Elliot Page (formerly Ellen Page; born February 21, 1987) is a Canadian actor, producer, and activist. He is known for his leading roles across Canadian and American film and television, and for his work as an activist for LGBTQ rights and against discrimination. His accolades include nominations for an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a SAG Award.
After beginning his career in television, Page earned recognition for his starring role in the film Hard Candy (2005) and for playing Kitty Pryde in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He starred in Juno (2007), becoming the fourth-youngest nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actress at the time. His other film credits include The Tracey Fragments (2007), Whip It (2009), Super (2010), Inception (2010), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Freeheld (2015), Tallulah (2016), Close to You (2023), and The Odyssey (2026). In addition, he starred as Jodie Holmes in the video game Beyond: Two Souls (2013) and as Vanya/Viktor Hargreeves in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy (2019–2024). Page also hosted the documentary series Gaycation (2016–2017) and directed There's Something in the Water (2019).
A pro-choice feminist, he has spoken out in favor of the MeToo movement, advocated for abortion rights, and called for the end of military dictatorship in Myanmar. Page publicly came out as a lesbian in 2014, and that same year, was included in The Advocate's annual "40 Under 40" list. In 2015, he received the Human Rights Campaign Vanguard Award. In 2020, he came out as a trans man and took the name Elliot. In March 2021, he became the first openly transgender man to appear on the cover of Time magazine.
Page was born on February 21, 1987, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. He was assigned female at birth and went by the given name Ellen prior to his gender transition in 2020. Page attended Halifax Grammar School until grade 10, and also attended Queen Elizabeth High School. After graduating from the Shambhala School in 2005, Page spent two years in Toronto studying in the Interact Program at Vaughan Road Academy, along with his close friend and fellow Canadian actor Mark Rendall.
Page first acted on camera in 1997 at the age of ten, starring as Maggie Maclean in the CBC Television film Pit Pony, which later spun off into a television series of the same name that ran from 1999 to 2000. For the television series role, he was nominated for a Gemini Award and Young Artist Award. In 2002, Page starred as Joanie in the film Marion Bridge, which is noted for being his first feature-film role. In the same year, he was cast in the television series Trailer Park Boys in the recurring role of Treena Lahey, which he played for five episodes.
Page had roles in the films Touch & Go and Love That Boy in the early 2000s, and he also starred in the television films Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story and Ghost Cat in the same year. For Ghost Cat, he won the Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series. In 2004, Page starred in the drama Wilby Wonderful, for which he won an award at the Atlantic Film Festival and was nominated for a Genie Award. Also in 2004, he had a recurring role in season 1 of the series ReGenesis as Lilith Sandström, daughter of the show's protagonist.
2000s: Breakthrough and acclaim
In 2005, Page starred in the film Hard Candy as Hayley Stark, a teenage girl who takes a sexual predator hostage. Claudia Puig of USA Today wrote that Page "manages to be both cruelly callous and likable" and that he gave "one of the most complex, disturbing and haunting performances of the year". The film was a commercial success, and Page won the Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress in 2006 for his performance, among other awards and nominations. His other film release in 2005 was the drama Mouth to Mouth. The following year, he appeared in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) as Kitty Pryde, a girl who can walk through walls. In the previous X-Men films, the part had been used in brief cameos played by other actors, but never as a main character. The film was a commercial success.
In 2007, he had a breakthrough role as Juno, a pregnant teenager, in the coming-of-age comedy-drama film Juno, which was a critical and financial success. A. O. Scott of The New York Times described Page as "frighteningly talented", "mature beyond [his] years" and "disarmingly childlike". Roger Ebert said that no other actor had a better performance in 2007 than Page, whose "presence and timing are extraordinary". For his performance, Page was nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress — Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. He also won a Canadian Comedy Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and a Satellite Award for the role, as well as numerous critics awards, including Detroit Film Critics Society, Austin Film Critics Association and Florida Film Critics Circle.
In 2007, Page also appeared in The Stone Angel, and led the films An American Crime and The Tracey Fragments, the latter of which also earned him critical acclaim, with the Boston Herald writing that "It is also a further reminder that Page is the real thing. But we knew that already". He won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Canadian Film, among other accolades. In 2008, Page co-starred in the comedy-drama film Smart People, which premiered in January that year at the Sundance Film Festival, and received a mixed response from critics. In the film, he played the overachieving daughter of a college professor. On March 1, 2008, Page hosted Saturday Night Live. On May 3, 2009, he guest starred in "Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh", an episode of The Simpsons, as the character Alaska Nebraska, a parody of Hannah Montana. In September 2009, he starred in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It, as a member of a roller derby team. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and had its wide release on October 2, 2009.
In August 2009, Page was cast in the big-budget Christopher Nolan science fiction film Inception, which began filming the same year. The film was released on July 16, 2010, and was a commercial success. It received widespread acclaim from critics, being hailed as one of the best films of the 2010s. Page played Ariadne, an architecture student who is a newcomer to dream espionage. The cast, including Page, earned several accolades, with Page earning nominations from the Saturn Awards and the MTV Awards. He also starred in the 2010 black comedy superhero film Super, which he accepted after seeing the script for the film. The film received mixed reviews, though Page was praised for his performance as a psychopathic teenage sidekick. In January 2010, Page began appearing in a series of advertisements for Cisco Systems, including commercials set in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. That April, the Michael Lander film Peacock featured Page as Maggie Bailey, a struggling young mother. Page noted the film as "one of the boldest screenplays I've come across in my albeit short career; it's a character and story I can throw myself into and exactly the type of movie I love to be a part of".
In April 2011, it was announced that Page would co-star as Monica in the Woody Allen film To Rome with Love, a film told in four separate vignettes; the film was released in 2012. In June 2012, Quantic Dream announced the video game Beyond: Two Souls, in which Page portrays one of the main player characters, Jodie Holmes, through voice acting and motion-capture acting; it was released on October 8, 2013, in North America. The game polarized critics, but Page earned praise for his performance, with GamesTM calling it "truly breathtaking ... Jodie's character is one we've seen before in many films – a troubled child with a gift, haunted by spirits, struggling with growing up", but Page excelled in giving "gravity and warmth" to the character. He was given various awards and nominations for the role, including the British Academy Games Award for Best Performer. In 2013, another video game, The Last of Us, was released. Page accused the production for using his likeness without permission for the character Ellie; the character's appearance was subsequently redesigned to better reflect the actual performer's personality and make the character younger.