Describing himself as a pro-choicefeminist, Page has spoken out in favor of the Me Too movement, advocated for abortion rights, has called for the end of military dictatorship in Myanmar, and is also vegan. In 2014, Page was included in The Advocate's annual "40 Under 40" list. In 2015, he received the Human Rights Campaign Vanguard Award.[3] Page has strongly spoken out against discriminatory legislation towards the trans community and has become a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights.[4] Page publicly came out as a trans man in 2020. In March 2021, he became the first openly trans man to appear on the cover of Time.[5]
In 2005, Page received recognition for his role in the movie Hard Candy, where he portrayed Hayley Stark, a teenage girl who takes a pedophile hostage.[20] The film was a critical and commercial success,[21] and he received acclaim for his performance, with USA Today praising him for his role, stating that Page "manages to be both cruelly callous and likable" and gives "one of the most complex, disturbing and haunting performances of the year".[22] For the role, he won the Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress in 2006, among other awards and nominations.[23] Also in 2005, he starred in the British film Mouth to Mouth. In 2006, Page appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) as Kitty Pryde, a girl who can walk through walls. In the previous X-Men movies, the part had been used in brief cameos played by other actors, but never as a main character.[24] The film was a commercial success.[25]
In August 2009, Page was cast in the big-budget Christopher Nolan science fiction film Inception, which began filming the same year.[40] The film was released on July 16, 2010, and was a commercial success.[41] It received widespread acclaim from critics, being hailed as one of the best films of the 2010s.[42] Page played Ariadne, an architecture student who is a newcomer to dream espionage.[43][44] The cast, including Page, earned several accolades, with Page earning nominations from the Saturn Awards and the MTV Awards. He also starred in the 2010 black comedy superhero film Super,[45] which he accepted after seeing the script for the film.[46] The film received mixed reviews, though Page was praised for his performance as a psychopathic teenage sidekick.[47] In January 2010, Page began appearing in a series of advertisements for Cisco Systems, including commercials set in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.[48][49] That April, the Michael Lander film Peacock featured Page as Maggie Bailey, a struggling young mother.[50] Page noted the film as "one of the boldest screenplays I've come across in my albeit short career; it's a character and story I can throw myself into and exactly the type of movie I love to be a part of".[51]
In April 2011, it was announced that Page would co-star as Monica in the Woody Allen film To Rome with Love, a film told in four separate vignettes;[52] the film was released in 2012. In June 2012, Quantic Dream announced the video gameBeyond: Two Souls, in which Page portrays one of the main player characters, Jodie Holmes, through voice acting and motion-capture acting; it was released on October 8, 2013, in North America.[53][54][55] The game polarized critics,[56] but Page earned praise for his performance, with GamesTM calling it "truly breathtaking ... Jodie's character is one we've seen before in many films – a troubled child with a gift, haunted by spirits, struggling with growing up", but Page excelled in giving "gravity and warmth" to the character.[57] He was given various awards and nominations for the role, including the British Academy Games Award for Best Performer.[58] In 2013, another video game, The Last of Us, was released. Page accused the production for using his likeness without permission for the character Ellie;[59][60] the character's appearance was subsequently redesigned to better reflect the actual performer's personality and make the character younger.[61]
In 2015, Page starred in and produced the film Freeheld, about Laurel Hester,[74] which was adapted from the 2007 short film of the same name.[75] The film received a mixed response from critics, with review site Rotten Tomatoes writing that "Freeheld certainly means well, but its cardboard characters and by-the-numbers drama undermine its noble intentions".[76] In 2016, Page co-starred in the Netflix film Tallulah as the eponymous character;[77] the film marked his third collaboration with director Sian Heder, and his second collaboration with Allison Janney, both of whom he worked with on Juno.[78] In the film, his character is a young woman who abducts a baby and tries to pass it off as her own.[77] On his acting,[79]The Guardian wrote "...what grounds it are the terrific performances and Heder's rich direction and screenplay".[79] In the same year, he appeared in the film Window Horses and provided the English voice of Rosy in the French film My Life as a Zucchini,[80] the latter of which earned critical acclaim[81][82] and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.[83]
On November 9, 2017, it was announced that Page had been cast in the main role of Vanya (later Viktor) Hargreeves in the Netflix superhero series The Umbrella Academy.[84][85] The show received positive reviews from critics,[86] and Page was acclaimed for his performance, earning a Saturn Award nomination in 2019 and winning the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor on Television in 2022.[87][88][89] After Page came out as transgender, it was revealed that he would continue his role in the show, with Netflix updating Page's name across the service.[90] In March 2022, it was announced that Page's character would return in the upcoming third season and transition to male;[91][92] the character briefly comes out to his siblings during "World's Biggest Ball of Twine".[93]Gizmodo reported that the change "was very likely done to reflect Page's own transition".[92]
