Tag Archives: Diversity Problem

Ellen Page: “I Used To Be Depressed Hiding My Sexuality

Ellen Page has spoken numerous times about how much happier she is now that she’s come out of the closest as a gay woman, but in a new interview reveals just how bad things were when she was still inside.

In a new interview with Elle, reports Pink News, she admits:

When you’re on that track you’re a racehorse, going and going with these blinders on. You don’t stop to address how you feel.

I’d get panic attacks and sense an incredible discomfort because I didn’t relate to the conformity that comes with my gender [such as wearing feminine dresses on shoots].

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I was doing something I love and also wondering, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ You hate yourself for feeling bad, so you pretend you’re happy.

I’d ask myself, ‘Can’t you just flip a switch, be a character, play the game?’”

Page says she has now much more relaxed since coming out.

She added:

I do interviews [now] with a sense of, ‘Oh, this is what it’s like’. A photo shoot used to only represent discomfort, I felt guilty for lying. Fashion once meant dresses and heels, and I didn’t know why I’d want to be dressed that way.”

Earlier this month, the actor turned LGBT advocate urged fellow Hollywood stars who may be in the closet to be honest about their sexual orientation.

Page – who recently finished filming a new documentary exploring homophobia around the world – said she hopes that one day “coming out” is no longer an issue.

Ellen Page On Hollywood’s Double Standard: ‘Now I’m Gay, I Can’t Play A Straight Person?’

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?”

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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.

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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.

 

 

 

Ellen Page Discusses The Continued Oscars’ Diversity Problem: ‘How Could You Not Feel Angry?’

Ellen Page has joined a host of other actors and actresses, and said the Oscars diversity controversy extends far beyond just Hollywood.

May of Hollywood’s elite have issued voiced their concerns about the lack of actors of colour being considered for an Academy Award,

Talking to PEOPLE at the Sundance Film Festival, Page said that the issue “means a lot to me as an audience member and as a human being.”

Page, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in 2008 for Juno, says that the Academy’s sweeping new guidelines, designed to address that lack of diversity among its voting body, are “crucial.”

It means a lot to me as someone who does this job. I think the issue is much more systemic and I hope that’s what changes, hearing more diverse stories, but I feel like finally there’s some steps going in the right direction.”

Page – who was at the annual Utah festival to promote her new drama Tallulah – also issued some suggestions for the continued implementation of positive changes across Hollywood.

There needs to be more diversity behind the camera, and more people getting hired in every aspect of the business, and more support for those stories and more opportunity. You look at something like Orange Is the New Black, and how many actresses we were introduced to who we may not otherwise have seen because they had no opportunity.”

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That makes me feel like, how could you not feel angry at that, you know? And I hope that is what is going to continue to happen, and just as an audience member I want to go see more stories from different perspectives. We do this job, sure to entertain, but also to reflect aspects of what it means to be a human.”

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