AVC: Did anyone in the film industry help out or teach you?
SP: Well, I made a couple of shorts, and then I went to the Canadian Film Center, which is like a yearlong director's lab. And I've always sought the advice and the input of people I know, so that's been a big part of my education.
AVC: Do you want to continue your acting career, or are you leaning more toward writing and directing?
SP: I'd like to do both. I mean, right now I'm obviously more focused on writing and directing. It's so new and so thrilling. But I would ultimately really like to do both equally.
AVC: Could you imagine directing yourself in a film?
SP: I don't think so. I think that I get different kinds of joy out of both things, and it's sort of necessary to just be doing one and focusing on that. I'm in awe of anyone who tries to be an actor-director, so I couldn't really see that.
AVC: There's a tradition of actor-directors, from Orson Welles to Gary Oldman, taking acting jobs they don't love in order to fund their own movies. Could you see yourself doing that?
SP: I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not sure, I haven't really gotten there yet. But I'm hoping I'll be able to get my films financed here in Canada with public money. If that becomes difficult, I don't know. I can see making that decision, but for me, that decision isn't there yet.
AVC: What's the difference for you between the joy of acting and the joy of directing?
SP: As an actor, I love the lack of control and the sense of really becoming a part of someone else's idea and vision of the world, and finding out how to serve that. And as a director, I love that sense of intense collaboration that comes when you're deciding how to shoot or edit something, and working with actors. And also that sense of the writer and director really being able to express something that you feel very deeply, and very directly.
AVC: You tend to take a lot of very quiet, serious, intense roles. Do you think of there being a "Sarah Polley role"?
SP: No. I mean, I am aware that I've generally been more attracted to introspective roles, but it's sort of bizarre, because it's the opposite of who I am in many ways. I think I'm quite an extroverted, loud person. So it interests me that that's sort of the place that I go all quiet, is when I'm onscreen. It's a bit strange.
AVC: What's the primary thing that determines whether you take a given role?
SP: For me now, it's the filmmaker. For me now, I'm just interested in working with filmmakers where I feel like they have a unique and interesting thing that they want to express.
AVC: You say "now." Has it changed over time?
SP: I think it used to be more about the character and about the script. And I feel like the more I work on films and watch films, the more I feel like you can make a great film from a terrible script, and you can make a terrible film from a great script. So it's starting to become more and more clear to me that this is really a filmmaker's medium.
AVC: Do you have an example of either of those? A terrible film from a great script or a great film from a terrible script?
SP: I do, but I can't say what they were, because I was in the films.
AVC: Not be too obvious about this transition, but how did you get involved in the Dawn Of The Dead remake? It's not at all like most of your projects.
SP: When I first heard about it, I was interested because I love George Romero, and I love that original film. And yet I was skeptical about doing something in that kind of realm. And then I met with the director, Zack Snyder, and the producer, Eric Newman, and I thought they were really interesting, funny guys. And I thought it would be a really interesting thing to work on. It was definitely an aberration, but it was a really fun one.
AVC: Do you tend to watch those big, commercial Hollywood films yourself?
SP: Not a ton. I think I probably go through one or two each year in a theater. Ideally, I would just like to be in films that I would actually pay money to go see. So if I would go and see one big commercial film out of 20 films, I figure why not be in one commercial film out of 20 films that I'm in?
AVC: Could you ever see yourself directing a film of that scale?
SP: I don't think so. I don't think so. I think that Zack is incredibly collaborative and able to hear a lot of opinions, and still keep his focus. And I don't know—I think it would be very, very hard for me to give up the kind of creative freedom and autonomy that you have making smaller independent films.
AVC: What was making the film like for you, compared to your usual project?
SP: I mean, it was hilarious. Just the glut of watching a Hollywood film getting made was hysterical, especially when you come from independent film. I remember Zack taking his sweet time between a scene being finished and saying "Cut," or even between the slate banging and him saying "Action." I could just hear the film rolling through the magazine, and I'd think, "Oh my God, I could make three features just from the wasted film here." [Laughs.] It was kind of unbelievable, and it was really, really fun. I have to say it was a really great experience.
AVC: You said in interviews at the time that one of the reasons you were interested in Dawn Of The Dead was because the script was so political. You actually characterized it as more political than Romero's original film. Did you see that carried out in the final product?
SP: It was not as political as I thought it was going to be, that's for sure. I thought there were still elements of that in there, which I was really pleased to see, but did I think it was as political as George Romero's version? No, absolutely not.
AVC: How did you feel about the finished film?
SP: I kind of loved it, actually. I think it's a pretty great zombie movie. Politics or no politics, I thought it was pretty fun to watch. You know, obviously I would always want everything to be more political.
AVC: Your roles and your political activism seem to indicate a highly developed sense of responsibility, a desire to use your celebrity for good. Is that an off-base assessment?
SP: No, I guess it's a sense of not wanting to waste time, and not do things for the wrong reason. As far as roles go, I feel like my sense of identity is sort of tenuous enough that spending four or five months of my time doing something I don't believe in really threatens that. And I'm lucky enough right now that I can stick to films I believe in and still be okay, so I don't know why I would change that. You know, unless it was for survival.
AVC: You've been actively involved in politics for a long time. But you've been characterized recently as scaling back your public involvement. Is there a reason for that?
