Politics & Power Quote by Sarah Polley

Polley’s offhand cadence is doing quiet damage to the usual celebrity mythology. Where actors are expected to project hunger, momentum, and “the grind,” she frames absence as a deliberate practice: time off isn’t a lapse in relevance, it’s a choice with a resume. The phrase “I do tend to take time off” lands like a mild admission, but it’s really a rebuke to an industry that treats continuous visibility as both virtue and survival strategy.

The subtext is control. By naming film school and political involvement in the same breath as acting, she rejects the idea that her identity is supposed to be single-use. There’s also a subtle class of defiance here: stepping away is a privilege many workers don’t have, but in entertainment it’s also a risk. Polley’s point is that the risk is worth it, because the alternative is becoming professionally fluent and personally hollow.

The specificity matters: “a year and a half ago” grounds the claim in lived chronology, not a vague “sabbatical” brand. And “this or that” is doing rhetorical work, too. It downplays the list, signaling that the particulars aren’t the point; the point is that her life contains competing commitments. In a culture that sells authenticity while punishing boundaries, Polley’s version of authenticity is inconvenient: disappear, learn something, return changed. That’s not career management. It’s self-authorship.