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You may know Elliot Page as the world’s most famous transgender actor. You may know him as Viktor Hargreeves from hit Netflix show The Umbrella Academy. You may know him for being Oscar-nominated at the age of 20 for his breakthrough role in Juno. But what you may not know, is that the 37-year-old Canadian actor, like many of us Brits, grew up watching Coronation Street.
“My mum was obsessed with Coronation Street, so that was always on when I was a kid. I don’t think at the time that I clocked the trans representation in the show, but that’s how bits and pieces began to pop up,” says Page from home in New York. The bits and pieces he refers to are his earliest memories of trans representation on screen – Coronation Street’s Hayley Cropper appeared in 1998 and was the first transgender character to appear in a British TV soap.
Beyond Weatherfield, Page notes that the trans characters he grew up with were sparse, and oftentimes, centred around transphobic storylines. A particular film comes to mind: “Ace Ventura [Pet Detective] was absolutely one of my favourite movies as a kid, but then… eugh, thinking back to that,” he shakes his head and trails off, referring to the Jim Carrey comedy where the villain is revealed to be a trans woman. Within queer communities, it is known as one of the worst moments in trans film history. “The trans representation I can think of was mainly in that movie, which is unfortunate.”
Now, starring in his first film since 2019 and the first since coming out as trans in 2020, Page is creating that representation for the next generation. Close To You shows a devastatingly raw, beautiful yet blunt, story of a trans man heading back to his hometown to visit family who are struggling to come to terms with his transition.
“It’s definitely a watch,” admits director Dominic Savage, who joins Page and I on a video call from his Bafta-decorated north London home. “It’s a very feeling kind of film. People genuinely feel very affected by the themes and emotions in it,” he continues. “We just hope that everyone really feels it.”
The unlikely pairing met virtually during the pandemic and instantly formed a friendship. “There was an immediate sense of trust being there,” Savage explains. “I felt it viscerally over Zoom, which you wouldn’t think was possible, but it was. We just connected on so many levels. We had to have a very strong friendship” – for the sake of the project – “and that turned out to be the case, so I’m just grateful that we met.”
Page gives a loving, appreciative look through the bleary computer screen. “The depth of our conversation immediately felt like we’d known each other for so much longer,” the actor recalls. “Dominic leads with his heart. I always felt safe and like I could completely trust him.” For this specific project, unwavering trust was required not only due to the film’s subject, but because of Savage’s style of working.
The Margate-born director, known for Nice Girl, When I Was 12, and Channel 4’s women-led anthology series I Am…, is known for using improvisation throughout his work, natural light and a handheld camera at all times. In Close To You, the cast improvised the entire script, with takes lasting as long as 53 minutes. “It’s funny because everyone has their own way of doing what they do and this is mine,” Savage explains. “The scenes are about the actors being those characters, not necessarily performing those characters.”
“That’s a very liberating experience for actors because it means there are no real rules, contractions or restrictions. It feels interesting and truthful, the script is descriptive of the scene but it just doesn’t have dialogue – that’s the point. The beauty of this is that none of us know where this is going.”
Was Savage’s improv technique a challenge for Page? “Oh my God, it’s the absolute best. A complete dream…but I was utterly petrified leading up to it – naturally! I was like, ‘What the heck? How does this work?’ It’s a complete collaborative dance with the cast and crew. I think I can speak for all the actors involved [in that] everyone was like ‘I only want to work this way.’”
There is a particular line in the film that shocked other cast members for a moment. During a heated argument with transphobia at the centre of it, Page’s character Sam declares: ‘Family is not the most important thing.’
“No one knew I was going to say that at the table and you could feel the room drop. You don’t hear that in movies much,” explains Page. “It’s the difference between family and found family. There’s a pressure and expectation that’s put on this structure of what we’ve been told family is and that that means everything, but sometimes people in families are dehumanised, rejected, treated like shit.”
“We’re always used to seeing a situation where there’s a rupture, or really awful things communicated, and then there’s this pressure to tie everything up in a bow. But the person who’s dealing with that negativity or bigotry or what have you, gets put in the position of having to make everyone else feel ok, so they keep having to swallow all of that.”
His eyes well up and he takes a deep breath. Unlike his character, who goes home to celebrate his father’s birthday, Page is estranged from his own father and writes in his autobiography about his complicated parental relationships. “Chosen family has meant so much to me in my life,” he tells me emotionally. “I don’t know if I would’ve gotten to where I am without it.”
Depressingly, queer and trans rights across the UK and America are under constant attack. And with the upcoming US election, should it swing a certain way, the threat to LGBTQ+ rights grows bigger still. In such climates, it is important more than ever to acknowledge achievements – such as the expanding pool of trans, non-binary and gender-nonconforming actors appearing on our screens.
“I’m thrilled that there is more representation,” says Page. “I just hope it continues to grow and grow and grow because we don’t have enough. Trans and gender non-conforming people are dealing with horrific reality right now is the truth. So I hope there continues to be more and more representation and people backing, supporting and green-lighting our stories.”
With Close To You, Savage and Page are adding to the bank of vital queer cultural references. And it’s already paying off: “The response, when it’s at its most powerful, has been gratitude,” says Savage. “There was a trans woman that came up to me and said that she was about to go back and see her family and she felt she could do it now. She felt it had given her strength. That’s the kind of thing that is so powerful when you make a film. You hope that people will walk out of the cinema feeling a lot more love for others.”
