Ellen Page
Ellen Grace Philpotts-Page is a Canadian actress and producer. Her career began with roles in television shows such as Pit Pony, Trailer Park Boys and ReGenesis. Page starred in the film Hard Candy, for which she won the Austin Film Critics Association's Award for Best Actress. Her breakthrough role was the title role in Jason Reitman's film Juno, for which she received nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress and won the Independent Spirit Award, an MTV Movie Award and a Teen Choice Award.
Page played Kitty Pryde in the X-Men films. She has starred in films such as An American Crime, The Tracey Fragments a role that won her the Vancouver Film Critics Award for Best Actress, Smart People, Whip It, Super and Inception. Page also provided the voice, motion capture and likeness of Jodie Holmes in the video game . In 2017, she was cast as Vanya Hargreeves in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy.
Early life
Page was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the daughter of Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. She attended the Halifax Grammar School until grade 10, spent some time at Queen Elizabeth High School, and graduated from the Shambhala School in 2005. She also spent two years in Toronto, Ontario, studying in the Interact Program at Vaughan Road Academy, along with close friend and fellow Canadian actor Mark Rendall. Growing up, Page enjoyed playing with action figures and climbing trees.Career
Page first acted in front of the camera in 1997 at age ten in the CBC television movie Pit Pony, which later spun off into a television series. This led to more roles in several small Canadian films and in television series, notably playing Treena Lahey in season two of Trailer Park Boys. At 16, she was cast in Mouth to Mouth, an independent film shot in Europe. Page starred in the 2005 movie Hard Candy as a young girl who takes a pedophile hostage, and won praise for "one of the most complex, disturbing and haunting performances of the year."Page appeared in ' and ' as Kitty Pryde, a girl who can walk through walls. In the previous X-Men movies, the part had been used in brief cameos played by other actresses, but never as a main character. Page was nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Scene Stealer for the role.
Page portrayed the titular character in the 2007 film Juno. Film critic A. O. Scott of The New York Times described her as "frighteningly talented" and Roger Ebert said, "Has there been a better performance this year than Ellen Page's creation of Juno? I do not think so." Page was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, but lost to Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose. The role, however, did win her more than 20 awards, including a Canadian Comedy Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and a Satellite Award, as well as numerous critics awards including Detroit Film Critics Society, Austin Film Critics Association and Florida Film Critics Circle.
Page also co-starred in Smart People, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Shot before Juno, but released afterwards, the film saw her playing the overachieving daughter of a college professor. Page's other film credits include An American Crime, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival; The Tracey Fragments, which was released in November 2007 in Canada and May 2008 in the US; and The Stone Angel.
In 2007, she was attached to play the title character in an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre and had planned to work on an as-yet unmade film entitled Jack and Diane, but it was announced in August 2009 that her role in Jack and Diane would be played by the actress Alison Pill. Before his death in January 2008, Heath Ledger had discussed with Page the idea of starring in his directorial debut, The Queen's Gambit.
In 2008, she was ranked #86 on FHM Sexiest Women in the World list, and placed at #93 for 2009. In June 2008, Page was listed in Entertainment Weekly future A-List stars list. Page hosted Saturday Night Live on March 1, 2008. On May 3, 2009, she guest starred in the episode "Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh" of the animated series The Simpsons as a character named Alaska Nebraska, a parody of Hannah Montana. She also starred in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and had its wide release on October 2, 2009.
at the premiere in July 2010|alt=A photograph of the cast of the 2010 film Inception, including Ellen Page in the middle
She featured in Michael Lander's film Peacock, which was released in 2010 despite an original release date of 2009. In August 2009, Page began shooting the big-budget Christopher Nolan thriller Inception. The film was released on July 16, 2010. She has starred in the film Super, and was announced to be playing Stacie Andree in a film about Laurel Hester, finally released in 2015 as Freeheld.
, she serves as a spokesperson for Cisco Systems in a series of advertisements, appearing in three commercials set in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. On May 26, 2010, it was reported in a column on Deadline Hollywood and by Entertainment Weekly that Page would star in the HBO series Tilda. Tilda is based on the life of Nikki Finke, the founder of the influential Hollywood blog, DeadlineHollywood.com. Tilda was reportedly dropped by HBO due to friction between the creators. She is also the narrator of a documentary on colony collapse disorder, Vanishing of the Bees, directed by Maryam Henein.
