If you always thought Elliot Page had a suspicious amount of chemistry with his on-screen bestie in Juno, you’d be right — it turns out the two were secretly hooking up while filming, and she was a huge part of his coming out process. And his, er, coming process too. I fkn knew it!
Olivia Thirlby played Leah, Juno’s quirky, sex-positive best friend in the iconic teen movie, and their “cool girl, awkward and repressed friend” vibe blurred the lines of fiction and reality.
“I was taken aback the moment I saw Olivia Thirlby,” Page wrote in his memoir Pageboy, according to Page Six.
“Sexually open, far removed from where I was at the time. But the chemistry was palpable, it pulled me in.” I adore how similar this is to the dynamic of their characters in the movie, too.
Page said that while he and Thirlby were the same age, she seemed “so much older, capable, and centred”.
The two started spending a lot of time together and then one day, while they stood in Thirlby’s hotel room, Elliot Page claims she “looked directly at me and said point-blank, ‘I’m really attracted to you’.”
Obvs Page reciprocated that feeling, and so began a not-so-sneaky affair.
“At that we started sucking face,” he claimed. “It was on.”
“I had an all-encompassing desire for her, she made me want in a way that was new, hopeful,” Page wrote.
“It was one of the first times someone would make me cum, the first time I would open up.”
Apparently the two were hooking up “all the time”.
“Her hotel room, in our trailers at work, once in a tiny, private room in a restaurant … We thought we were being subtle,” he said.
“Being intimate with Olivia helped my shame dissipate. I didn’t see a glint of it in her eyes and I wanted that — done feeling wretched about who I am.”
Awww. Having a cumming of the ages while filming a coming of age. So sweet.
Thirlby is yet to comment on Page’s claims, but she did come out as bisexual in 2011 — she’s currently married to Jacques Pienaar.
This isn’t the only juicy tidbit of tea in Elliot Page’s memoir.
The actor also claimed he also had a secret relationship with Kate Mara — when she was dating her long-term BF Max Minghella. In a disturbing turn of events, Page also revealed he was threatened by an A-list actor with corrective rape at a party after he came out.
Being vulnerable and true to yourself in Hollywood is hard, and as Page revealed, dangerous too.
Pageboy released on June 6. You can find where to buy it in our Litty Committee June releases roundup here. The first chapter is also available for you to read in the meantime.
Image: Getty Images / Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
