Sarah Polley

January 8, 1979

Toronto, Canada.

David Wharnsby: (September 2003 - present)

Turned down the part of Penny Lane in "Almost Famous."

Polley's first feature film "Away From Her," an adapation of Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over The Mountain" opened to enormous critical acclaim in 2007.

Sarah Polley, the beautiful, socially conscious and intelligent actress from Canada, has been acting since she was four. The youngest of five children, she was born into an entertainment family. Her father, Michael, was an actor and her mother, Diane, worked as a casting agent. She has a highly successful career as a child actor, appearin in Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and on the television series "Road to Avonlea." The show was an enormous hit in Canada.

Polley's acclaimed performance as Nicole, the knowing wheel chairgirl, tragically injured a bus accident in Atom Egoyan's "Sweet Hereafter" sparked her career in independent films. She has enjoyed a career built on suffering. Polley plays a morose Dutch immigrant who murders her sister and sister-in-law in Kathryn Bigelow's "The Weight Of Water," parties before the end of the world in Don McKellar's "Last Night," witnesses her alcoholic lover's teeth fall out in Audrey Well's "Guinevere." She watched both of her parents die in Michael Winterbottom's "The Claim" and gets run over in a parking lot after an Ecstasy deal gone bad in Doug Limon's "Go."

Polley lit up the screen in Hal Hartley's "No Such Thing" as the no nonsense wide-eyed Beatrice. In Isabel Coixet's "My Life Without Me," Polley gives a nuance moving performance as a young wife and mother who finds out she only has two months to live. With her funny teeth and serious gaze, the film is impossible to imagine without her in the lead. Polley turns a potentially schlocky tear jerker into a compelling story.

She later worked with Coixet again in "The Secret Life of Words." She was next seen in "Dawn Of The Dead," a Hollwood remake of the George Romero cult classic. It's a drastic change in mood, and a burst of relief for her devoted fans. "I love Zombies," Polley told interviewers during the Toronto film festival. In addition to acting, Polley has also taken up directing. She has completed several short films and dramas for Canadian television. Her feature film "Away From Her," an adapation of Alice Munro's short story "The Bear Came Over The Mountain" opened to enormous critical acclaim in 2007.