Former Anne of Green Gables star Megan Follows is set to return to the iconic character, only in a different way. Per Variety, Follows will star as Anne Shirley’s creator Lucy Maude Montgomery in Lucy. Maud, a biopic series on the life of the iconic Canadian author.
First published in 1908, Anne of Green Gables follows the orphaned Anne Shirley as she is sent to live with the Cuthbert family on the province of Prince Edward Island. Anne is unlike other children in the community as she is imaginative, outspoken and incredibly optimistic in the goodness of those around her.
Throughout her career, Montgomery wrote 8 novels following Anne with a ninth published posthumously over 60 years after her death. Though she wrote dozens of books, short stories and poems, Anne of Green Gables has remained her most famous work throughout the world and has inspired countless adaptations in television, film and onstage. In Canada, both Montgomery and Anne are revered with Montgomery’s hometown in PEI a popular tourist attraction due to it being the main inspiration for Anne’s home.
“I’ve always been incredibly grateful to be introduced, as a young woman, to the power of a character who was a central figure in her own story,” Follows said to Variety. “One thing I share with the writers [of the show] is that our lives were greatly influenced by Anne. She defined us as artists, as writers, me as an actor.”
Follows first starred as Anne in the 1985 adaptation of Anne of Green Gables as the title character and reprised the role for two of its three sequels. In 2018, we got the chance to interview her for her roles in Anne, Reign and Wynonna Earp and of Anne Shirley she said “As a young person I got to play such a phenomenal character, first of all, just a beautifully constructed character. I got to play someone who was number one, meaning as a young female her storyline, her thoughts and feelings, her desires were the spine of the story. She wasn’t an appendage on someone else’s story.”
Lucy. Maud will see Follows play Montgomery from her 40s until her death with other actresses playing younger versions of the author. It will be based on the biography of Montgomery written by Mary Rubio The Gift of Wings with the series being created and written by Susan Coyne and Rosa Laborde for A Story Girls Production.
“I will play Maud, as that was her preferred name, from her forties through the end of her life,” Follows said. “But we will also go on a wonderful journey with a young Maud and Maud in her 20s. There are multiple timelines we are discovering and experiencing with her.”
In addition, Anne Shirley will be in the series through Montgomery’s imagination “as a force she interacts with.” As Follows explained, “Maud was a very vivid dreamer: she had hyperphantasia. She really brought her characters to life. She was pressured by her publisher to make them more conformist, but she really was ahead of her time. Women had to be very careful how they masked the truth of their ambitions and Anne, for example, is a very ambitious character.”
Follows will also serve as a director on the series and produce alongside Edwina Follows and Mary Young Leckie.
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