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Sarah Polley (born January 8, 1979 in Toronto,
Ontario) is a Canada|Canadian actor|actress and
Film director|director of short films. She has
starred in a number of films, including Atom
Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter.


Her first cinematic appearance was at the age of
4, in the role of Molly in Walt Disney
Pictures|Disney's film One Magic Christmas.  At
age eight, she was cast in the title role in the
television series Ramona , based on Beverly
Cleary's books. Though the series lasted but one
season, the following year, Polley burst into the
public eye as Sara Stanley, the star of the
popular Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC
television series Road to Avonlea produced by
Kevin Sullivan (producer)|Kevin Sullivan. The
series made her famous and independently wealthy,
hailed as "Canada's Sweetheart" by the popular
press. After seven years with the program, she
became irate at what she saw as Disney's
interference and Americanization of the series and
asked to be written out of the show's plot and saw
her character travel to France to study and
disappear from the series which then ended. 


Her disenchantment with Disney was rooted in an
incident that happened during the Gulf War, when
she was invited by The Walt Disney Company|Disney
to appear at a Children's Award Show in
Washington, DC.  With the United States still
engaged in the Gulf War, the 12-year-old Polley
wore a peace symbol to the event, and upon
refusing to remove it, was blacklisted from Disney
productions.


She turned more of her energies to left-wing
politics, becoming a prominent member of the New
Democratic Party, where maverick Ontario
legislator Peter Kormos was said to be her
political mentor. In 1995, she lost several teeth
to riot police while protesting against the
Provincial Progressive Conservative Party of
Ontario|Conservative government of Mike Harris in
Queen's Park, Toronto.  Not wanting to be seen to
be stealing the spotlight, by virtue of her
profile, from other activists, she later scaled
back on her political activism, but remains one of
the most engaged young actors in North America. 


After this incident she returned to acting and her
role in The Sweet Hereafter (1997) first brought
her considerable attention in the United States. 
She became a fan favourite at the Sundance Film
Festival. She was cast in the role of Penny Lane
in Almost Famous, but she dropped out of the
project to return to Canada to make the low-budget
fil The Law of Enclosures.


In 2003, she was part of newly-elected Toronto
mayor David Miller's transition advisory team, and
that September she married film editor David
Wharnsby.

==Selected Filmography==
*The Secret Life of Words (2005 in film|2005)
*Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)|Dawn of the Dead
(2004 in film|2004)
*My Life Without Me (2003 in film|2003)
*The Weight of Water (2000 in film|2000)
*Go (1999)|Go (1999 in film|1999)
*eXistenZ (1999 in film|1999)
*Guinevere (movie)|Guinevere (1999 in film|1999)
*Last Night (1998 in film|1998)
*The Sweet Hereafter (1997 in film|1997)
*Exotica (movie)|Exotica (1994 in film|1994)
*Road to Avonlea (1989 in television|1989) (TV
series)
*The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988 in
film|1988)
*Ramona (1988 in television|1988) (TV series)

==External link==
*imdb name|id=0001631|name=Sarah Polley