Unlike Elliot Page’s character, the actor wasn’t eyeing Michael Cera while filming Juno.
Page, who has become the most prominent transgender star in Hollywood, revealed in his new memoir Pageboy that he had a steamy relationship with Juno co-star Olivia Thirlby years before Page came out as gay in 2014 and eventually transitioned in 2020.
“I was taken aback the moment I saw Olivia Thirlby,” wrote Page. “Embodied and bold, her long brown hair moved in slow motion. We were the same age, but she seemed so much older, capable, and centered. Sexually open, far removed from where I was at the time.”
He continued: “But the chemistry was palpable, it pulled me in.”
The actor, whose work in the 2007 film was nominated for an Oscar, had yet to come out as gay. Page admitted it was “rare” for him to “let anything in” when he met Thirlby but wrote they had already become fast friends when things suddenly shifted.
“We stood in her hotel room,” wrote Page in his tell-all memoir. “Billie Holiday played. She was about to start making lunch, when she looked directly at me and said point-blank, ‘I’m really attracted to you.’ ‘Uh, I’m really attracted to you, too.’ At that, we started sucking face.”
Thirlby reportedly came out as bisexual in 2011.
Page added he had “an all-encompassing desire” for Thirlby and that they had sex “all the time”. With little privacy from their co-stars, while filming in British Columbia, Page wrote they hooked up in trailers, hotel rooms — and “once in a tiny, private room in a restaurant”.
The Canada-born actor wrote he previously “would pretend” to climax during sex but that Thirlby gave him one of the first orgasms of his dating life. Page wrote Thirlby helped his shame “dissipate” — and that he was “done feeling wretched” about his true self.
The Inception star has been candid in the memoir, chronicling his journey from cis-female and lesbian to male transgender. He not only revealed an A-lister once threatened to rape him after coming out but that he explored a relationship with Kate Mara.
Page also disclosed having previously dated a closeted co-star for two years. While he has no interest in outing them, he did learn never to dive into a secret relationship again — as “feeling hidden” was unsustainable and “far too painful” to relive.
Page is touring North America with his memoir, which hit stores Tuesday.