“I'm constantly being addressed incorrectly. I don't care”: Elliot Page on his return to the big screen as an actor | Films

The last time Elliot Page appeared in a movie, it was literally a car crash. Page, who was nominated for an Oscar at age 20 for the teen pregnancy comedy “Juno,” played one of several medical students who stage near-death experiences to get a glimpse of the afterlife in a remake of the Julia Roberts thriller “Flatliners.” His co-stars included James Norton, Diego Luna and Kiersey Clemons, but during a scene involving dangerous driving, it was only Page and Clemons who weren't given seatbelts. Stunt coordinators told them, “It'll be OK.”

Instead, they were traumatized. In his 2023 memoir, Pageboy, the Canadian actor describes filming as “a shitshow.” It wasn't just about the arrogant consideration for his safety. He was also pressured to look stereotypically feminine, and a senior crew member asked him if he was angry that his character was straight.

That was seven years ago. Page, who came out as transgender in 2020, has been on television in the meantime, including a recurring role on the superhero series The Umbrella Academy, in which his character also underwent gender reassignment surgery. Page's return to the movies has been a long time coming, but he could hardly have picked a better time to re-enter than Close to You. It's a thrillingly intimate drama in which he plays Sam, a trans man who returns to his Canadian hometown for his father's birthday. His well-meaning family tries their best to be welcoming and optimistic, but the terms of their acceptance of him soon begin to reveal themselves.

Page must have been waiting for such a meaningful film. Presumably he felt that his return to cinema should also be a statement. Or was it? “Gosh, maybe I should look at things more that way,” says the 37-year-old sheepishly. “But it was really organic. Before I finally came out as transgender, I wasn't that inspired. I didn't feel right for certain reasons, as you can imagine. But then to be connected to Dominic…”

That's a reference to Dominic Savage, the 61-year-old director of Close to You. A video call with the two tells a tale of two cities and two living rooms. Page, in a dark gray T-shirt, is in his New York home, a minimalist vision of cream walls and white curtains. Savage, wearing a knotted scarf and chunky Ronnie Barker-style glasses, is in London in what resembles an upscale junk shop. A pair of Baftas sit on the mantelpiece above a cluttered landscape of lamps, chairs and cushions.

“I knew Elliot when we were introduced to each other,” he says of the actor, who has appeared in blockbusters such as Inception and the X-Men franchise. “But for me, part of the process of filmmaking is being able to see inside someone.” The first Savage work Page saw was I Am Kirsty, part of his I Am… series of character studies of women for Channel 4. That film starred Samantha Morton, whom Page already admired for her performance in Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar. Is his character in Close to You a tribute to her, Sam? “I hadn't thought of that until now,” says Page. “I kind of love it. That's great. Dominic?”

“Here's a little secret,” says Savage, with the embarrassment of someone trying to spoil his friend's mood. “I have loads of CDs behind my computer here, and that's what I name my characters. Sam has to be Sam Cooke. I think very musically. I don't want to sound arrogant, but my films have a certain musicality, just like life.”

Music has been with Savage since early childhood. His late father was an organist at a bandstand in Margate, the Kent seaside town where he grew up. The director's first film experience was in front of the camera, not behind it. At 11, he was cast in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon as the young Lord Bullingdon, who grows up and challenges his stepfather to a duel. When Kubrick discovered that Savage was an accomplished pianist, he sent him onto the US talk show circuit to promote the film by playing excerpts from the soundtrack. On the day we speak, Savage is preparing to fly to Dublin to see this 1975 masterpiece. “You should dress up like your character!” says Page.

But Savage's musical point of view is well represented. His approach – developing the initial story with his lead actor, shaping the cast's improvisations without writing dialogue, and filming everything with a handheld camera in natural light – has resulted in a work that moves in natural, emotive rhythms. From the improvisational process emerge wonders of naturalism, like the moment when Sam's sweet but nervous mother, played by Wendy Crewson, accidentally misgenders him. Was that a genuine slip of the tongue?

