In a recent interview with Elle magazine, once Oscar nominated actress Ellen Page spoke out against Hollywood’s double standards against gay and lesbian actors, and how she is now being ‘pigeon holed’ in gay roles, after playing a series of heterosexual females in all of her previous films.
I have four projects coming up – all gay roles. People ask if I’m concerned about getting pigeonholed. No one asks: ‘Ellen, you’ve done seven straight roles in a row – shouldn’t you shake it up and do something queer?
There’s still that double standard. I look at all the things I’ve done in movies: I’ve drugged a guy, tortured someone, become a roller-derby star overnight. But now I’m gay, I can’t play a straight person?”
Ellen goes on to point out the absurdity of what people can and can’t accept from LGBT actors in their roles.
There’s still that double standard. I look at all the things I’ve done in movies: I’ve drugged a guy, tortured someone, become a roller-derby star overnight. But now I’m gay, I can’t play a straight person?”
Page, who came out in nearly 2 years ago, has been incredibly vocal about her experiences as a gay actor, says she credits her film Freeheld – the true story of lesbian partners fighting for equal rights after one of them is diagnosed with cancer – in many ways for encouraging her to come out to the public, telling Elle UK:
It was part of it. What blows my mind is how my own personal journey paralleled the development of that movie. It felt wildly inappropriate to be playing this character as a closeted person. Coming out was a long process, though.”
Since coming out in February, 2014, Page has been incredibly vocal about her experiences as a lesbian actor, the challenges she’s faced, and her personal life with her girlfriend, Samantha Thomas.
She says she still won’t let Hollywood’s expectations steer her away from projects telling LGBT stories, and shortly she’ll be releasing Gaycation, with her friend Ian Daniel. In the show the two travelled the world learning about all different types of LGBT cultures for Viceland’s.
