Elliot Page: ‘I’m living my life for the first time’

It’s a good moment in his life.

We met at a hotel in Hollywood, USA, the week his memoir, “Pageboy”, was released. It became an instant bestseller.

“We just finished the last season of Umbrella and I felt so much more personified and centered, to be able to start the day as ‘me,'” adds Page, “instead of sitting in my trailer with constant discomfort.”

Page’s character — originally named Vanya — transitioned to Viktor in season three of the Netflix superhero series “The Umbrella Academy,” following the actor’s real-life gender transition.

“It’s who I’ve always been,” the character Viktor tells his brothers in one of the scenes. Viktor asks if that’s a problem for anyone – and his brothers insist it isn’t, before the plot reverts to the original script. The scene was described as “movingly subtle” by Variety Magazine.

Nielsen Media Research — which measures views across all platforms — says the series has logged more than 10.5 billion hours of streaming, making it the 13th most watched original series of the year.

Viktor, Elliot Page’s character, immediately became one of the most well-known trans men in fiction—one of the least represented groups in the industry.

According to the report Where We Are On TV 2022-2023, from LGBT advocacy group Glaad, only 11 of 596 LGBT characters portrayed across 100 global TV, film and streaming platforms were trans men.

Page says he is aware that he is one of the most famous trans men in the world — and he takes it seriously.

“I’m in this unique position,” he says.

“And without a doubt I need to use my privilege and my platform to do what I can, in any way I can, to help my community.”

It was a long, arduous road from gender dysphoria to this point of self-acceptance.

“There were many moments when I found myself thinking, ‘I’ve never been a girl. I’ll never be a woman. What am I going to do? I just want to be a 10-year-old,'” he tells the BBC.

“Then I started realizing, ‘Oh, it’s because this was the last time I felt like myself, the last time I felt like myself and I was in my body and I knew who I was and I had this spark,'” he knows?”

“Now it’s coming back. That spark.”

It was in December 2020, at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, that Elliot Page publicly came out as a trans man through his Instagram account. In a post that quickly gained more than three million likes, Page wrote that he felt lucky to make the announcement.

“There were years and years of turmoil around this… of getting too close and then backing away, convincing myself otherwise,” he says.

Part of that reluctance was something of a hangover from years when he hid his identity, on the advice of film executives who influenced his early career.

In his book, he describes the Hollywood he found when he starred in the independent film “Juno”, aged 20, as “plastic, empty, homophobic”.

In “Juno”, he played a teenager who goes through an unplanned pregnancy. The role earned Page an Academy Award nomination and global fame.

“The success of “Juno” coincided with people in the industry telling me that no one could know I was queer.“he writes in “Pageboy,” “that wouldn’t be good for me… So I put on the dresses and the makeup. And I did the photo shoots.”

He describes the level of discomfort, the gender dysphoria, as overwhelming.

“I had to avoid my reflection. I couldn’t look at the pictures because I was never there. It was making me sick.”

At the same time, gossip columns published texts questioning his identity. Page says he’s not sure articles like these would be published now, in the age of social media.

“The articles you’re quoting were published in 2008. I would imagine if they were published now about someone, they would probably be eviscerated for writing something like that.”

Does he believe then that a young trans man could go to Hollywood now, without connections, and have a successful career?

Page pauses before admitting:

“I’m not 100% sure. In a way, potentially.”

Then he pauses again:

“But right now, we’re also in a time of extremely hateful rhetoric against trans lives. There’s still a long way to go.”

Community is the answer to the polarizing debates online about transgender people, he insists, and he says he wants to connect with LGBT youth around the world through his work.

We asked trans men who use BBC news services in other languages ​​to submit video questions to Elliot. One came from Adam, a 24-year-old pilot from India, whose family put him through conversion therapy and refused to let him leave their home for over a year.

“This isn’t just my story,” says Adam. “This is the story of trans people around the world. So my question is, what message do you have for trans people who are going through difficult times?”

Page is visibly moved when he watches the video.

“My message is just to hold on and love yourself with all your might and know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” he says.

“Look for support where you can. In person or online. Look for narratives that offer some kind of representation, some kind of comfort. Just a reminder that you’re not alone.”

Changing the narrative around trans representation in the media is something he says he hopes to do with his film company Page Boy Productions, as well as the roles he will play in the future.

He hopes his platform can help change people’s sometimes limited perceptions of masculinity.

“Being aggressive is encouraged in men,” he says.

“I hope those expectations about what it means to be a man, what masculinity means, can be reset and healed.”

He claims that he is not sure what his personal life will be like.

“I’m not really interested in having kids, to be honest. But I guess you never know,” he says with a smile.

“I feel like I’m really living my life for the first time. I’m just happy. Waking up and walking my dog, hanging out with friends, and I feel like I’m really inside my body for the first time.”