Indie Spirits |
Recently, they have both wrapped their latest labours of love with the ones they love the most. Toronto-born Polley’s feature-film directorial debut—a film titled Away from Her (which, incidentally, she also wrote)—will be opening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The film is based on a story written by her favourite writer, Alice Munro, and stars what Polley calls her dream cast: Julie Christie, Olympia Dukakis and Gordon Pinsent. Polley felt poised to bring Munro’s take on love to the big screen because of how affected she was after reading it. “It’s a very realistic portrait of a romance,” she explains. “What I find beautiful is when I see couples in their 60s and 70s who still clearly have some kind of connection and chemistry. I think that’s what’s amazing.” To add fuel to the fire, her real-life husband, David Wharnsby, is editing the feature. “It’s a really interesting process,” she laughs. “Basically, every day we’re in a darkroom together talking about a film that’s about a marriage. It’s like intensive couples’ therapy—it’s hilarious!”
But wearing many hats and combining their relationships on and off the set is not all these remarkable women have in common—they both have plans to hit up Hollywood yet again. Parker—who has starred in films alongside Christian Slater, John Cusack and Sandra Oh, as well as been a regular on HBO’s Deadwood and guested on Six Feet Under—is starring in The Wicker Man with Nicolas Cage and Hollywoodland with Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck and Diane Lane. Polley is also back in the actor’s seat, starring alongside Tim Robbins in The Secret Life of Words. However, for all of the commonalities in their careers, these two, strangely, have never shared camera time together (aside from FLARE’s photo shoot). Parker sums up the event pitch-perfectly: “It’s a complete cliché, but I feel like Sarah and I are ships passing in the night. We’ve never worked together, but we’ve worked with loads of the same filmmakers.” It must be kismet. —Alexandra Breen |
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Indie Spirits - Molly Parker and Sarah Polley
Actors Molly Parker and Sarah Polley have come a long way, baby