Wit & Attitude Quote by Sarah Polley

Polley’s line plays like a dare tossed over her shoulder, half confession and half career thesis. The joke lands because it’s casually self-deprecating while also quietly ambitious: she frames her next move as “insane,” then instantly escalates the scale by invoking Dawn of the Dead, a remake already associated with genre excess, blood-slick spectacle, and the kind of role that can brand an actor as “that person from the zombie movie.” The punchline, “If that’s possible,” is the sly hedge that keeps the bravado from curdling into ego.

The intent reads as preemptive narrative control. Actors, especially young women in Hollywood, get boxed in by other people’s adjectives: wholesome, serious, indie, commercial, sensible. Polley flips the labeling game by choosing the most chaotic descriptor herself. Calling a future project “more insane” signals openness to risk, but it also signals an awareness that risk is a commodity. “Insane” is a way of promising the audience novelty without having to reveal anything specific.

Subtextually, she’s negotiating credibility across worlds: prestige and pulp, art-house and multiplex. Dawn of the Dead becomes shorthand for a moment when she already crossed a boundary and survived it. The line also hints at a protective irony: by laughing at her own extremity, she disarms the inevitable critique. If the next choice shocks people, she can point back and say, I warned you.