Elliot Page Breaks Down His First Queer Crushes, LGBTQ+ Representation in Movies & More
Elliot Page looks back at some of the queer-coded influences that shaped his formative years. From crushing on Jasmine from 'Aladdin' to "feeling things" when watching Rose and Jack in 'Titanic,' watch Elliot as he fondly reflects on his roots.
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00:00I was very much into Rose,
00:02which I think the connection also is Kate Winslet,
00:05who isn't into Kate Winslet.
00:07Hey, I'm Elliot Page, and this is Queer Roots.
00:14If I really, really think back,
00:16it was probably the older sister in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
00:22You too?
00:24Yes.
00:25What was her?
00:26Amy Zelinski.
00:27Amy Zelinski.
00:28I'm very certain.
00:29This actually is not to be like my book,
00:31The Barf, but I do write about it in my book.
00:35I mean, who doesn't love Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
00:37just as a cinematic masterpiece, of course?
00:39Truly, what a spectacle, right?
00:41Riding a giant ant?
00:44Please.
00:44Stumbling upon a monstrous Oreo cookie?
00:49Like, the whole sequence with the sprinklers and the,
00:53I mean, really quite a stunning motion picture.
00:57Well, she's really pretty, you know, really gorgeous.
01:01Just the way she dressed was really cool.
01:03There was a casualness, there was a looseness.
01:05There's some flannel action,
01:07and the character was so caring and thoughtful.
01:13Yeah, I guess, like, clearly moved me and captivated me.
01:18Yeah, maybe like Jasmine in Aladdin.
01:21Yeah.
01:23Loved Aladdin.
01:25Obviously wanted, you know, to be Aladdin.
01:27She also had a tiger.
01:29That's like, kind of sick.
01:31It's pretty cool.
01:32I mean, as long as, you know, is the tiger okay?
01:34Like, what's the tiger's life like?
01:36Now that I know she has a tiger, I might change my answer.
01:45When I think of the things that I particularly,
01:48or storylines that I was really drawn to,
01:51like Phantom of the Opera, you know,
01:52when I was the Phantom for Halloween, really cool kid,
01:56you know, and I can see now knowing
02:01that these things are queer-coded.
02:03But even me now, I'm like, oh, really, the Babadook?
02:05Like, I'm just hearing about these things.
02:07Like, I'm always like, what, because of the cool top hat?
02:10Like, I need to, like, dive into this discourse more.
02:14Anything that really was making me feel things,
02:18I guess, didn't necessarily have, like,
02:22overt queerness in it.
02:24But, like, certainly Titanic, I was very much into Rose,
02:31which I think the connection also is Kate Winslet,
02:34who isn't into Kate Winslet.
02:35And also, of course, Heavenly Creatures.
02:37When I think about it, when I would have seen that is,
02:41would have been one of my first, like,
02:44queer representation movies of any kind.
02:46It would have been.
02:47But I'm a cheerleader.
02:48Ooh, Melanie Linsky, double showing there.
02:51Don't know, like, because sometimes for me,
02:53it's more about, like, a feeling when you watch something.
02:56You know, like, when I would watch Stand By Me,
02:59I would have this sense of reflection in these,
03:02I mean, like, I would see myself in these characters.
03:06River Phoenix's character in Stand By Me,
03:08I just was like...
03:14I'm feeling really confused
03:16because I'm drawn to these characters,
03:22recognize myself in these characters,
03:25feel shared experience with these characters.
03:28But the one I'm supposed to be saying I recognize more with
03:33or is this other one, which I didn't feel,
03:37or might sometimes say I felt just because I liked the thing
03:40because that's what you think your entrance is
03:43or something.
03:44I guess I'd say there was, you know,
03:47probably, I'll be honest,
03:49like an endless amount of characters like that.
03:51Whether it was Aladdin,
03:53River Phoenix's character in Stand By Me,
03:55Mowgli, Power Rangers, Batman and Robin.
04:02I wasn't like a cool kid that was like precocious and red.
04:05You know, I was like, wanted to play video games and sports.
04:08So that came later.
04:09Like, I really started reading at like 15, 16.
