Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley is among the newest honorary graduates of Western University. The 44-year-old Oscar winner received an honorary Doctor of Letters at the Western Convocation Thursday. She spoke to graduates about how to know what’s right for you when it comes to advice. “I want to know what makes sense, what doesn’t,” she told the crowd. “What works, what doesn’t. What feels right, what doesn’t.” She said to listen to one’s inner voice to discern when the advice you’re being given by someone is more about their story than yours. Polley has been an actor, director, and writer. She won the 2023 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking. She said she’s passionate about any project she’s working on. “I’ve always been very single-focussed or passionate about whatever I’m working on at that given moment, so if I have an idea, I become very ambitious for that idea. I’ve never had an over-arching sense of a career building some kind of story about my work. It’s always been project to project and putting everything that I have in that one thing,” she said. Polley became known to Canadians as a child actor, starring in the TV series Road To Avonlea from 1990 to 1996. She reflected on the perils of being a child actor. “I think being a child actor is a really hard path to travel and it certainly was in my case too. There have certainly been moments in my life where there’s been a huge cost to having that through my childhood,” said Polley. “I think in general, no one goes through being a child actor and comes out unscathed. I think we’re learning [that] more and more. Just statistically, it’s not a great idea for kids to be in professional working environments.”
