Many people first became aware of Canadian actress Sarah Polley as the intense child star of Terry Gilliam's notorious 1988 boondoggle The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, but for her, it was just one role in a series that stretched back to a TV debut at age 5. After a childhood in television and film, as the star of series like the Beverly Cleary adaptation Ramona and Disney's series Road To Avonlea, Polley took a brief break from the industry before returning to star in films including Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, Doug Liman's Go, Hal Hartley's No Such Thing, and Isabel Coixet's tender My Life Without Me. In 2004, Polley broke with a history of working largely in Canadian, independent, and low-budget cinema to star in the big studio remake of Dawn Of The Dead, helmed by 300 director Zack Snyder. This year, she made another departure by writing and directing her first feature, Away From Her, an adaptation of Alice Munro's story about an elderly couple parted by Alzheimer's. Recently, Polley spoke with The A.V. Club about making her first film, dabbling in big-budget cinema, and the "Sarah Polley role."
The A.V. Club: Is it true that you specifically wanted to adapt the Alice Munro short story that became Away From Her because you read it and pictured Julie Christie in the main role?
SP: Yeah. That was one of the main reasons, absolutely. I had just finished working with her on No Such Thing, and I had really fallen in love with her, and just thought she was one of the more interesting people I ever met. And when I picked up this story, I couldn't stop imagining Julie's face whenever I read about the character. So I wanted to see her play the part.
AVC: How did the rest of the casting happen?
SP: I basically wrote most of these characters for the actors who ended up playing the parts. Certainly the four leads—Kristen Thomson, Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis, Gordon Pinsent—were the actors that I wrote the parts for originally.
AVC: Was there anything specific behind the choice to work primarily with Canadian actors?
SP: It just kind of made sense because the film was set in Canada, so my mind immediately went to Canadian actors. Especially Gordon. It just seemed to me that there was really no one else that could play that part.
AVC: It's difficult to portray someone suffering from mental illness without manipulating your audience or going over the top. How did you work out that balance?
SP: Well, I think that the story was a really good lead. I mean, I think what Alice Munro does so brilliantly is, she tells an incredibly poignant, moving story, but it never descended into sentimentality. There was something so piercing about the way she wrote that story, so I really wanted to honor that spirit and that tone. And I was really concerned with never feeling like we were trying to manipulate an audience or squeeze emotion out of people, that people would have space to arrive at it on their own.
AVC: Did you know someone with Alzheimer's, or have other experiences that helped keep the film real?
SP: I did a ton of research, read a ton of books, and talked to a lot of professionals that worked in the field. And I spent a ton of time in retirement homes, researching and meeting people. So I wanted to make sure that there was real information, from my point of view, coming into the film.
AVC: The "struggling with disease" film has become a bit of a cliché—there are a lot of cinematic precedents, good and bad. Did you have in mind any films that you wanted to emulate, or alternately, specific pitfalls you wanted to avoid?
SP: There were a few things I really wanted to avoid, especially in the context of making a film about older people. One thing that seems to be consistent in films about older people is that we seem to justify why we're making the film by constantly flashing back to them when they were young. And I really wanted to avoid that, because I felt like these characters are really interesting in their own right, and they're probably a lot more interesting now than they were when they were 20 or 30. So I wanted all the memories and flashbacks to be incredibly subjective and impressionistic. I guess I also feel like with this kind of film—it's supposed to be about a disease, but I feel like we somehow have decided that onscreen, when people hit 55 or 60, they become sort of sexless, and less vibrant and complicated. I wanted to embrace the idea that that is not my experience of older people, anyway.
AVC: In a broader sense, was there any particular film style or directorial style that informed your work?
SP: I'm sure I've been learning something, but I don't know if I can consciously say what's influenced me. I was conscious of not trying to imitate, because I feel like we've entered into this culture, especially with first-time filmmakers, where you feel this need to constantly reference other films. I wanted to avoid that as much as I could. At the same time, I think that if there's a filmmaker you love, they inevitably do affect you, and do influence the direction that you go in.
I don't know who actually influenced me in terms of this film. I have no idea. But the filmmakers that I love would be Terrence Malick and Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieslowski. And I think the filmmakers that have been the most supportive of me and there for me as I've tried to make my own films would be Atom Egoyan and Wim Wenders. I'm sure they've had a big influence in many ways.
AVC: You're a young woman, making a film about end-of-life issues and old age. Have people questioned your credibility, or whether you have the perspective to make this film?
