As a filmmaker, Sarah Polley is attracted to human drama. But as an actress, she has a soft spot for inhuman drama.
While she had fun starring in Zack Snyder's zombie splatterfest Dawn of the Dead, and Vincenzo Natali's Splice — arguably the year's most eagerly awaited horror film — the writer-director of the Oscar-nominated Away From Her doesn't think she'll ever make a "genre" film.
"I don't think I could ever make a film like this, I wouldn't know where to start," says Polley, dressed in her scientist's smock for photo-op purposes, giving an interview in a lab at a University of Toronto medical building.
"But they're very fun to work on. Adrien (Brody, her co-star) and I laughed from morning to night for three straight months. In a film that's so out there, naturally your sense of humour gets darker and darker and more out of control. And there's this sort of spirit of adventure on a set like that."
A movie without heroes — except, in a Frankenstein sense, the "monster" itself — Splice follows Clive and Elsa, a husband-and-wife team of genetic researchers (Polley and Brody) who are egged on by a gigantic pharmaceutical company to create new medical treatments from the genetic splicing of different species. The one line the firm won't let them cross: Human/animal cross-breeding.
To the driven Elsa, however, this is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and she goes behind the back of everybody including her husband to splice together a humanimal called Dren. Clearly female at birth, with bird-like traits, it grows insanely fast and develops qualities — including a raging sexuality — its designer never envisioned.
"I thought it was one of the best-written scripts I'd ever read," Polley says of Natali's and Antoinette Terry Bryant's screenplay. "It was engaging and compelling and crazy and brave. It was constantly pushing boundaries further than you thought it could go. I'd be reading the script and thinking subconsciously about the next thing that could happen, but it couldn't possibly happen, because it's a movie and no one would ever do that in a movie. And then 10 pages later, your worst fears are realized, and I'm like, 'I cannot believe this movie is willing to go further than it's already gone, over and over and over again.'
"I act in films I think I'd have a good time going to see. And 80% of the time small indie movies are what I go to see, and they're 80% of what I'm in. But definitely, if a (horror) film has something to say and pushes boundaries like this film does, or like The Fly did, it can be an amazing genre. You can approach things in a much more visceral way than in a straight drama."
She also liked the fact that the movie wasn't CGI laden (the "adolescent" Dren was played by French actress Delphine Chanéac).
"She was quite beautiful," Polley says. "And it was a huge advantage to us to play opposite her, because usually in these films you're acting to a tennis ball or a piece of tape. To actually be able to play with Delphine, who's a brilliant, brilliant actress, or to play with Gail Chu, who plays the young Dren, it makes a huge difference to the performance."
As for her character, she announces, 'I'm the monster, absolutely. I think that's what I was drawn to. I'd never played anybody that driven and single-focused and those are really interesting parts of yourself to access.
"I think we all have that in us and we learn to mitigate it in varying degrees. It's pretty insane. And, absolutely, she becomes so much more monstrous than the monster. Which is the way of great monster movies. It's always a way of talking about ourselves and our own monstrosity."
Sarah Polley acting turns are actually becoming more rare. The former child actress/teen activist/Oscar-nominated filmmaker (she was nominated for best adapted screenplay for Away From Her), considers herself a filmmaker first.
She has two projects on the go at once, a romance called Take This Waltz with Seth Rogen, Michelle Williams, Luke Kirby and Sarah Silverman (which starts filming in Toronto in July), and a documentary "about storytelling and memory" she has already begun.
"I never really know if I'm going back to acting," she says. But I've been that way since I've been 15 or 16. I always feel like this might be the last movie I ever do, then a few years later I might do another one.
"I'll be directing for another year now, and my sense is I'll want to direct some more, not act. But who knows?"
Being on the director's side of the camera makes for ironic bedfellows for the kid who scandalized Disney at age 12 (when she was on Road to Avonlea) by wearing a peace sign to an awards show at the time of the first Gulf War. The apex of her activism came when she was struck by a police baton, and lost two teeth, at a demonstration at Queen's Park. She was 16.
That side of her is quieter, but doesn't lie dormant these days. She took her name off a short film about women's heart problems, commissioned by Becel to air on CTV during this year's Academy Awards.
"I have learned that my film is also being used to promote a product," she said at the time. "I have never actively promoted any corporate brand, and cannot do so now."
A few months later, she has little to add. "It was messy and i'd like to not think about it for a while," she says.
As for dealing with the corporate world in general, Polley adds, "Generally, it's okay as long as people are being honest with you. I think I've had incredible luck actually. I should have run into a lot more bad behaviour at this point. At a paltry (by Hollywood terms) $9 million, Take This Waltz will be the biggest-budget Polley's ever worked with.
"Film is a strange medium because it costs a lot of money. You can't just be an artist who's sheltered from the business side of things. So for someone who doesn't want to be an entrepreneur, there are parts of the process that are tough and uncomfortable. It's a constant struggle for me to balance that out.
"I find that I'm fabulously ill-equipped to deal with the business side of things and the corporate politics. I don't know if I'll ever get better at it, or if it's part of my nature that I'm not good at it and I'll never be any good at it."
QUICK FACTS
- Appeared in One Magic Christmas at age four.
- At eight, starred in a Canadian TV series based on Beverly Cleary's Ramona & Beezus books. (A Hollywood version is due out this summer.)
- At nine, had a lead role in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen.
- Was cast as Sarah Stanley in Road to Avonlea at 10.
- Was fired by Disney for protesting the Gulf War at 12.
- Lost two back teeth to a police baton at an anti-goverment protest at 16.
- Starred in and sang soundtrack songs for The Sweet Hereafter, which garnered an Oscar nom for director Atom Egoyan.
- The indie comedy Go made her an "It Girl" on the alternative scene, a categorization she let go of with both hands by quitting the movie Almost Famous. (Kate Hudson would go on to earn an Oscar nom replacing her.)
- Caught Hollywood's eye again starring in Zack Snyder's manic and bloody remake of George Romero's zombie classic Dawn of the Dead.
- After directing a handful of shorts, her first feature, the Alzheimer's-themed drama Away From Her won two Oscar nominations — including best actress for Julie Christie and best adapted screenplay for Polley.
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