Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Sarah Polley

Canadian actresses Sarah Polley at the 2009 TIFF. Photo by: Bryan Cha- Wikimedia commons

Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley is a Canadian actor, director, writer, and producer who was born in Toronto, Ontario, on January 8, 1979. Polley was a celebrated filmmaker, political activist, and one of Canada’s most gifted and well-known performers.

Her unforced and natural performances as a child actor on shows like CBC’s Road to Avonlea(1990–1996) and in movies like Atom Egoyan’s Exotica (1994) and The Sweet Hereafter (1997) gave her recognition as a budding star by defying her years.

 Sarah Polley was the youngest of five children and the daughter of British-born actor turned insurance salesman Michael Polley and casting director Diane Polley. She started performing when she was four years old, appearing in Philip Borsos’s One Magic Christmas (1985).

After that, she made guest appearances in a number of movies and TV shows before landing the major roles in Terry Gilliam’s epic fantasy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and the PBS kids’ sitcom Ramona (1988).

These top 10 intriguing facts about Sarah Polley will help you discover more about her fascinating life.

1.Sarah Polley started acting at a young age

Sarah Polley. Photo by Nicolas Genin-Wikimedia commons

Sarah Polley began acting at 4 years old, she began performing in her native Canada. Her role as a teen girl injured in a school bus incident in Atom Egoyan’s film The Sweet Hereafter gained her tremendous acclaim.

Polley made her directorial debut with Away from Her, a nuanced and tragic picture of a late-life marriage in which the wife (Julie Christie) is driven apart by Alzheimer’s illness.

 At 33 she completed her second feature picture, Take This Waltz. It’s about a young couple (Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen) who have fallen into a routine; nevertheless, their marriage is jeopardized when an attractive artist and rickshaw driver arrives into the neighbourhood.

2.Directing career at an early age

The Best Day of My Life, Polley’s debut short film, was created in 1999 for the On the Fly 4 Film Festival. That same year, she also produced the short film Don’t Think Twice.

In 2001, Polley enrolled in the directing school at the Canadian Film Centre. In 2003, she received the Genie Award for Best Live Action Short Drama for her short film I Shout Love.

Away from Her, which Polley adapted from the short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro, marked her first foray into directing a full-length motion picture.

On September 11, 2006, the film, starring Julie Christie (with whom she had previously appeared in No Such Thing (2005) and The Secret Life of Words (2005), made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.

3.Polley got a surgery as a teenager

When she was 15, Polley underwent a spinal procedure after being diagnosed with severe scoliosis as a kid. She then had to spend the following year recuperating in bed.

4.Sarah Polley changed to more adult roles 

Polley made an appearance in the highly regarded 1998 movie Last Night. She was in the ensemble cast of the movie Go the next year. She was chosen to play Penny Lane in the high-profile movie Almost Famous from the year 2000, but she left the project to work on the low-profile movie The Law of Enclosures in Canada.

She won the 2004 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her work in the 2003 movie My Life Without Me. She played the lead in the Dawn of the Dead remake that same year, a break from her prior independent appearances.

5. Sarah’s political journey 

Sarah Polley. Photo by Nicolas Genin from Paris, France-Wikimedia Commons

After getting into a fight with Disney when she was twelve years old over donning a peace sign to protest the Gulf War, Polley decided to focus more of her energy on politics. She joined the Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP), where she found her political mentor in Ontario lawmaker Peter Kormos.

She made a statement in support of Kormos’ nomination in 1996 at the ONDP leadership convention, which she later described as the “proudest moment of [her] life.”

6.Sarah’s social activism journey 

She lost two back teeth in 1995 after being assaulted by a riot police officer while participating in a demonstration in Queen’s Park against the Mike Harris-led provincial Progressive Conservative government.  She afterwards became associated with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty .

After that, she reduced her political engagement. She was a member of a group that protested the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2001. In April 2001, Quebec City hosted the third Summit of the Americas. She was a member of the transition advisory committee for former Toronto mayor David Miller in 2003.

7.Sarah Polley’s documentary about her family

The simplest way to summarize Sarah Polley’s documentary Stories We Tell is to say that it is about her mother, her family, and a secret that had a profound impact on everyone’s life.

A more accurate description of Stories We Tell, which premieres in May, would be that it is a masterful collage that both addresses and illustrates the flimsy nature of memory and storytelling itself. It is a delicate, humorous, disturbing, multidimensional mixture of nonfiction and drama.

The subject of Stories We Tell is straightforward: loss, grief, and a long-buried truth. Stories We Tell is difficult. In the sake of emotional honesty, which is all too uncommon on screen, let alone in real life, it is both disarmingly straightforward and cunningly deceitful.

8.Sarah’s marriage life

Sarah Polley. Photo by Nicolas Genin from Paris, France-Wikimedia Commons

She had been dating Canadian film editor David Wharnsby for seven years before they got married on September 10, 2003. Five years later, in 2008, they got divorced. Together, they are parents to three kids.

9.Polley was sexually assaulted 

In 2022, Polley claimed that Jian Ghomeshi had sexually abused her while they were out on a date when she was 16 and he was 28.

She was discouraged from sharing her experiences by her family and friends, but she ultimately made the decision to do so in her collection of autobiographical essays, Run Towards the Danger. 

10.Sarah Polley’s beliefs

Polley rejects religion and identifies as an atheist.