SP: No. I feel like people have been curious about it, which makes sense, because it's probably an unusual choice. To be honest, in the entire course of making the film, it never really occurred to me that it was strange that I was making a film about older people, until the film came out and people were interested in how I came to be interested in the subject. But for me, it was just such a compelling story, and I felt like I had so much to learn from it. I think probably because I'm younger, and at the beginning of a relationship, it was really interesting to think about what a marriage looked like after 44 years, and what love looked like after a lifetime. I did feel like I had a pretty good backup in terms of the insights of Alice Munro, as well as all these actors who were in that age range. So I felt like I had a lot of support in gaining that insight, or taking some of theirs.
AVC: Why the decision to make the film achronological?
SP: I guess a couple of reasons. One, I liked the idea of the structure of film mimicking the fragmentation of memory, and having that sense of having to put things together. And I also felt like the film needed a kind of tension. It's very much a character-driven piece. I felt like we needed momentum, a sense that we were in fact going somewhere, and that it was somewhere very unexpected. So I feel like the tension came from the idea, "How is he going to get there?" as opposed to "Where is he gonna go?" That was probably more realistic for this kind of story. I felt like it was important to keep us moving.
AVC: What's it like being a young director working with actors that are so much older than you? Were you intimidated at all?
SP: I did at first, yeah, because they're people I look up to so much, and have so much respect for. But they made it very easy for me to actually be the director, and to not be worried about taking on that role.
AVC: Does knowing them personally or professionally from past films make it easier? Or is it harder to crack the whip on people you've been on an equal basis with as an actor?
SP: I think it makes it a lot easier, actually. I felt an enormous amount of support from them, and also a kind of nurturing. I think Julie and Olympia were quite happy for me that I was taking on this role, and were incredibly supportive in a personal way that was always a professional way.
AVC: What has working as an actor taught you about directing actors?
SP: I think what I've learned most from being an actress is that there's no method, you know? That you have to invent this process over and over and over again, depending on who you're working with and what you're doing. To me, the important thing with each actor was to develop a language with them that was specific and unique to our relationship. So it was like learning five or six different languages in a very short space of time, which was challenging, but also really interesting.
AVC: Are there mistakes that directors have made with you in the past that you'd never make, having had that experience?
SP: I think I've been pretty lucky—I haven't worked with anyone really atrocious. But I've always felt it's much more helpful for people to tell me what they want, as opposed to what they don't want. And when they're concise and clear when they give direction. But other than that, I just feel like it's about communicating with other human beings, and that's as individual and unique as you are, so it's something that I don't know if you can necessarily teach or imitate. It's something you have to fully discover for yourself.
AVC: Do you think directors would be better off having to work as actors first, to see what it's like?
SP: I don't know. Maybe. Although some of the directors that I've worked with… I sort of think everything works, you know? I'm one of those people that thinks nothing is really wrong, that you can't really make any big mistakes as a director. It's sort of about who you are. So I know directors that break all the rules of what you're supposed to be to be sensitive to actors, and it all seems to work somehow… very interesting filmmakers.
AVC: What film has been closest to your ideal experience as an actor?
SP: I loved making My Life Without Me. I loved making The Sweet Hereafter. I feel like I disappeared into both of those projects, and it was just joyful from beginning to end. Such a rich and deep and intense experience.
AVC: Do you think that has more to do with how the director approached things, or the content of the film, or the role, or some combination of things?
SP: I think it's probably a combination, but I think the filmmaker is pretty pivotal in setting the tone and creating an environment for people to work in.
AVC: Before this feature, you directed a series of short films. How did that first come about?
SP: I had an idea for a short film when I was 20. I'd always wanted to write, but I never thought I would write films, until I had an idea for a short film script and wrote it. And after I wrote it, I thought, "Well, I might as well make it." I never considered making a film before that, but I just really fell in love with the process through doing it.
AVC: There isn't much of an outlet for short films, apart from the occasional festival. Was "Why make this?" ever a question?
SP: It's funny, I've always been such a fan of short films—in fact, I never considered that I would actually make a feature. I just thought I wanted to make shorts for the rest of my life. They are a lot harder to have shown and a lot harder to find and see as an audience, but I don't know. It's just a form that I really love. I was just making them for the process, but ultimately, I did get them into festivals, and they did end up on television, and they had as much of a life as short films can.
AVC: Did the short films teach you things you needed to know for your feature debut?
SP: I think they taught me how little I knew, and I was grateful to find that out in the shorts rather than in my first feature. I was able to practice a lot of stuff, especially visually. I really got a chance to find my feet. When I was 20, I was just stunned that I really didn't know about editing, how things cut together. I'd thought I had a sense of how things were done, but the actual doing of it was just a completely different way of thinking.
AVC: What was the biggest surprise in moving to a feature from shorts?
SP: The endurance, and the amount of strength and stamina you need to make a feature. I was really amazed. But it was also a great experience to find out I could handle it. It was more than I thought I could handle, and then in fact it was fine, and I loved it.
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