'Innately likeable'

Megan Follows makes her long-awaited return to the stage in a taut drama

- GLENN SUMI

"Theatre makes you use different muscles," says actor Megan Follows, who stars in "Four Minutes Twelve Seconds."

When Megan Follows was young — younger than the red-headed orphan she would go on to play in the TV miniseries that would make her famous — she discovered her family’s unusual religious affiliations.

Her mother is actor Dawn Greenhalgh; her father, who died in 2016, was the actor and director Ted Follows.

“My older sister was in school and one week they were discussing religion,” recalled Follows, a born raconteur. “Students were talking about their family’s backgrounds — Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, etc. — and what their rituals were. My mom was raised Catholic but at this point was an atheist and my father was agnostic. Before class, my sister asked, ‘Mom, what are we?’ And my mother said, ‘Darling, we are actors.’ ”

Follows has continued to devote herself to this religion, which she happily points out has “a community, a shared goal and purpose — to tell a story — and lots of discussion.”

Follows recently revisited "Anne of Green Gables" as a director.

In fact, right now she’s poring over the sacred text of her latest project, “Four Minutes Twelve Seconds,” a tight, taut drama by British playwright James Fritz about a couple caught up in a potentially life-altering situation involving their son, his ex-girlfriend and a compromising video uploaded to the internet.