Her teenage silhouette in jeans and a sweatshirt is featured on Time front page.
With this title like a standard: "I am fully who I am".
Despite his flippant demeanor, Elliot Page knows that this photo marks a turning point: for the first time, the one who was born Ellen Page before becoming the actress of "Juno", "X-Men", "Inception" or "Umbrella Academy », Poses with his new identity, that of a transgender person.
Elliot Page now wants us to talk about him by saying "he" or "iel".
In the American magazine, therefore, the 34-year-old Canadian actor speaks about his transition, announced in early December on social networks.
pic.twitter.com/kwti60bZLw
- Elliot Page (@TheElliotPage) December 1, 2020
Elliot Page recounts having had her breasts removed.
We will not know more about his physical transformation, except that “the surgery has changed (his) life”.
What the actor details is the path that brought him from Ellen to Elliot.
And led him to say today: "Nothing beats feeling what I feel now".
For the artist, confinement played a triggering role: "I had a lot of time alone to really think about things that, I think unconsciously, I avoided," he confides.
It had been a long time since Ellen "knew" that she was born in the wrong body.
Daughter of a teacher and a graphic designer, Ellen Page grew up in Halifax, a Canadian port on the Atlantic Ocean.
She gets called a "tomboy" at school, spends her days playing console and hockey, and loves soccer.
At the age of 9, the girl asks her mother if she can one day become a boy ... At the age of 10, Ellen lands a role in a Canadian series.
It quickly connects TV films and independent feature films, wins a few prizes.
In 2005, her performance in the psychological thriller "Hard Candy" was spotted at the prestigious Sundance Festival.
Ellen Page was then 18 years old.
"I felt like I was lying constantly"
It was in 2007, with “Juno”, in which she played a malignant and hypermature teenager who became pregnant, that international recognition arose.
The public and the press are on fire for this 1.55 m twig with a mischievous air and a slightly hoarse voice.
Ellen Page is even nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress.
The same year, she joined the franchise "X-Men", where she played a wall pass.
Follow Drew Barrymore's “Bliss”, where she plays a feminist roller-girl, then Christopher Nolan's blockbuster “Inception” and Woody Allen's “To Rome With Love”.
But during all these years, Ellen suffers in silence.
In an interview, the young woman displays a pouting, reserved, suspicious pout.
In reality, she suffocates having to play a role outside the sets.
“The promo for
Juno
, which lasted a year, was both a great joy and a torture, analyzes Elliot Page today.
In front of the media, I had to give the appearance of a young romantic, ingenuous, feminine actress.
But it wasn't me at all.
I felt like I was lying all the time.
During these years, Ellen faced anxiety attacks and periods of depression.
“I couldn't look at a photo of myself,” even the artist confides.
A gay icon
In Hollywood, many advise him against revealing his homosexuality.
Too dangerous for her career, it is argued, in an industry where even Jodie Foster waited until she was 50 to come out of the closet.
In February 2014, however, Ellen Page came out at a conference in Las Vegas on supporting gay teenagers.
"Tired of hiding", the one who feels a lesbian "for (her) 15-16 years" declares that she wants "perhaps to change things".
Later, in an interview, she will reveal that the film "La Vie d'Adèle" by Abdellatif Kechiche, which she adored and saw when she chose to come out, "helped" her a lot. to accept yourself.
Ellen Page then becomes a gay icon and her commitment imprints her filmography.
In 2015, she co-produced and starred in "Freeheld" with Julianne Moore, the story of a couple of women who fight for their rights.
Two years later, in "My Days of Mercy", she plays a woman who falls in love with another, played by Kate Mara.
In the meantime, Ellen is making a documentary series called “Gaycation” on gay communities in Japan, Brazil or Jamaica.
And in 2019, she finds herself starring in two Netflix series: "Umbrella Academy", in which her character has a homosexual relationship, and "the Chronicles of San Francisco", a series in which she plays Shawna, a young woman who is sexually open. .
In the city, Ellen Page marries her partner Emma Portner in early 2018, a Canadian dancer and choreographer from whom she recently divorced.
In the credits of season 3 of "Umbrella Academy"
Since 2014, Ellen Page has insisted that her coming out was "the most beautiful decision" she has ever made.
We understand today that this was only a step.
“The difference between what I felt before announcing my homosexuality and after, it was massive.
But was the discomfort in my body gone?
No, no, no, no, ”says Elliot Page in Time.
Now, the artist wants to defend the rights of transgender people while pursuing his career.
It is not yet known whether he has any film projects, but we do know that he will continue to play Vanya, the heroine of "Umbrella Academy", whose screenplay does not provide for a change of genre.
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Season 3 will also soon be filming and Netflix has already corrected the name of the performer on the series sheet.
The “Umbrella Academy” boss told Time about Elliot, “It's like there's a huge weight lifted off his shoulders.
(...) There is more lightness, much more smiles ”.
The person concerned said: "I am really happy to play, now that I am fully who I am in this body".