Megan Elizabeth Laura Diana Follows ( MEE-gən; born March 14, 1968) is a Canadian actress and director. She is known for her role as Anne Shirley in the 1985 Canadian television miniseries Anne of Green Gables and its two sequels. From 2013 to 2017, she starred as Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, in the television drama series Reign.
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Early life
The daughter of actors Ted Follows and Dawn Greenhalgh, Follows's three siblings are all in the entertainment industry. Her elder sister Edwina is a writer, while her brother Laurence and sister Samantha Follows (who is married to American actor Sean O'Bryan) are also actors.
Career
Beginnings
Her first acting job came at nine when she landed a spot in a commercial for Bell Canada. She was directed to make an impudent gesture out of a school bus window – like sticking out her tongue - but ended up making a rather obscene adult gesture instead. She found steady work in Canada, appearing in a few TV series such as Matt and Jenny, The Baxters, and The Littlest Hobo, the latter in which she guest-starred with her entire family in a three-part episode. She also starred in the short films The Olden Days Coat (1981) and Boys and Girls (1983), the latter of which won an Academy Award for Best Short Subject.
Anne of Green Gables
Follows' breakthrough occurred when she was cast as Anne Shirley in the 1985 Canadian made-for-television drama film Anne of Green Gables, as well as its two sequels. The part of "Anne" was a coveted role that she won over 3,000 other young girls. Director, producer and writer Kevin Sullivan chose her despite early worries during the audition process that she might be too old for the part. The miniseries, wholly produced in Canada, became successful worldwide and remains the highest-rated drama in Canadian television history.
Her performances earned her two Gemini awards for best actress in the first two miniseries, Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, and a Gemini nomination for the third Anne installment, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story. She did not reprise the role for the fourth film, Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, and Barbara Hershey took over the role.
In 2023, Follows directed an audiobook dramatisation of Anne of Green Gables. She said, "I loved the idea of going back and deeply immersing myself in the text, in the writing of Lucy Maud Montgomery."
Television
Follows has made many appearances on both Canadian and U.S. television. Among her earliest American television appearances were roles in a 1982 episode of The Facts of Life, as a cousin of Jo Polniaczek. The episode was intended as a backdoor pilot for a proposed spin-off. In 1984, Follows was in the short-lived series Domestic Life as Martin Mull's character's daughter. In Canada, she also appeared in a popular made-for-TV movie, Hockey Night, where she played Cathy, a young girl who played hockey on a previously all-male team.
She appeared in two TV movies in 1986, Sin of Innocence and Shattered ... If Your Kid's On Drugs. In 1989, she starred in an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, "The Dwarf". Airing on NBC on May 6, 1991, she played Peggy Ann in the made-for-television movie Cry in the Wild: The Taking of Peggy Ann, along with actors David Soul and David Morse. The plot is based on the true story of the abduction of Peggy Ann Bradnick by an ex-convict and ex-mental patient William Diller Hollenbaugh, which took place in Shade Gap, Pennsylvania on May 11, 1966.
In 1995, Follows (now known by her married name Megan Porter Follows) starred in an The Outer Limits episode "The Choice", along with Thora Birch. Follows also starred as the title character in an episode of Murder She Wrote, starring Angela Lansbury, called "Home Care". Other Canadian television appearances include leading roles in the period drama Under the Piano and police drama Major Crime.
Starting in 2000, she appeared on episodes of Law & Order, ER, The X-Files, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, Cold Case, and Lie to Me, among others.
In 2004, Follows was part of the ensemble cast of the Hallmark movie Plainsong, which included Aidan Quinn, Rachel Griffiths, and America Ferrera. In 2005, she guest-starred in the Canadian ensemble drama Robson Arms as one of the tenants of the Robson Arms apartment complex. She also appeared in the hospital drama Open Heart as a nurse fighting a physician of malpractice, and in Shania: A Life in Eight Albums, as Sharon Twain. In 2007, she starred as Booky's mother in the three movie adaptations of Bernice Thurman Hunter's "Booky" series: Booky Makes Her Mark, Booky and the Secret Santa, and Booky's Crush.. In 2009, she made a guest appearance on Brothers and Sisters.
Film
Follows has appeared in feature films, the first co-starring with Corey Haim and Gary Busey in the 1985 film adaptation of Stephen King's novella, Silver Bullet. In 1990, she was the voice of Clara from the cartoon Christmas film The Nutcracker Prince. Her later film credits include Christmas Child, A Foreign Affair (2003; released on DVD as Two Brothers and a Bride), and a cameo in Laurie Lynd's Breakfast with Scot. She also had a brief uncredited cameo as a grocery store clerk in the movie I Am Number Four (2011).
Theatre
Follows' first stage credit was in the 1988 Toronto production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, in which she starred alongside her mother, Dawn, and her sister, Samantha. In 1992, she was offered the role of Juliet in the Stratford Festival's production of Romeo and Juliet, which she reprised the following year in Los Angeles. Other notable stage credits include A Doll's House (Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater), Othello (Edmonton's Citadel Theatre and Ottawa's National Arts Centre), Uncle Vanya (Atlantic Theatre Festival), and Noël Coward's Hay Fever, in which she appeared with her siblings, and which was directed by her father.
The 2000's saw the return of Follows on stage as a regular of the Toronto-based Soulpepper Theatre Company. In 2005, she had the leading role of May in the production of Fool for Love by Sam Shepard. The following year, she took on the role of Annie in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, which ran at Ottawa's National Arts Centre as a co-production between Soulpepper and NAC English Theatre. Following this run, the play made its way to Toronto as part of Soulpepper's 2006 season at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. In 2007, she played the role of Marlene in the critically acclaimed summer production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls with Soulpepper.
Soulpepper's 2008 season, marking the company's tenth anniversary, signaled the continuation of Megan's prolific theatre career. She appeared in two productions, Marsha Norman's 'night, Mother (in which she co-starred opposite her real-life mother, Canadian actress Dawn Greenhalgh) and Soulpepper's remount of Top Girls.
In 2010, Follows was in the Mirvish Productions's revival of Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9. In 2011, she starred in the Canadian premiere of Melissa James Gibson's This at the Vancouver Playhouse, directed by Amiel Gladstone. In 2012, she starred in the lead role of "Penelope" at the Nightwood Theatre's production of The Penelopiad.
Personal life
In 1991, Follows married Christopher David Porter, a Canadian gaffer and photographer she met on the set of Deep Sleep. They have two children, Lyla Anne Porter (b. 1991) and Russell Porter (b. 1994). The couple divorced in 1996. Follows was in a long-term relationship with actor Stuart Hughes; they broke up around 2010.
Humanitarian work
Follows has served as a spokeswoman for the relief organization World Vision Canada. She travelled to both Rwanda and Tanzania as a spokeswoman and a photographer. She also participated in the 2005 benefit concert Canada for Asia held to support the relief efforts for Asia after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
She travelled to Cambodia in 2007 with the director Heather Connell to film Small Voices: Stories of Cambodia's Children. The documentary was about how the street children of Cambodia faced their living conditions amid poverty and abuse and how they viewed their future.
Follows is a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.
