Ellen Page possesses a magnetism that’s not totally obvious at first. Her exacting jaw and dark brown eyes are lovely, but reveal only a little of the confidence and certainty that have propelled her along in an acting career that began when she was 10 years old. She discusses her trajectory, her girlfriend, and the perils of being a feminist in public in a new interview with the Guardian’s Sophie Heawood.
On coming out on Valentine’s Day at the age of 26:
“I felt, let’s just please be done with this chapter of discomfort and sadness and anxiety, and hurting my relationships, and all those things that come with it … I felt guilty for not being a visible person for the community, and for having the privilege that I had and not using it. I had got to the point where I was telling myself, you know, you should feel guilty about this. I was an active participant in an element of Hollywood that is gross. I would never judge somebody else for not coming out, but for me, personally, it did start to feel like a moral imperative.”
On experiencing sexism online:
“And the thing that I would say you get the most hate about, on social media, in my experience, is if you tweet anything about women’s rights or feminism. It blows my mind. But it’s the thought of not being a feminist that actually blows my mind. I feel that, at least now, there seem to be more women who are willing to say, ‘Yes, I’m a feminist.’ It’s shocking to me that that would ever be an issue, to not say that. I really struggle to wrap my head around that.”
On diversity in Hollywood:
“The issue is also about how many female writers there are, female directors, even female soundtrack composers,” Page adds. “I just mean, pretty much every facet of this industry. In my circle of friends, it’s something we talk about all the time. And I feel like there’s finally a conversation happening.”
