Elliot Page describes “healing experience” of playing trans man in ‘Close To Me’

Elliot Page has spoken about the “big, big healing experience” of playing a trans man in his new film Close To Me.

The film, which is in UK cinemas now, sees the actor playing Sam, a recently transitioned man who returns home to celebrate his father’s birthday, anxious about what his family’s reception to him will be.

For Page, who came out as a trans man in December 2020, the role offered a cathartic experience, one he told Manchester Evening News he would not “have been able to feel comfortable and present and grounded enough” to perform before his own transition.

“For me, waking up every day so excited to go to set that, to me, was a big, big healing experience,” he said.

The film is directed by Dominic Savage, best known for his Channel 4 anthology series I Am…, and was largely improvised on set, something Page said he “wasn’t sure” he would be able to do.

“It’s not normal as an actor working in film that you do a 23-minute take, 40-minute take…and so you get that exhilarating joy that you feel in acting,” he said. “It was just an absolute joy.”

Last month, Page said he felt “incredibly angry and frightened” by the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation coming into force in the US, specifically in the light of the Republican National Convention, which saw several politicians dialling up the rhetoric on the subject.

“I think of, for example, the trans community, and how the vast majority of people don’t know or think they don’t know a trans person. The amount of misinformation and true, flat-out lies about our lives, who we are, our healthcare, spreads,” Page said.

“I really want to encourage people to educate yourselves, to listen to trans people, to listen to trans youth, to listen to the parents of trans youth, many of whom were in denial about a certain situation, and if they have the means, having to flee certain states, are terrified that their children are going to be taken away from them when they’ve been doing everything they can to make sure that their child can feel loved and thrive in their lives.”

Page, known for roles in films such as Juno, Inception and the X-Men series, also stars as Vanya/Viktor Hargreeves in Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, the fourth and final season of which premiered earlier this month.

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