Megan Follows

Anne Shirley is an iconic role. To anyone familiar with older children’s literature, not much of anyone is more so. And if you are my age, Anne Shirley is Megan Follows. Now, there have been a lot of Annes over the years; the earliest was a 1919 silent version, now believed lost, starring Mary Miles Minter. It changed the setting to New England, Gods help us. There have been dozens of adaptations. Several of them are anime, including one directed by Isao Takahata. However, even though one actress literally changed her name to Anne Shirley, Megan Follows remains the Anne for quite a lot of people.

It’s a tough role to live up to, as Follows will be the first to tell you. While adaptations often portray Anne as cheerful and positive through everything, the adaptation with which I grew up showed her as much more complicated than that. Follows was required to show not just cheerful optimism but anger and grief and frustration. Two of her most iconic moments, after all, are screaming at Mrs. Rachel Lynde and breaking her slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head. Just because she manages to hold onto her dignity in a sinking dinghy doesn’t mean she’s perfect.

That said, Follows is perfect in the role. Admittedly, it’s hard to see her as plain, the way Anne sees herself, but it’s easy to believe that Anne would see herself that way regardless of her actual looks. Mrs. Rachel Lynde also says she’s homely, but she’s not seeing Anne at her best and also feels like the kind of woman who would call Anne homely regardless of her actual looks for her own good. Still, Follows captures the attitude of distracted determination that Anne has to have, and no version I’ve seen does that better. I’ve read all the books, though they’re not my favourite Montgomery, and I’ve read them a lot. Follows is the book Anne even when the story goes places the book doesn’t.

I’ve seen the sequels—where she’s hit on by Dave Foley and Diana marries Bruce McCullough. And the one set during World War I that has nothing whatever to do with the book and just pisses me off as a fan of Rilla of Ingleside. I’ve seen her Law & Order. If I’ve seen her ABC Afterschool Special, it’s been decades. It’s likewise been a long time since I’ve seen her X-Files. I haven’t seen her Murdoch Mysteries, but it would’ve been funnier if she’d been in the episode where Crabtree tells L.M. Montgomery that no one would read a book about a little orphan girl.

So yeah, there’s a lot to Follows beyond Anne. She’s even directed—including two episodes of Murdoch, some of which seems to have been used in a later clip show. I will die disappointed that I didn’t like Reign, episodes of which she also directed, because Anne Follows as Catherine de’ Medici seemed like exactly my jam. Which it was. It was just kind of a shame about the entire show around her. Kind of like her last performance as Anne, when it comes right down to it.