04:13I guess when I started to read,
04:14I did fall in love with Kurt Vonnegut.
04:16So then I just sort of was reading all of Kurt Vonnegut.
04:19I loved like Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf.
04:24The first system I had was a Sega Genesis,
04:29which is personally my favorite system ever.
04:32So then it was a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog,
04:34NHL, 94, PlayStation came along,
04:38Crash Bandicoot, Need for Speed, FIFA,
04:42like the FIFA games.
04:44And then I moved out when I was 16, I moved to Toronto.
04:47And I was like,
04:49this is going to be too much with work and school.
04:51I have to like leave video games behind.
04:53And that is as if that happened.
04:55Like I, then I never had like a system ever again.
04:58And now sometimes I'll play Nintendo Switch and I have a,
05:02I do VR.
05:06Oh gosh.
05:07Movies in high school that I would have seen
05:09that really moved me.
05:11Lynne Ramsey's films, Rat Catcher and Morvern Caller
05:15were two movies that just like inspired me in the sense
05:18that they were the kind of movies that made me go like,
05:20oh wow, like this is the job I want to do.
05:23Like Samantha Morton's performance in Morvern Caller,
05:26really, like I can still think of tiny little moments
05:29in that performance.
05:30It completely floored me.
05:32Those were two very important movies in my life,
05:34but God, in that time I lived with a director.
05:38And so we would go to the video store near us
05:42in Toronto, Queen Video, which was awesome.
05:45And so I was watching all kinds of incredible films
05:49in that period.
05:50I was way cooler then than I am now.
05:54So much cooler.
05:56Ugh, what happened?
05:58Desert Hearts is one of my all-time favorites.
06:01The kiss they have in that film, that first kiss to me
06:04is one of the best kisses ever.
06:07Like in a movie ever, it's just...
06:10And the ending of that film, I love, adore.
06:15I do not think Desert Hearts has been appreciated
06:18as a film the way it should be.
06:20I mean, Tomboy is Celine Sciamma's film.
06:24Have you ever seen it?
06:25I have never seen it.
06:26It's on my list.
06:29Oh my Lord.
06:30Yeah, I mean, look, the first time I probably saw
06:32this movie, I was actually like 25, maybe.
06:36You know, one of my favorite films.
06:39I'll probably watch it again and again, you know, forever.
06:42I cried through most of it.
06:43It's not a sad, I mean, there's moments of it
06:45that there's tension in the movie, there's all this,
06:47but actually it's a very, you know, simple little story
06:50about this little kid trying to, you know,
06:54figure out how to belong and who they are.
06:56Stunning film.
06:58A mixture, like if I was trying to seem kind of cool,
07:05I'd like pretend I was into punk,
07:08but I was more, I think, into,
07:11I mean, punk is very emotional.
07:13I was looking for a different kind of emotion, I suppose.
07:16Orchestral, cinematic, dramatic, you know.
07:21I'd say like Radiohead's Amnesiac and Bjork
07:25and Wilko's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot were probably the,
07:29you know, the first experiences with music
07:32that made me love it in a whole new way.
07:36And so then I loved Cat Power and,
07:38well, I loved Slater Kinney and I loved Peaches
07:41and I loved, you know, I also loved, you know, Arrange.
07:45And as like a little kid, I liked, like,
07:48I loved New Kids on the Block when I was really little.
07:52I had a poster of Joey.
07:54Did you have any other posters?
07:55Were you like a big poster kid?
07:56I was as a teenager
07:57and then they became very different than that, yeah.
08:01As a teenager, they were like Patrick Waugh.
08:05He was a goalie, hockey goalie.
08:08I got a Michael Jordan poster.
08:10I had a Simpsons poster.
08:12And remember when you'd get CDs
08:14and there'd be that thing that, you know,
08:16you could, they'd give you the, yeah, those sorts of things.
08:20I'm thinking about Spice World.
08:22Great motion picture.
08:25There's a second on the way, I believe,
08:27that better not have just been a rumor.
08:28Slash, why am I not in Spice World 2?
08:32This is your bit.
08:34Put me in Spice World 2.
08:35Yeah, exactly.