SP: Yeah, it's so funny that it gets written about that way, because the whole time I was a full-time actress as a teenager, I would still get involved politically on campaigns. Really, the only reason I haven't been really involved in the last couple of years has been because of Away From Her. It's just taken up my entire life. But it's so funny how people, especially in Canada, I've noticed, really feel the need to write about how I've mellowed politically. Like that's just the normal trajectory of getting older, how your politics soften. And that's not actually how I feel at all. In fact, I probably feel angrier and more committed than I did before. It's really strange to read that sometimes. "She's really softened her politics."
AVC: Well, what issue are you most caught up in right now? What would you most want people to know about and take action on?
SP: To be honest with you, because I haven't been involved in the last two years, I feel ineloquent to talk about it. As a political activist, I've never been comfortable or particularly good at being a spokesperson. I loved organizing, I feel like that's where my skill-set is, and that's what I like doing, but I think I'm a terrible spokesperson. So I guess I've always been uncomfortable with combining what I'm doing in the public eye with my politics, not because I'm worried about talking about it, but just because I always feel like there are people so much better equipped and smarter about these issues than I am, and I work with them, and it feels so wrong for me to be the spokesperson.
AVC: Do you have a particular accomplishment that you're proudest of from your career in political activism?
SP: There were some great years around when Mike Harris was the conservative premier of Ontario. In the first four years of his horrible eight-year reign, welfare rates were chopped away, arts funding was chopped away, evictions came in by the thousands because people couldn't afford their rent any more. It was just an absolute nightmare. But in those years, this place was so volatile politically, I feel like we did a lot of really interesting stuff with direct action around that on behalf of the homeless, and around issues of poverty. And it was really brazen, crazy direct action, and I think it was really, really smart and effective, and I was really happy to be part of that.
AVC: Do you mix your careers? Do you try to get other people in the film industry politically involved?
SP: Every now and then—it depends if I'm on a campaign, I can't be invasive. There was an incident at a hotel in Toronto where the hotel was mistreating its staff incredibly, and it was during the film festival, and we started campaigning to make sure that nobody stayed at that hotel, and that people from the film community all over the world wrote letters. And that seemed to be quite effective. So if there's a point to it like that, then yeah, I tend to try to get people involved.
AVC: You've been in the industry since you were 5 years old. What do you remember about the earliest days?
SP: I don't remember much about the really early stuff. I remember stuff later on as a kid probably around 8 or 9, and I don't remember it as altogether positive experiences, that's for sure.
AVC: Was there a transition period where you wanted to stop acting altogether?
SP: Yeah, there were a few years as a teenager where I completely stopped, and I just dedicated myself to politics and political work, and was not interested in ever coming back to acting. And then I came back through Atom, and he gave me the script for The Sweet Hereafter. It had been a really long time, and I thought, "Well, this will be a break from what I'm doing now." And then it ended up being something that I really wanted to continue doing. I think the moment I actually decided I wanted to do this with my life was after working with Atom Egoyan. I really wasn't interested in doing it long-term until then. So I kind of fell in love with it pretty late for somebody who's been doing it for so long. It was just him and the project. It was feeling like film could be an interesting, worthwhile thing to do with your life, as opposed to this superficial, meaningless occupation.
AVC: What motivated him to send you a script after you had left acting behind?
SP: We worked together briefly on Exotica before, so he had been writing this, and thinking of me when he was writing it.
AVC: Some of the articles about your career use some aggressive language about your break with Disney over Road To Avonlea.
SP: Yeah, which is hugely exaggerated.
AVC: Do you think about it in strong terms? They call it a "feud" or a "falling-out."
SP: Yeah, there wasn't anything like that. I wanted to be off the show because I wanted to be in school with my friends, and I didn't particularly want to be acting. And there was an incident where I wore a peace symbol to this press conference, and I was called later and told not to make political statements. So it was kind of gross behavior on their part, but I don't think they went as far as blacklisting an 11-year-old.
AVC: Did you feel like your behavior was constrained by the fact that you were growing up in the public eye?
SP: I didn't, because I was always encouraged by my parents to be sort of a shit-disturber. That was the way you got brownie points in our family, was by being as rebellious as possible, so I never felt that pressure, even if it existed.
AVC: You got some attention a few years ago with your letter to the Toronto Star about Terry Gilliam and your experiences as a child actor on Baron Munchausen. What were you hoping to accomplish?
SP: It was a response to a piece that had been written the week before about child actors, where I felt like there were a lot of assumptions being made, and I found it kind of disturbing. So I thought it was important to show another perspective on the idea of kids working in film.
AVC: Were you satisfied with the results?
SP: Yeah, very much so.
AVC: Do you think it will change anything? Either in terms of Terry Gilliam, or in terms of the industry?
SP: I don't think that piece alone, no, but I found that I got a lot of e-mails from mothers of kids in film, and agents who work with kids in film, and filmmakers who felt it made them think about the issue in a slightly different way. I don't think one article does anything, but I think it's important to engage in a dialogue about things you know about and you have experience of.
AVC: Was the response basically positive?
SP: The only responses I got were positive, yeah.
AVC: There did seem to be some backlash online.
SP: Yeah, I guess I didn't see any of that. I think that's sort of strange. I would say that you can't really argue with someone's experience with their own life. I can't see how someone could have a negative impression about someone talking about what happened to them as a kid. It's odd.
AVC: How do you feel about your current level of fame? Do you see yourself as a cult icon?
SP: No, I don't think so. I don't think of myself as particularly famous at all, actually. I think that I'm a working actor, so there are people who pay a lot of attention to film and know who I am, but I don't think it reaches much beyond that.
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