Ellen Page has best response to being asked if she was worried about being typecast as ‘queer’
Ellen Page at the “Tales of the City” New York premiere. (Dia Dipasupil/WireImage)
Ellen Page said she would be “thrilled” to only ever play queer roles on a panel at the Toronto International Film Festival 2019.
Page, who married dancer Emma Portner last year, has played many LGBT+ roles, including a pansexual novelist in Tales of the City and anti-death penalty protestor Lucy Moro in My Days of Mercy.
According to NBC, she said she was often asked if she was “worried about being typecast”.
She said: “You would never ask a heterosexual actress that, as being typecast as straight.
“Why would I not want to play those roles? Quite frankly, I would be thrilled if it’s every role I ever played again!”
Emma Portner and Ellen Page have been married for a year.(emmaportner/instagram)
Ellen Page: Hollywood actors being pressured to hide their sexuality is “absurd”.
Asked about the film industry’s acceptance of LGBT+ people, she responded: “There’s just so far to go.”
She continued: “I came out when I was 27 years old. Like, what? I wasn’t talking about who I was and being my authentic self because I was an actress in Hollywood.
“That’s absurd. We need to look at these things as absurd.”
Page told Porter earlier this year: “I was distinctly told, by people in the industry, when I started to become known: ‘People cannot know you’re gay.’
“And I was pressured – forced, in many cases – to always wear dresses and heels for events and photo shoots. As if lesbians don’t wear dresses and heels.
“But I will never let anyone put me in anything I feel uncomfortable in ever again.”
The issue of straight actors playing, and getting recognition for, LGBT+ roles when an openly LGBT+ person still has not won an Oscar for best actor has caused debate in recent years.
Among casting decisions that have been criticised are Taron Egerton as Elton John in Rocketman, and Suranne Jones as Anne Lister, often referred to as ‘the first modern lesbian’, in Gentleman Jack.
Page recently made her directorial debut with Gaycation co-star Ian Daniels for There’s Something in the Water, a documentary on environmental racism.
