Megan Elizabeth Laura Diana Follows (born March 14, 1968) is a Canadian-American 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.
Early life
Follows was born in Toronto, Ontario, the youngest of four children, in an acting family. Her father was Canadian theatre actor and director Ted Follows and her mother is Canadian actress Dawn Greenhalgh. Her parents later divorced.
Her 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 the age of 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, 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 miniseries 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 when 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 around the world, and remains to this day the highest-rated drama in Canadian television history.
Her performances earned her two Gemini awards as best actress for 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.
Television
Follows has made a number of appearances on both Canadian and U.S. television. In 1989, she starred in an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, "The Dwarf". In 1991 she starred with actors David Soul and David Morse in the made-for-television movie Cry in the Wild: The Taking of Peggy Ann in the titular role. 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. It aired on NBC on May 6, 1991. In 1995, as Megan Porter Follows (as she was then known, by her married name) starred in The Outer Limits episode "The Choice", along with Thora Birch and as the nurse in the 1995 “Home Nurse” episode of Murder She Wrote with Angela Lansbury. In Canada, she appeared in a popular made-for-TV movie, Hockey Night, around the time she appeared in Anne of Green Gables. She played Cathy, a young girl who played hockey on a previously all-male team. Other Canadian television appearances include leading roles in the period drama Under the Piano and police drama Major Crime.
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 the mother of Canadian singer Shania Twain. Most recently, 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.