Elliot Page has expressed discomfort with a joke in the movie ‘Juno,’ in which he starred.
Page first became known for TV series such as ‘Pit Pony’ and ‘Trailer Park Boys.’ At the age of 20, he became one of the youngest Oscar nominees for playing a pregnant teenager in ‘Juno.’
Now 37, he publicly came out as a transgender man in 2020, and his memoir Pageboy instantly became a Sunday Times bestseller in 2023. He has since become a prominent advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and often uses his platform to campaign for and support others.
Page has previously been asked to share advice for his younger self, which was posted on the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Instagram page.
“My message to my younger self would be, just like, ‘You know who you are, and please embrace that’,” he said. “I understood my truth. I felt it very strongly, and it was all of these external forces and noises that pushed and pulled and made me sort of lose track of who I was.”
Page went on to add that the “discomfort and pain” his younger self was feeling “is not yours.”
In the movie ‘Juno,’ Juno and her boyfriend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) decide to give their unborn child up for adoption. They meet a couple, and Juno eventually becomes close to the man.
In one scene, while chatting about baby names, Paulie tells Juno that he ‘loves Madison very much’.
And Juno says: “Madison? Wait, hold on… Isn’t that like, a little, gay?”
Speaking to Bustle in 2017, Page explained: “It wasn’t something I totally registered at the time, but, of course, now that I’m older I do.
“So many movies I loved as a kid are just rampant with homophobia and transphobia and biphobia, and I’m not excusing it by any means.”
In the years since the film’s release, Page has often spoken about how much he regrets having to say that “joke.”
