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Illustration by Erick M. Ramos
I pressed my dimpled hand to the glass of the television. I could feel the heat and static electricity flowing into my fingers. They were white with tension from pressing so hard. The television was big, brown and boxy, sitting low to the ground so I could control it myself. The skin on my legs was indented from the hours spent kneeling, unmoving on the brown shag carpet next to the TV, yearning to get inside it.
Anne Shirley, the heroine of Anne of Green Gables, also held her hand to glass, but it was the window of an orphanage. Then she was riding in a horse-drawn buggy down a road lined with flowering white trees, sobbing behind a veil of dyed green hair, and wearing a puffed-sleeved dress to a ball. I wanted desperately to do those things. I did not, however, want to be Anne. I wanted to be the actor, Megan Follows, playing Anne in the miniseries. I wanted to live inside the magic and emotion of my favourite story without actually having to be an orphaned red-head at the turn of the 20th century. Watching the actor inhabit my favourite character and live inside my most cherished story was an epiphany. The young girl on the screen doing these fabulous things was a young girl just like me. If she could dress up and live inside another life for a while, maybe I could, too.
Spurred by this realization, I started taking theatre classes at age seven. I went on to act in plays, television shows and movies throughout my teens. Acting gave me experiences I didn’t have the opportunity or courage to have in my own life.
In real life, I wasn’t sure what to say. My brain would freeze or words would get caught in my mouth. When I was acting, I always knew what lines were coming next and was ready with a witty response. When I was me, I was cautious, afraid to do anything dangerous or wrong, but in character, I could do or say wild things because I was following the script’s direction. If I leaned in for a kiss, it was because I knew it would be reciprocated. If I wore striking clothes – tops that showed my belly button or combat boots – it was because that was what the costume designer chose for the character, not me. There was always a hair and makeup team to make sure my naturally frizzy hair was tamed and my pimples were covered. Hiding behind the protection of a role, I could be rebellious or desired or cruel for a little while, but not bear the burdens of being any of those things for real.
I got to inhabit other lives and be transported to other times and places like I’d dreamed. I dressed up and lived in 1930s Newfoundland, 1950s Kansas and a magical world run by children. I was an alien, a ringmaster, a superhero and an assassin. I learned how to do things I never would have done as myself, like ride a horse bareback, shoot a crossbow and gut a fish. I was braver in these alternate worlds, hanging upside down by guy wires or fighting an underwater monster.
In real life, I was by no means the most popular girl in school but I played one on TV, stalking high school hallways followed by my minions. I didn’t have a boyfriend but I got to stand on Juliet’s balcony, calling for my Romeo, and have him appear and stare at me adoringly.
Performing was a wonderful antidote to my youthful inhibition. By pretending to be other people, I gained confidence in myself. If directors thought an audience would believe that I was bold or funny or attractive, maybe I could be a little bit of that in real life, too.
Perhaps like any child playing make-believe or a teen trying on new personas, I needed to pretend to be different people to learn about myself. Ultimately, however, it wasn’t the roles I tried on that shaped me most, but the business of being an actor. My time as an actor taught me much about what I really wanted for my life. The uncertainty of whether, when one job was done, I would ever secure another led me to want a steady profession. The subjectivity and luck involved in getting or not getting a role taught me that I want objective results, like earning an A after working hard in a class or receiving a job offer because I have the right experience. Hours spent having my hair and makeup done and enduring unvarnished judgment about my appearance resulted in an adulthood of messy buns and a bare face, wanting to be assessed by what was inside my head rather than what was on its outside.
I can look back at my time as a professional actor as one of fun and self-discovery. I did not suffer the experience that so many child actors do, of being preyed upon, abused or exploited. I was protected and supported throughout, with a constant reminder from my family that it was my education and self-worth that was of fundamental importance, not my next acting gig. These things, and a lot of luck, made all the difference.
Megan Follows in Anne of Green Gables cast a spell on me. But ultimately, I left acting because it was time to stop living inside someone else’s story. I was ready to be me.
Margot Finley lives in Toronto.