Elliot Page Breaks Down His First Queer Crushes, LGBTQ+ Representation in Movies & More

I was very much into Rose

which I think the connection also is Kate Winslet

who isn't into Kate Winslet.

Hey, I'm Elliot Page and this is Queer Roots.

[calm music]

If I really, really think back,

it was probably the older sister

in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

You too?

[Speaker] Yeah.

[beep] yes.

What was her, Amy Szalinski.

Amy Szalinkski.

I'm very certain.

This actually is not to be like my book, ugh, barf,

but I do write about it in my book.

I mean, who doesn't love Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

just as a cinematic masterpiece of course.

Truly what a spectacle, right?

Riding a giant ant?

Please.

Stumbling upon a monstrous Oreo cookie?

Like the whole sequence with the sprinklers and the,

I mean, really, quite a stunning motion picture.

Well, she was really pretty, really gorgeous.

Just the way she dressed was really cool.

There was a casualness, there was a looseness.

There's some flannel action

and the character was so caring and thoughtful.

Yeah, I guess like clearly moved me and captivated me.

Yeah, maybe like Jasmine in Aladdin.

Yeah, loved Aladdin.

Obviously wanted to be Aladdin.

[Speaker] She also, she had a tiger.

That's like kind of sick.

It's pretty cool.

I mean, as long as you know, is the tiger okay

like what's the tiger's life like?

Now that I know she has a tiger, I might change my answer.

Just kidding.

When I think of the things that I particularly

or storylines that I was really drawn to

like Phantom of the Opera

and I was the Phantom for Halloween, really cool kid,

and I can see now knowing that these things are queer-coded

but even me now, I'm like, oh really, The Babadook

like I'm just hearing about these things.

Like I'm always like, what, 'cause the cool top hat

like I need to dive into this discourse more.

Anything that really was making me feel things I guess

didn't necessarily have like overt queerness in it

but like certainly Titanic, I was very much into Rose

which I think the connection also is Kate Winslet

who isn't into Kate Winslet

and also of course Heavenly Creatures.

When I think about it as a, when I would've seen that

is would've been one of my first

like queer representation movies of any kind,

it would've been.

But I'm a Cheerleader, ooh, Melanie Lynskey.

Double showing there.

Don't know 'cause sometimes for me

it's more about like a feeling

when you watch something, you know

like when I would watch Stand by Me,

I would have this sense of reflection in these,

I mean like I would see myself in these characters.

River Phoenix's character in Stand by Me, I just was like,

I'm feeling really confused

because I'm drawn to these characters,

recognize myself in these characters,

feel shared experience with these characters

but the one I'm supposed to be saying

I recognize more with or is this other one

which I didn't feel or might sometimes say I felt

just 'cause I liked the thing

'cause that's what you think your entrance is or something

but I'd say there was probably,

I'll be honest, an endless amount of characters like that

whether it was Aladdin,

River Phoenix's character in Stand by Me,

Mowgli, Power Rangers, Batman and Robin.

I wasn't like a cool kid that was like precocious and read.

I was like wanting to play video games and sports.

So that came later.

Like I really started reading at like 15, 16.

I guess when I started to read,

I did fall in love with Kurt Vonnegut.

So then I just sort of was reading all of Kurt Vonnegut.

I loved like Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf.

The first system I had was a Sega Genesis

which is personally my favorite system ever.

So then it was a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog, NHL 94.

PlayStation came along.

Crash Bandicoot, Need For Speed, FIFA.

Like the FIFA games.

And then I moved out when I was 16.

I moved to Toronto and I was like,

ah, this is gonna be too much with work and school,

I have to like leave video games behind

and that is as if that happened like I did,

then I never had a system ever again

and now sometimes I'll play Nintendo Switch

and I have a, I do VR.

Oh gosh, movies in high school

that I would've seen that really moved me?

Lynne Ramsay's films, Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar

were two movies that just like inspired me

in the sense that they were the kind of movies

that made me go like, oh wow,

like this is the job I wanna do.

Like Samantha Morton's performance in Morvern Callar really

like I can still think of tiny little moments

in that performance.

It completely floored me.

Those were two very important movies in my life

but God, in that time, I lived with a director

and so we would go to the video store near us

in Toronto, Queen video, which was awesome

and so I was watching all kinds of incredible films

in that period.

I was way cooler then than I am now.

So much cooler.

Ugh, what happened?

Desert Hearts is one of my all time favorites.

The kiss they have in that film,

that first kiss to me is one of the best kisses ever

like in a movie ever.

It's just.

And the ending of that film I love, adore.

I do not think Desert Hearts has been appreciated as a film

the way it should be.

I mean, Tomboy, Celine Sciamma's film.

Have you ever seen it?

[Speaker] I have never, it's on my list.

Oh my Lord.

Yeah, I mean, look, the first time I probably saw this movie

I was actually like 25 maybe.

One of my favorite films.

I'll probably watch it again and again forever.

I cried through most of it.

It's not a sad, I mean, there's moments of it

that there's tension in the movie, there's all this

but actually it's a very simple little story

about this little kid trying to figure out how to belong

and who they are and stunning film.

A mixture.

Like if I was trying to seem kind of cool,

I'd like pretend I was into punk

but I was more I think into, I mean, punk is very emotional.

I was looking for a different kind of emotion I suppose.

Orchestral, cinematic, dramatic, you know?

I'd say like Radiohead's Amnesiac

and Bjork and Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

were probably the first experiences with music

that made me love it in a whole new way

and so then I loved Cat Power

and well, I loved Sleater-Kinney and I loved Peaches

and I loved, I also loved a range.

When I was like a little kid, I liked,

I loved New Kids on the Block when I was really little.

I had a poster of Joey.

[Speaker] Did you have any other poster?

Were you like a big poster kid?

I was as a teenager

and then they became very different than that, yeah.

As a teenager they were like, Patrick Wa

who's a goalie, hockey goalie.

I had a Michael Jordan poster.

I had a Simpsons poster.

And remember when you'd get CDs

and there'd be that thing that you could,

they'd give you the, yeah, those sorts of things.

I'm thinking about Spice World.

Great motion picture.

There's a second on the way I believe.

That better not have just been a rumor

slash why am I not in Spice World 2?

[Speaker] This is your bid.

Put me in Spice World 2.

Yeah, exactly.