Anne the accidental feminist
Star and producers of CBC’s Anne of Green Gables update say story is still relevant for audiences today
The themes and lessons from Anne of Green Gables, set almost 150 years in the past, are more relevant than ever today, says the writer of the CBC’s upcoming television series based on the Canadian classic.
“To start with, Anne was an accidental feminist, she was boundary-free, she believed in gender parity. The fact that she was a girl never deterred her from anything and she had no expectations that it would,” said
Anne writer and executive producer Moira WalleyBeckett ( Breaking Bad, Flesh and Bone) during a visit to the Toronto studio where most of Anne was shot.
“The issues that she experienced . . . here are issues that everyone is experiencing now: themes of prejudice and identity and bullying, being from away and not being accepted, and not belonging, and all of those issues are not only in the book, but issues I’ve really brought to the forefront of this series.” Producer Miranda de Pencier, whose credits include
Beginners and Wild Roses, agrees. “There’s no point making (a TV series) if we feel it’s not going to connect to audiences,” said de Pencier, who played supporting character Josie Pye in the CBC’s 1985 Anne of Green
Gables miniseries. “We also don’t think of this as a historic drama. This is not a dry, removed show . . . we like to think it’s as contemporary as today; it just happened to be in another time period.”
“This is not a dry, removed show . . . we like to think it’s as contemporary as today.” MIRANDA DE PENCIER PRODUCER
Drawing from the 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne is, at its core, the coming-of-age story of 13-year-old Anne Shirley, an audacious, adventurous, red-headed orphan sent to the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island to live with aging siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert (played by Geraldine James and R.H. Thomson).
Trouble begins almost immediately, though, as the Cuthberts had asked the orphanage for a boy to help run their idyllic farm of Green Gables, and Anne finds herself fighting to prove her worth to them while struggling, at times, to fit into her new community and build an identity for herself along the way.
Walley-Beckett says she “treated the book with reverence” and as a “framework” when writing the script for Anne, but viewers can also look forward to new storylines and characters as well as deeper explorations of existing ones.
For example, farmhand Jerry Baynard, who’s mentioned in one line of the book, will get his own plot in the series.
“We’re off-book by the end of Episode1except for some beloved, iconic moments,” Walley-Beckett said.
“I really wanted an opportunity to go deeper with these characters.”
One of those moments includes Anne’s expression of hatred for her long, red locks, something 15-yearold lead actress Amybeth McNulty said was one of the few things about the character she couldn’t relate to.
“I love this red hair, I’m going to be honest,” said McNulty, a natural blond who landed the part after auditioning with a four-page monologue (“Oh, this girl talks so much!”).
The Irish-Canadian, who hadn’t been to Canada before and had to work with a dialect coach to help her nail the local accent, said she tapped into a personal place to help bring Anne to life: the story of her greatgrandmother who, at11years old, was an orphan and slave in Ireland.
“To go through that is traumatic, but my great-grandmother kept her spirit up and so did Anne, and that was a very beautiful merge,” McNulty said. “There’s things that happened to Anne that are the exact same things that happened to my great-grandmother, which was heartbreaking but a wonderful, wonderful experience to go through and say, ‘This really happened, this isn’t just a story, this isn’t just fake or entertainment, this is what really happened and I’m going to show you exactly how.’ ”
And, like Walley-Beckett, McNulty also believes Anne’s new take on the classic story will resonate with audiences of all ages.
“It was a little nerve-wracking, I’ll admit, because ( Anne of Green Gables) is so well-loved and it’s sacred ground, but I don’t like to think of it as changing it,” she said.
“It’s just sacred ground that we’re planting seeds in.” Anne premieres on CBC Sunday at 8 p.m.
“I really wanted an opportunity to go deeper with these characters.” MOIRA WALLEY-BECKETT WRITER AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER