Polly Shannon grew up in Aylmer, Quebec, with her mother (a Canadian Script-Writer for children's television) and her father (Director-General of Health Canada). She was given a deadline of the age of 25 to make it or break it as an actress, and she's more than met that quota. In 1999, alone, she's had hits with The Girl Next Door (1998) (with Henry Czerny) and The Sheldon Kennedy Story (1999) (with Jonathan Scarfe of Madison (1993) and ER (1994) fame), coming a long way from her first role as Nina in the Canadian teen series Catwalk (1992) in the early nineties.