 years. Polley credited her two stars, Christie and Pinsent, for helping her better understand the dynamics of a long-term marriage, and she also praised Atom Egoyan for mentoring her. She has said that though she will continue acting, directing is now her top priority.

"Away From Her" was acquired by Lionsgate for release in the United States for the sum of $750,000. The distributor, which plans to release the film in the spring of 2007, is expected to launch a major campaign for Academy Award nominations, for Christie's performance and for Polley as writer-director.