Elliot Page Says He Was Made To Wear A Dress At The ‘Juno’ Premiere
Page was just 20 years old when 'Juno' was first released.
In a new interview with Esquire, Elliot Page revealed he was made to wear a dress at the premiere of the infamous 2007 film, Juno.
When asked if he could relate to the suicide problem among trans people, he recalled moments in his life that had pushed him to the brink. “I think of times when people actively were like, ‘No, you need to wear a dress’ in very, very, very pivotal moments,” he said.
“I remember the premiere of Juno at the Toronto International Film Festival,” he recalled. “I remember going and having the thing I wanted to wear, and then understanding the degree of expectation of how fancy someone is supposed to look. So I said I wanted to wear a suit, and Fox Searchlight was basically like, “No, you need to wear a dress.”
“And they took me in a big rush to one of those fancy stores on Bloor Street [in Toronto]. They had me wear a dress, and … that was that. And then all the Juno press, all the photo shoots — Michael Cera was in slacks and sneakers.”
He added: “It’s easy for people to roll their eyes, but you know what? No. That was really extremely, extremely fucked up. I shouldn’t have to treat it like just this thing that happened — this somewhat normal thing. It’s like: No.”
Page — who was just 20 when Juno came out — explained that people shouldn’t be made to wear an item of clothing they’re not comfortable in, regardless of whether they’re trans or not.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m trans or cis,” he said. “Lots of cis women dress how I dress. That has nothing to fucking do with it.”
Page was aware that his comments would likely be trivialised, but stressed how traumatic the seemingly ‘minor’ things can be.
“I’ve had to have plenty of ‘devil’s advocate’ conversations with cis people who were like, ‘Well, I’m not trans and I could wear a skirt!’ And it’s like, cool. Okay. Great.”
“I wish people would understand that that shit literally did almost kill me.”
Read Elliot Page’s full interview with Esquire here.
Photo by Lionel Hahn/Getty Images