Actor Elliot Page’s rise to fame was meteoric — and complicated.
“Yeah, that whole Juno time. That was quite the time,” Page told ABC News in an exclusive network interview for The Freedom to Exist — A Soul of a Nation Presentation, airing June 6 on ABC, coinciding with the release of the Umbrella Academy star’s memoir, Pageboy: A Memoir.
When the 2007 movie Juno premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was a smash. The film went on to earn four Oscar nominations, ultimately winning the Academy Award for best original screenplay.
In an excerpt from his new book, Page said he had planned to wear jeans and a shirt to the premiere but that he needed to wear a dress and heels instead.
“It’s not like someone was forcing clothing on my physical body, but that is what it felt like…” he explained.
When Page was a 6-year-old kid growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he had asked his mother, Martha, if he could be a boy, and his mother said no. But at the age of 10, Page wrote that he cut his hair short and people started addressing him as a boy.
“It was the first time I really could see myself,” he said. “I was lucky to have a mom that let me get to that place at 10…but…I could sense her embarrassment.”
Fast-forward to December 2020 when, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Page announced on Instagram he was transgender. He told ABC News that the announcement was a moment of freedom.
“I was able to finally make the steps and the decision to be myself and…to live fully,” he said. “I’m feeling that joy every day. What it has allowed me is what feels like truly being alive for the first time.”
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