Elliot Page has said that creating the movie Juno ‘literally almost killed him’.
The film was released back in 2007 and told the story of Juno, a teenage girl who became pregnant.
Page starred as the pregnant teen who decides to carry on with school and carry the baby for an adoptive couple.
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13 years later in 2020, the actor publicly came out as a transgender man, with their memoir Pageboy becoming an instant Sunday Times bestseller last year.
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Page in Juno. (Searchlight Pictures)
The film was hugely successful when it was released, and had four Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Page.
But while the movie was doing so well, at the time, Page was struggling and ‘didn’t know how to talk about [it].’
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“During awards-season time, I was closeted, dressed in heels and the whole look – I wasn’t okay, and I didn’t know how to talk about that with anyone,” he wrote in Esquire.
“I can’t pinpoint a ‘worst’ day. But when Juno was blowing up – this sounds strange to people, and I get that people don’t understand. Oh, f*** you, you’re famous, and you have money, and you had to wear a dress, boo-hoo. I don’t not understand that reaction.
“But that’s mixed with: I wish people would understand that that sh*t literally did almost kill me.
“… I was living the life and my dreams were coming true, and all that was happening. And yet, for example, when I was shooting Inception, I could pretty much not leave whatever hotel I’d be staying in.”
Since transitioning and getting to publicly live as his true self, Page opened up on stories of their life in memoir Pageboy last year. Following its release, Page confessed he is ‘loving acting again’.
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“Thank goodness,” he said.
“I did struggle to see a future and what that was going to look like.
“In a body that I feel at home in and can feel present in, all of that makes me more inspired creatively and artistically.”
Page opened up about filming Juno (Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic)
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In their memoir, Page also opened up about a relationship he had with co-star Olivia Thirlby.
He said: “I was taken aback the moment I saw Olivia Thirlby. She seemed so much older, capable, and centered.
“Sexually open, far removed from where I was at the time. But the chemistry was palpable, it pulled me in.”
Page went on: “It was on. I had an all-encompassing desire for her, she made me want in a way that was new, hopeful.”
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He said it was one of the first times someone made him orgasm.
Page also claimed he and Olivia had sex ‘all the time’ while filming Juno and recalled the locations where they allegedly got intimate.
“Her hotel room, in our trailers at work, once in a tiny, private room in a restaurant … We thought we were being subtle. Being intimate with Olivia helped my shame dissipate. I didn’t see a glint of it in her eyes and I wanted that — done feeling wretched about who I am,” he penned.
Featured Image Credit: Emma McIntyre/WireImage/Getty Images/Searchlight pictures
Topics: Celebrity, Elliot Page, TV and Film, Books