In April 2011, it was announced that Page would co-star in the Woody Allen film To Rome with Love. In June 2012, Quantic Dream announced a video game entitled ' in which Page portrays one of the protagonists, Jodie Holmes. It was released on October 8, 2013, in North America. Page reprised her role as Katherine "Kitty" Pryde in '. In February 2013, Page stated that her directorial debut would be Miss Stevens, and would star Anna Faris and be produced by Gary Gilbert, Jordan Horowitz and Doug Wald; the project eventually moved forward without Page, with scriptwriter Julia Hart replacing Page as the director. In December 2014, Page portrayed Han Solo in a staged reading of .
in July 2013
Page co-starred in Zal Batmanglij's 2013 thriller The East, a film inspired by the experiences and drawing on thrillers from the 1970s; Page replaced Felicity Jones, who had been attached to the project, but later dropped out. The same year she starred in Lynn Shelton's Touchy Feely. Page had two releases slated for 2015, Canadian drama film Into the Forest and Peter Sollett's Freeheld. Page then starred in the 2016 film Tallulah.
On November 9, 2017, it was announced that Page was cast in the main role of Vanya Hargreeves in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy, which was renewed for a second season in April 2019. The same month, she and co-host Ian Daniel started filming There's Something in the Water'', a documentary about environmental racism. The film premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released as a Netflix documentary on March 27, 2020.
Personal life
In 2008, Page was one of 30 celebrities who participated in an online ad series for US Campaign for Burma, calling for an end to the military dictatorship in Burma. She describes herself as a pro-choice feminist. She attended Buddhist school in her youth and practiced meditation and yoga. She practices a vegan lifestyle, and PETA named her and Jared Leto the Sexiest Vegetarians of 2014. She is an atheist, having remarked that religion "has always been used for beautiful things, and also as a way to justify discrimination".On February 14, 2014, Page came out as gay during a speech at the Human Rights Campaign's "Time to Thrive" conference in Las Vegas. In 2014, she was included as part of The Advocates annual "40 Under 40" list.
On November 10, 2017, Page alleged that filmmaker Brett Ratner outed her as gay on the set of , when she was 18 years old, nearly a decade before she came out publicly. In a long Facebook post, she expressed gratitude towards people who were breaking the silence against abuse, and expressed her frustration at the pattern of looking the other way in industry. Fellow actress Anna Paquin expressed support for Page, stating she was present when Ratner made the comment.
In January 2018, Page married dancer and choreographer Emma Portner.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 2002 | The Wet Season | Jocelyn | Short film |
| 2002 | Marion Bridge | Joanie | |
| 2003 | Touch & Go | Trish | |
| 2003 | Love That Boy | Suzanna | |
| 2004 | Wilby Wonderful | Emily Anderson | |
| 2005 | Hard Candy | Hayley Stark | |
| 2005 | Mouth to Mouth | Sherry | |
| 2006 | ' | Kitty Pryde | |
| 2007 | An American Crime | Sylvia Likens | |
| 2007 | Juno | Juno MacGuff | |
| 2007 | The Tracey Fragments | Tracey Berkowitz | |
| 2007 | The Stone Angel | Arlene Simmons | |
| 2008 | Smart People | Vanessa Wetherhold | |
| 2009 | Vanishing of the Bees | Narrator | Documentary |
| 2009 | Whip It | Bliss Cavendar / Babe Ruthless | |
| 2010 | Peacock | Maggie Bailey | |
| 2010 | Inception | Ariadne | |
| 2010 | Super | Libby / Boltie | |
| 2012 | To Rome with Love | Monica | |
| 2013 | The East | Izzy | |
| 2013 | Touchy Feely | Jenny | |
| 2014 | ' | Kitty Pryde | |
| 2014 | Tiny Detectives | Detective Ellen | Short film |
| 2015 | Into the Forest | Nell | Also producer |
| 2015 | Freeheld | Stacie Andree | Also producer |
| 2016 | Tallulah | Tallulah | |
| 2016 | Window Horses | Kelly | |
| 2016 | My Life as a Zucchini | Rosy | English dub |
| 2017 | My Days of Mercy | Lucy Moro | Also producer |
| 2017 | The Cured | Abbie | Also producer |
| 2017 | Flatliners | Courtney Holmes | |
| 2019 | There's Something in the Water | Herself | Documentary; also director |
| Naya Legend of the Golden Dolphin | Dusky | Post-production | |
| Robodog | Izzy | Post-production |