The X-Men and Juno actress on why it wasn’t easy growing up gay in Nova Scotia, Canada
Ellen Page, 32, shot to fame in the film Juno (2007), about a teenager who becomes pregnant accidentally. She has since starred in blockbuster films including X-Men and Inception. She publicly came out as gay in 2014, revealing how movie industry pressure to keep her sexuality hidden had affected her mental health. She lives in New York with her wife, Emma Portner, a dancer and choreographer, whom she married last year.
I usually wake up at six — I just love the morning, I’m way more productive then. I have coffee, maybe with a touch of oat milk, read non-fiction, then take my dog for a walk. He’s called Patters and is almost four. When I got him I assumed he was a terrier mix, then I gave him a DNA test — it turns out he’s a small poodle crossed with a Chihuahua!
For breakfast, I eat toast, buckwheat or oatmeal. My wife and I live in a little two-bed apartment. We’re high up in the building, so we have this really beautiful view. I absolutely love being married. And I love how my wife’s mind works — I’m jealous of it, in a good way. When I’m away, I always have this sense of home. She fills my heart.
Acting sort of came out of nowhere when I was 10.1 always liked drama class and school plays, but the idea that I could become an actress just wasn’t a thing in my family. Then, when I was 15,1 really started to love film, art, books. I became committed to making it happen. When Juno came out I went from mostly anonymous to not anonymous overnight. That is a very' interesting thing to adjust to. It puts you in this place where you can get control, and it changes financial elements of your work, but it also came with a lot of things that weren’t very healthy for me. But now I feel I’m falling in love with acting again because I’m comfortable in my own skin.
If I’m not working, I’ll probably go to look at art or something. Lunch is normally salad or burritos. I’ve been a vegan since my late teens, mostly for environmental reasons, though I’ve sometimes shifted.
I was raised in Nova Scotia. It wasn’t always easy [growing up gay there]. It was one of those situations where it wasn’t really talked about a lot, and there was barely any visibility, and if there was, a lot of the time there would be negative energy. But it is extraordinarily beautiful, with people who are just so down to earth and real and special.
I wasn’t educated about the history of marginalised people and I should have been. 1 remember maybe we talked about Harvey Milk [California’s first openly gay elected official], but it was so limited. I think education is crucial to help get rid of queerphobia and transphobia. Children are hearing the heterosexist narrative from the first moment they ever, hear a narrative, and that’s what I grew up with — Sleeping Beauty. for instance.
To say that at a certain age you basically can’t know about LGBTQ people, or that they even exist, means you’re demonising LGBTQ people. You’re saying that something about us is wrong and incorrect. Here’s the thing: any religious influence that has an anti-LGBTQ element leads to serious suffering. I’ve seen the pain it causes. Religion has been used to justify so many horrors — it can't be used to justify treating LGBTQ people as second-class citizens.
Because I wake so early, I tend to go to sleep around lOish. One reason I talk about mental health is I think the stigma and pressure not to do so leads to it being much worse. I’ve been able to receive help, but the fact it’s unobtainable for so many people makes me so upset. A lot of people struggle with anxiety what a beautiful thing if we could talk to each other about our trauma.