A little over two years ago, actress and generally fairly excellent human being Ellen Page announced to the world that she was gay, during a speech at a Human Rights Campaign event.
She said, at the time:
“I’m here today because I am gay and because maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and social responsibility.”
She has since put her money where her mouth is, steering her career into projects that deal with gay and lesbian themes, including the recent documentary-travel series Gaycation, that looks at different LGBTQ cultures around the world.
When speaking at the recent SXSW Film Conference, the Juno and Inception star was asked about the ways her career has changed since coming out, and if there’s a difference in the ways she’s treated and the roles she’s offered.
She replied:
“You know, truly and honestly, it’s hard for me to know. I’m not in rooms where people are making decisions of who to send what to, and the truth is, I’m absolutely not focusing on it, because being in the closet hurt my career way more than being out and being happy and feeling inspired again, being able to fuse my authentic self with creative interests, and that wasn’t something I could do, and now I can make Gaycation, I can produce something like Freeheld. I mean, I’m producing other movies—they don’t all have to have LGBT characters. I’m producing a movie with Kate Mara and Christine Vachon, it’s a love story between Kate and myself.
And I feel so in love with what I do again, and I feel so grateful for that. I think the differences I see are, “Oh, you’re doing this thing that’s gay and this thing that’s gay…” And you would never even bring that up with a straight person. You would not say, “Oh, you’re doing another movie where you play a straight person, are you a little worried about it?” And no judgment, I’m just saying these are the standards and this is the conversation that needs to change, you know? It really does. Because I feel so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to make this show. Truly. I hope people know just the gratitude that I feel, and the people that I got to meet, the most inspiring, courageous people that you could ever meet in your lifetime, braver than you could ever possibly be, and those are interactions that I’ve gotten to have in my life.
And, yeah, if I was still closeted, I wouldn’t be making this show, and let’s think about how much that limits people, or limits people of all minorities who are not given opportunities to create work. We do a job that’s about telling stories. Obviously it’s imperative—we can’t just be telling stories about one group of people. People need to have opportunity, and that’s what’s going to make the whole industry grow and blossom. And a person who’s involved with it, and a person who’s an audience member, I really hope that starts to happen. It’s just something I’ve been reflecting on as to, “Oh, what if I hadn’t come out?” Anyway, I’m sorry I just went on a tangent.”
The room then applauded her remarks.
Page has several new movies out this year, including Tallulah, which co-stars Allison Janney, and a remake of the ’90s thriller Flatliners that nobody asked for, but that we’ll probably see just because it has her in it.
Source: Vulture.
Photo: C Flanigan / Getty.
