With complexity and Grace
Sarah Gadon tells Meredith Blake why her latest role took a toll on her.
Sarah Gadon is not your typical young Hollywood star. For starters, she lives in Toronto. She also made a name for herself not by starring in blockbuster sequels, but in the idiosyncratic films of David Cronenberg ( A History of Violence, Eastern Promises). And she’s the type who, over a lengthy interview, expounds not on her latest juice cleanse, but on subjects like the importance of textiles to a culture and ‘‘emblems of female vanity’’ throughout art history.
Currently, she can be seen as the enigmatic title character in Netflix’s Alias Grace, adapted from the novel by Margaret Atwood. The six-part limited series is led by a team of impressive women, including director Mary Harron ( American Psycho) and writer-producer Sarah Polley ( Away From Her). Atwood was also involved as a supervising producer.
Thirty-year-old Gadon gives a mesmerising performance as Grace Marks, a housemaid and Irish immigrant fending off nearconstant abuse in Colonial-era Canada. First seen contemplating her own reflection in the mirror, Grace is a mystery to everyone around her – including, possibly, herself.
‘‘When I watch the show, it’s a real exploration on female subjectivity that gets me excited,’’ says the actress. ‘‘That’s the power of women making images, opening up this discourse and this dialogue about how women are seen.’’
Polley’s quest to bring Alias Grace to the screen began two decades ago, when as a teen she first read Atwood’s novel. Her agent rightly sensed that Polley, then a child star known for her role in the series The Road to Avonlea, might want to branch out beyond acting and suggested she try to option the rights.
‘‘Thankfully, I didn’t get them at 17, because I wouldn’t have done a very good job,’’ says Polley, now an accomplished writerdirector.
But the novel, and especially its elusive protagonist, made an impression.
Published in 1996, Alias Grace is inspired by the real-life figure of Grace Marks – who’s something like Canada’s answer to Lizzie Borden. A teenage domestic worker and immigrant from Northern Ireland, she was sentenced to life in prison for involvement in the 1843 murders of her employer, a wealthy Ontario farmer, and his housekeeper.
In Atwood’s rendering, Grace is alluringly inscrutable and essentially unknowable.
‘‘I’d never read a character that complex, a woman or a man,’’ says Polley, who was able to snatch up the rights some years later.
But finding an actress who could convincingly play Grace as a teenager, a young woman and in middle age – and, oh, yeah, do a perfect Northern Irish accent – was no small feat. Harron had directed Gadon in the 2011 horror movie The Moth Diaries, and Polley had acted with her in the 2004 Canadian indie Siblings. Both were impressed by her composure and self-assurance.
‘‘Sarah on-screen has this gravity, which could suggest someone who’s been through a lot,’’ says Harron. ‘‘She has an oldsoul quality that you needed for Grace. She can do very delicate shifts of emotion, even when listening or reacting, even when being still. Her face is very emotionally transparent.
‘‘It’s like water, with little shifts under the surface.’’
In addition to capturing Grace’s complexity, Gadon mastered the tricky accent by listening to BBC Radio Ulster and asking friends in Belfast to record portions of the script. The constant manipulation of her jaw gave Gadon ‘‘brutal headaches’’, she recalls with a wince.
She also had to learn how to cook and clean like a 19th-century domestic servant, since Grace is nearly always engaged in some kind of physical labour – sewing, scrubbing the floor, emptying chamber pots, laundering clothes. Harron says it was critical that the series showed ‘‘how these young girls just worked from morning until night’’. So Gadon was sent to Black Creek Pioneer Village, a historical re-enactment camp outside Toronto, and studied Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, a Victorian housekeeping guide.
Gadon acknowledges the physical, technical and emotional demands of the role, plus the long hours, took their toll. ‘‘I’d get to a point where I was paralysed with anxiety,’’ she says.
But Harron praises Gadon’s meticulous preparation, likening her to a British theatre actor. Gadon’s discipline may also stem from her training in ballet. She began performing professionally at age 9 in a production of The Nutcracker and eventually segued into acting.
Though Gadon wanted to move to LA once she graduated from high school, her level-headed parents – her mother is a kindergarten teacher and her father a therapist – insisted she go to college instead. Polley attributes Gadon’s ‘‘terrifying confidence’’ to her grounded family life. ‘‘Sometimes you meet someone who is that at ease and at peace in their own skin and the only explanation is they are one of the very few people who have two totally stable parents who stayed together and didn’t die.’’
At the University of Toronto, she pursued a degree in film theory but also started working with fellow Torontonian Cronenberg, starring as Carl Jung’s wife in A Dangerous Method and Julianne Moore’s dead mother in Maps to the Stars.
Gadon is often described as Cronenberg’s ‘‘muse’’, a term that seems to offend her Canadian modesty. ‘‘It’s so ridiculous,’’ she says with an eye roll. ‘‘He’s such a genius that he doesn’t need me for inspiration at all.’’ – Los Angeles Times ● Alias Grace is now streaming on Netflix.
‘ Sarah on-screen has this gravity, which could suggest someone who’s been through a lot.’ MARY HARRON