“That was it!” laughs Page. “I feel weird because I’m constantly being addressed incorrectly, and I don’t care unless someone tries, you know…” He wrinkles his nose to indicate dubious motives. “I want to be clear: I wouldn’t correct Wendy, Me. I would say, 'It's OK. We're going to move on from the moment. It's going to take a second.' But, you know, I'm not me. I'm Sam here. And that moment was so perfect because that's what happens.” Page's own mother does her best, he says. “She's pretty good. I say, 'Of course, it's going to take a second, Mom. It's fine. You don't have to blame yourself for that!'”

Close to You is obviously not Page's own life story. While Sam's father is kind, even if he doesn't always rush to his son's aid as readily as he perhaps could, the family portrait in Pageboy is less rosy. Page writes about his stepmother's cruelty during his childhood and the hurt of his father, who later “liked” a social media post by Jordan Peterson, even though the far-right extremist had once been banned from Twitter in the pre-Elon Musk era for misrepresenting Page's name and gender. “Honestly, it's hard to imagine another relationship with them,” the actor wrote of these family members.

But there are overlaps between Sam's life and his own. Page and Hillary Baack, who plays Sam's almost-love from high school, are actually longtime friends: They met in the 2013 thriller The East and never lost touch. Baack tells me via email that she and Page “have remained curious and genuinely care about each other. Compared to when I met Elliot, he is much calmer and more grounded. I feel a weight lifted and a real joy in life emerging with more freedom and color than I've ever experienced before.”

Another crossover is the red wool hat that Sam wears for most of the film. In Pageboy, he writes that as a young actor in Hollywood, he was told to “take your hat off,” another nudge toward gender conformity. Now he wears it proudly in Close to You. Intentional or accidental? “I think a bit of both. A hat is and has been a kind of gender marker for me my whole life. And now it's like, 'Oh yeah, I can do this. And it's not a problem. It's not going to be a long conversation.'” Arguably the film's most radical moment comes when Sam has extracted all he can from the domestic tensions. “Family is not the most important thing,” he proclaims. For queer and trans people, the pressure to conform or appease a family that may not have the best for them means they have to endure aggression of the micro and macro kinds. Close to You suggests that it's perfectly reasonable to just back off.

“I don't write those lines, so things are said that are really meant,” Savage says of his improvisation process. “The actors aren't acting anymore. Elliot reacted in this organic way and it was pretty perfect and beautiful. I liked the surprise of it. I remember us saying to each other at the time, 'That was important.'” Page beams proudly. “You could feel something happening,” he says. “And yeah, we're not really used to a queer trans person having a boundary in that moment: 'Hey, I don't actually want to sit here and this isn't good for me.'”

This suits Savage, father of three grown-up daughters, very well. “I understand. We find our families in all sorts of places, don't we? They're not necessarily the people we grew up with and were born to. Some people would consider that heresy, I think, but I find it quite a liberating idea.”

The lack of trans narratives puts undue pressure on those being made to tell everyone's stories. However, trans filmmakers like Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca) and Jessica Dunn Rovinelli (So Pretty) have spoken of their frustration with the emphasis on educational content in trans cinema and the requirement that these films be easily understood by cisgender audiences. Close to You is not guilty of this, but Page is well aware of the complaint.

“It can be exhausting, of course,” he says. “But I also make an effort in media relations to say, 'I understand you don't know a trans person, so let's talk about it…' The vast majority of people don't personally know a trans person, or don't think they know one. That contributes to the spread of lies about our lives, our health care, who we are – and then the use of those lies for nefarious purposes.”

Close to You can only help, although all its good intentions would count for little if it weren't also a complex work: clever about how we balance our duties to ourselves and others, pious but unsentimental in its portrayal of romance, and with a brave, bold lead performance worthy of reviving a temporarily stalled film career.