LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Elliot Page's eagerly awaited memoir, 'Pageboy,' will be available on June 6. The intensely personal tale promises to address mental health, violence, love, relationships, sex, and the black hole that Hollywood can be, as well as Page's relationship with his body and his experiences as one of the most famous trans individuals in the world.
Page is recalling an event that changed his life. According to an excerpt obtained by People, Page recounts Paula, a woman he first met when he was 20 years old, and explains how their friendship evolved into a romance. Page has now claimed in his memoir that he had sex with his 'Juno' co-star Olivia Thirlby "all the time" while they were filming the popular 2007 movie.
Who is Paula?
Page was careful to underline his realization that his journey may be very different from that of other members of the trans community when he spoke to People about sharing such personal stories with the world. Page told People, "My experience as a trans person and this life I have, and the privilege I have does not represent the reality of most trans lives."
In the excerpt released by People, Page recalls being in a gay nightclub just a few months ahead of the release of his critically acclaimed 2008 film 'Juno.' He met Paula at the pub, and she unknowingly helped him in dealing with his feelings of "shame."
He wrote, "I met Paula when I was twenty. Sitting on our friend’s couch, eating raw almonds with her knees to her chest, she introduced herself, “I’m Paula.” The sound of her voice radiated warmth, a kindness. It wasn’t so much that her eyes lit up but that they found you. I could feel her looking. We went to Reflections. It was the first time I had been to a gay bar and would be my last for a long time. I was a miserable flirter."
Page recounts that at the time, "being in a queer space and being present" was a new but delightful experience. He also admits that "shame had been drilled into my bones since I was my tiniest self, and I struggled to rid my body of that old toxic and erosive marrow. But there was a joy in the room, it lifted me, forced a reaction in the jaw, an uncontrolled, steady smile."
"Dancing, sweat dripping down my back, down my chest. I watched Paula's hair twist and bounce as she moved effortlessly, chaotic but controlled, sensual and strong," Page continues. "I would catch her looking at me, or was it the other way around? We wanted to be caught. Deer in the headlights. Startled, but not breaking," the 'Juno' actress continues.
Page soon asked Paula, "Can I kiss you?" The 'Umbrella Academy' actor continues by claiming that when he asked Paula if he may kiss her, his own "boldness" "jolted" him. The kiss with Paula, he reflects, was the catalyst that allowed him to "understand what all those poems were about, what all the fuss was."
The excerpt reads, "Everything was cold before, motionless, emotionless. Any woman I had loved hadn't loved me back, and the one who maybe had, loved me the wrong way. But here I was, on a dance floor with a woman who wanted to kiss me and the antagonizing, cruel voice that flooded my head whenever I felt desire was silent."
Elliot Page had sex with co-star Olivia Thirlby 'all the time'
In his newly released memoir, 'Pageboy,' the Oscar-nominated actor, 36, who formerly went by the name Ellen Page and came out as transgender in 2020, recalled his relationship with Thirlby, now 36, who played Juno's best friend Leah.
Page writes in his bombshell memoir, "I was taken aback the moment I saw Olivia Thirlby. She seemed so much older, capable, and centered. Sexually open, far removed from where I was at the time. But the chemistry was palpable, it pulled me in."
They started hanging out a lot, according to Page, and one day when they stood by Thirlby's hotel room, the actress "looked directly at me and said point-blank, ‘I’m really attracted to you.'" Thirlby revealed she was "really attracted" to him, and Page acknowledged his attraction to her. Page, who portrayed pregnant adolescent Juno MacGuff in the movie, recalled in his memoir how they began "sucking face" in a hotel room.
Page further wrote, "I had an all-encompassing desire for her, she made me want in a way that was new, hopeful. It was one of the first times someone would make me c-m, the first time I would open up." Page claimed that he and Thirlby started having sex "all the time," adding that they had done it in "Her hotel room, in our trailers at work, once in a tiny, private room in a restaurant … We thought we were being subtle. Being intimate with Olivia helped my shame dissipate. I didn’t see a glint of it in her eyes and I wanted that — done feeling wretched about who I am."
