Elliot Page Writes Essay About His Transness, Career, and More
Elliot Page sat with Esquire for their summer issue and opened up about his career, his childhood, his trans experience, and more.
Page mentions how much he loved reading growing up, but at some point, that was taken from him. When filming Inception, Page struggled with food, intense depression, anxiety, severe panic attacks, and leaving the hotel room where he was staying.
“There were days when I’d only have one meeting, and I’d leave my house to go to the meeting and have to turn around. Not being able to get through a script—could not. Reading is one of my favorite things to do—I couldn’t read, couldn’t get through a paragraph.”
A lot of that was due to being forced to be someone he’s not. Having to wear dresses, skirts, and heels for promotions and films like Juno and Inception weighed heavily on him. Page points out that a lot of people don’t want to understand the impact that this has on people.
“I wish people would understand that that shit literally did almost kill me,” he says.
When reminiscing on moments like this, Page remembers the premiere of Juno when he wanted to wear a suit but was told that he needed to wear a dress by the film studio, despite his co-star wearing slacks with sneakers.
Page relates his experience to the many trans folks who have attempted, survived, or died by suicide.
“Yeah, I can relate deeply,” he says. “And not only to the very conscious, direct act of doing it, but also certain times when I lost so much weight or when I was having such severe panic attacks and collapsed multiple times—all these things that very easily could, and statistically do, lead to death. And that’s all a manifestation of that trauma and discomfort that’s a disproportionate issue for transgender people.”
On the subject of Juno, Page confirms that it is a trans film.
“It related to my queerness and my transness,” Page says.
He also states, “ … You have that film have the success it had, and the major, major profit, between the film and the soundtrack—And then you fucking squash that all away. You squash it. So you’re benefiting greatly from this character that connected with people, and then you do that. It’s gross. I wish I could go back and experience it now. As me.”
Page has a beautiful, simple answer when asked what euphoria is for him.
“For me, euphoria is simply the act of waking up, making my coffee, and sitting down with a book and being able to read. I know that may sound strange, but I can’t stress enough the degree of discomfort and struggle that I was experiencing that got in the way of everything. How could it not?”
Elliot Page looked amazing on the cover of Esquire, and we can’t wait to see him in the latest season of Umbrella Academy.
Photos courtesy of Elliot Page on Instagram
