Elliot Page says his first film playing a trans man was 'cathartic and healing'
Actor Elliot Page said making “Close to You,” his first feature film since publicly coming out as transgender, was “one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”
In the film, which Page co-wrote with Dominic Savage, Page plays Sam, a transgender man who returns home to visit his family for the first time since his transition. During his trip, Sam also runs into Katherine, played by Hillary Baack, a friend from high school with whom he was in love. The film, which required the actors to improvise because it didn’t feature any written dialogue in its script, is an emotional exploration of coming home, acceptance and love.
Page, who came out as trans in a powerful social media post in December 2020, said during a video interview that he didn’t plan for his return to film to be something so personal.
“I just really wanted to work with Dominic,” Page said, noting that he loved an episode of a series Savage directed called “I Am” that featured Page’s favorite actor, Samantha Morton.
“Of course, there’s moments where it’s intense and emotional and all those things,” he said of the film. “But for me, it was mostly actually just such a joy to create in this way, and the moments that were challenging and emotional were also cathartic and healing in many ways. It was really one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”
Page said the project began after he had a Zoom call with Savage and the two explored a story about running into someone from your past “who you are incredibly close to, and maybe because at a certain time in a certain place, it couldn’t necessarily be fully realized.”
“And what does it mean?” he added. “What would it feel like to see that person again? And so that was really the initial sort of conversation. And then it built organically from there.”
In the film, Sam goes home for his father’s birthday. He navigates sensitive conversations with his parents and a tense exchange with his brother-in-law, Paul, that ends with Sam leaving to meet up with Katherine.
Baack said she was drawn in by a variety of aspects of the film, including that Savage was the director, that the acting would be largely improvisational and that she would get to act alongside Page, with whom she’s friends, and “be by his side as he comes more into himself.”
Baack is hard of hearing, and she said she also loved that the role wasn’t centered around the character’s deafness, though she said it could be why Katherine and Sam connect so well, “being outsiders.”
“It’s not about the deafness, and that is also exciting for me, because that feels very new for me, to have an opportunity to get to act in a story as a woman who happened to be deaf,” Baack said.
The improvisation meant that the actors were often filming long takes, including one that was 53 minutes, according to Page. That lengthy take included a scene where Page was playing pool with Paul, all of which was cut, “which is unfortunate, because I was sinking everything, OK, and I am not good at pool,” Page joked.
He said Sam was beating Paul at pool and irritating him, and that ultimately led up to the tense argument featured in the film.
“So it’s all of these things that might not end up in the movie, but in some ways it is there, because the stuff we would have done together that you don’t see is underneath that next moment you’re seeing, which is what ends up in the film,” Page said.
The actor said he likely wouldn’t have been able to take on a similar project before coming out as trans.
“To work in this way, to be on a set and to be completely open and present and comfortable and have a solid foundation to exist in a place, to be able to improvise, to be able to disappear, to be able to really feel like you’re existing as the character in those spaces, it just actually wouldn’t have been possible before,” Page said. “I kind of sensed that from the moment we started doing it, which I’d say made the process even just like extra exhilarating and exciting for me, just the sensation of waking up every day and being so stoked to go to set. It’s just, I didn’t have that level of comfort and solid foundation and ability to be present before, and I don’t think it would have been possible or enjoyable for me before.”
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There are a variety of moments in the film between Sam and his parents that Page said were poignant for him, but he said one of the most powerful is a scene where Sam is lying in bed with Katherine.
“Hillary slayed me with a line, and when she just said, ‘I’m so proud of you, just how far you’ve come and everything you’re going to continue doing,’” Page recalled. “It actually floored me, because I did feel like it was a little bit, maybe, Hillary talking to Elliot, and it was also, of course, Katherine talking to Sam, and so much just what Sam wanted to hear. And he went home to his family, which are loving, they’re accepting, they’re all these things, but they still just can’t fully see him.”
Sam’s family has their own projections and expectations of what will make him happy, “and then to have this person who he loves to say, ‘I really see how far you’ve come and all these incredible places you’re about to go.’ It just gutted me. So I’ll never forget that.”
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