TORONTO — Move over, Megan Follows.
Newcomer Ella Ballentine says she’s ready to put her stamp on the iconic role of Anne Shirley for a new adaptation about the feisty red-headed orphan.
The teen stars in the YTV movie Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, airing Monday, and says she’s excited to tackle the beloved character.
Of course, the Toronto-born Ballentine can’t help but feel the weight of past incarnations on her shoulders, but says it’s time for a new version of the classic.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Well, there was Megan Follows.’ But it’s just like in Freaky Friday — they had a movie remade. I’m doing my version of Anne,” Ballentine said during a break from shooting in Milton, Ont., last June, when she was 13.
The teen acknowledged feeling some responsibility to do justice to the character of Anne — an imaginative and iron-willed chatterbox whose zest for life charms everyone in her Prince Edward Island community.
“I think it’s really great to see Anne as such a strong female character, especially for younger girls growing up,” said Ballentine, whose resume includes gigs such as Les Misérables.
“She knows what she wants and she’s very positive about everything and she doesn’t let anybody be rude to her and she stands her ground.”
The production earns some star power by way of Martin Sheen, who plays the shy Matthew Cuthbert, a lifelong bachelor who becomes Anne’s unexpected ally when she arrives at Green Gables.
Sara Botsford plays Matthew’s practical-minded sister, Marilla Cuthbert, who has a tougher time accepting Anne as she ruefully notes she had asked the orphanage to send them a boy to help around the farm.
Sheen says he could easily connect with his introspective character, an elderly farmer who is surprised by how much he could love a child. And he lauds the period drama as a welcome change from a lot of kid-focused TV fare, which seems to play on a youth culture driven by technology and increasingly fractured into niche interests.
“Our show takes place in 1908, in a remote area, when childbirth was an emergency,” Sheen said of the radically different world in which this tale is set.
“A snowstorm could isolate you. People could starve to death. Whooping cough, pneumonia, measles would kill you. So people depended on each other in life-and-death situations. That was real community. We’ve lost that. Our culture and our current malaise is about ‘I, me, me, mine.’ ” he lamented. “None of us can do anything without the help of other human beings. Anne reminds us of that.”
The film comes as CBC-TV says its own reboot — a television series titled Anne — is set to begin production this spring for a debut in 2017. The public broadcaster hinted at a makeover that would “chart new territory.”
Ballentine said the YTV version offers up a “much more realistic” look at Anne’s life that should appeal to a modern audience.
“She’s still bubbly, all the characters are as you imagined them to be, but Anne has flashbacks to her time in the orphanage or at other homes,” Ballentine said, noting those scenes can get quite dark. “Having it more realistic, people can relate to it a lot more.”
Ballentine said she mined Sheen for career advice while on set, and he gamely obliged.
“Martin’s been telling me stories about other roles he played and he’s been telling me what movies he wants me to see of his. He doesn’t want me seeing Apocalypse Now until I’m 18, though.”
