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Ellen Page pays tribute to the film that was so monumental it helped her come out
Ellen Page has paid tribute to the film that was so monumental it helped her come out.
The gay actress said, seven years ago, she was sitting in a hotel room in Detroit with her then girlfriend when she received an email asking whether she was interested in being cast in a movie.
It contained a link to the trailer for Freeheld, the documentary about a New Jersey detective Laurel Hester, who, while dying of lung cancer, fought until her last breath to pass on her pension benefits to her partner Stacie.
She won her case weeks before her death in 2006.
Page was asked whether she would be interested in playing Stacie in a cinematic version, and after three minutes, said she was ‘in tears’.
‘I was moved, so unbelievably moved,’ she said. ‘I wanted to be involved.’
She then became a producer of Freeheld, and working on the project helped her to come out on Valentine’s Day last year.
‘I thought, “how can I make this film if I’m a closeted person?”’ she told Glamour.
‘Keeping that part of myself hidden was affecting my work, my ambition, my relationships. It was a constant burden—it was so toxic. As a gay woman, playing a gay character is a pretty monumental moment.’
Watch the trailer for Freeheld, starring Page and Julianne Moore, below:
The post Ellen Page pays tribute to the film that was so monumental it helped her come out appeared first on Gay Star News.
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