Elliot, 35, came out as a transgender man in December 2020 – 13 years after shooting to global stardom in the hit movie Juno.
Now, he claimed that starring in the 2007 flick and being forced to dress a certain way for it ‘almost killed’ him.
The Umbrella Academy star opened up to Esquire about the ‘never-ending sensation of anxiety and nervousness’ that he felt before his transition, while also detailing the ‘incessant hatred and cruelty’ that he’s had to face since coming out.
“When ‘Juno’ was at the height of its popularity, during awards-season time, I was closeted, dressed in heels and the whole look — I wasn’t okay, and I didn’t know how to talk about that with anyone,” Page wrote, adding that the studio told him to wear a dress to the movie’s Toronto Film Festival premiere.”
“I said I wanted to wear a suit, and Fox Searchlight was basically like, ‘No, you need to wear a dress.’ And they took me in a big rush to one of those fancy stores on Bloor Street [in Toronto]. They had me wear a dress, and … that was that. And then all the ‘Juno’ press, all the photo shoots — Michael Cera was in slacks and sneakers.”
The actor called the incident “really extremely, extremely f—ked up.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m trans or cis. Lots of cis women dress how I dress. That has nothing to f—king do with it,” Page wrote.
“I get that people don’t understand. Oh, f—k you, you’re famous, and you have money, and you had to wear a dress, boo-hoo. I don’t understand that reaction. But that’s mixed with: I wish people would understand that that s—t literally did almost kill me.”
Page didn’t expect the reaction to his transition, announced in 2020, “to be so big.”
“In terms of the actual quality of the response, it was what I expected: love and support from many people and hatred and cruelty and vitriol from so many others.
“I came out as gay in 2014, and it’s different. Transphobia is just so, so, so extreme. The hatred and the cruelty is so much more incessant.”
He recalled a large man screaming at him in a menacing way on an L.A. street, to name just one scary and hateful interaction.
“‘You f****t! Don’t look at me! You f****t, f****t!'” he recalled the stranger saying. “I couldn’t even just go … ‘I’m not looking at you.’ … I decided in my brain — because he was so tall — that I couldn’t do anything physically. If I said something, he could retaliate. If I turned around, that could trigger something else. So I thought: I’m just going to have to bet on standing completely still and staring straight ahead.“
While he did, the man proceeded to scream the slur some more and then threaten: “‘I’m gonna kill you, you fucking f****t! … I’m gonna gay-bash you!’ So I ran — I was alone— I ran into a convenience store, and as I was opening the door he yelled, ‘This is why I need a gun!'” He added, “Yeah, I don’t think people really get it.”
What have I learned from transitioning?” Page asks in the cover story for Esquire’s Summer 2022 issue. “I can’t overstate the biggest joy, which is really seeing yourself. I know I look different to others, but to me, I’m just starting to look like myself. It’s indescribable, because I’m just like: There I am. And thank God. Here I am. So the greatest joy is just being able to feel present … To go out in a group of new people and be able to engage in a way where I didn’t feel this constant sensation to flee from my body, this never-ending sensation of anxiety and nervousness and wanting out. When I say I couldn’t have ever imagined feeling that way, I mean that with every sense of me.”