Page headlined the science-fiction film Flatliners,[94] a remake of the 1990 film of the same title which was released in 2017, emerging as a commercial success.[95]Flatliners was panned by critics,[96][97] although Page and the ensemble cast were praised, with film critic Matt Zoller Seitz writing that "Luna and Page in particular make much stronger impressions than you might expect, given the repetitious and mostly shallow scenarios they're asked to enact ... But the choppy, cliched visuals and the script's superficial approach to the characters' predicaments ultimately undo any goodwill that the actors can generate."[98] Also in 2017, he produced and starred in the film The Cured.[99]
2020s: Expansion and current work
In 2019, Page starred in the Netflix miniseries Tales of the City as Shawna Hopkins,[100][101] which received positive reviews.[102][103] Page, along with Ian Daniel, directed and produced the documentary There's Something in the Water, which is about environmental racism;[104] the film premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival,[105] and was later released on Netflix on March 27, 2020.[106] The film received positive reviews from critics, with The Hollywood Reporter writing that the film, while "made in a standard documentary format that includes a voiceover and a tad too much weepy music", "gets its job done directly enough, underlining a situation that remains dire despite what seems to be a growing level awareness around the country".[107] Page will next have a voice role in the upcoming film Naya Legend of the Golden Dolphin and Robodog.[108]
In August 2021, Page collaborated with Mark Rendall for a music release on Bandcamp.[109] The three-track EP has been described as a "lo-fi bedroom pop adventure" in the press.[110] In August 2021, he signed an overall deal with Universal Content Productions.[111] In September 2021, Page launched a production company, Page Boy Productions, and appointed Matt Jordan Smith to serve as Head of Development and Production.[112] In February 2022, it was announced that Flatiron Books had acquired the publishing rights to Pageboy, a memoir written by Page, for $3 million, with the book set to release in June 2023.[113] The memoir debuted at the top of The New York Times Best Sellers List for Nonfiction.[114]
In October 2022, Page Boy Productions announced the project Backspot with him acting as executive producer.[115] Filming in Toronto on the production wrapped in March 2023.[116] In June 2023, it was reported that he served as a producer, screenwriter and actor on the upcoming drama film Close to You, which had just wrapped filming.[117] Both films premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.[118][119] Page was acclaimed for his latter performance, winning an award at the 2023 Calgary International Film Festival.[120] As of June 2022, Page was writing a screenplay with his Mouth to Mouth co-star Beatrice Brown.[121]
Personal life
Sexuality and gender
On February 14, 2014, Page, who at that time presented as female, came out as gay (Page being attracted to women),[122][123] during a speech at the Human Rights Campaign's "Time to Thrive" conference in Las Vegas.[124][125][126] In November 2017, Page claimed to have been outed at age 18 by filmmaker Brett Ratner while on the set of X-Men: The Last Stand.[127] This was corroborated by co-star Anna Paquin, who said that she was present when Ratner made the comment. In a lengthy Facebook post, Page expressed gratitude towards people who spoke out against abuse, and expressed frustration at the pattern of those who continued to remain silent on such matters.[128] In 2014, Page was included in The Advocate's annual "40 Under 40" list.[129][130]
On December 1, 2020, Page came out on social media as a trans man, specifying his pronouns as he and they, and revealed his new name, Elliot.[132] Page explained that his decision to speak openly about his gender identity was partially prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and partially by the anti-transgender rhetoric in politics and the news cycle.[133]GLAAD spokesperson Nick Adams stated that Page "will now be an inspiration to countless trans and non-binary people".[134] Page's then-wife, Emma Portner, expressed support for him coming out that same day on her Instagram account, saying she was "so proud" of Page.[135] Netflix tweeted: "So proud of our superhero! We love you Elliot!"[136] Various celebrities such as Justin Trudeau, Ellen DeGeneres, Miley Cyrus, James Gunn, and Kumail Nanjiani, expressed support for Page after the announcement.[137][138][139] That same day, Netflix announced that it would update Page's credits and metadata across all titles to reflect his name.[139] These changes were completed by December 8, 2020.[140]
Page appeared on the cover of the March 29 / April 5, 2021 issue of Time, making him the first openly trans man to do so.[131] He requested that Wynne Neilly photograph him for the cover because he wanted another transgender person to be the photographer.[141] In the featured article, he described himself as queer and non-binary,[131][142] and revealed that at the time he came out, he had been recovering from undergoing top surgery, a process that he described as "life-saving".[143] Page also revealed that at the age of nine, "I felt like a boy ... I wanted to be a boy. I would ask my mom if I could be someday."[122]
Relationships
Page had a relationship with Olivia Thirlby during the filming of Juno,[144] and with Kate Mara, with whom he co-starred in Tiny Detectives (2014) and My Days of Mercy (2017), in 2014.[145][146] In 2017, Page and dancer/choreographer Emma Portner revealed that they were in a relationship.[147][148] In January 2018, Page announced that they were married.[149] They separated in mid-2020, and Page filed for divorce in January 2021;[150] it was finalized in early 2021, though they remain close friends.[122]
Activism
Page is vegan, and PETA named him and Jared Leto the Sexiest Vegetarians of 2014.[151] He is an atheist, having said that religion "has always been used for beautiful things, and also as a way to justify discrimination".[152] In 2008, Page was a self-described pro-choicefeminist on abortion rights.[153] He was one of 30 celebrities who participated in a 2008 online advertisement series for US Campaign for Burma, calling for an end to the military dictatorship in Myanmar.[154]
^Page, Elliot [@theelliotpage] (December 1, 2020). "Hi friends..." (Tweet). Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020 – via Twitter.