As ‘The Umbrella Academy’ returns, Elliot Page talks about entering a new reality with his latest film: ‘You truly disappear’

Elliot Page currently stars in this week’s No. 1 show on Netflix — but that’s not the reason he got up early to jump onto a Zoom call with the Star one recent morning. As the hypestorm for the fourth and final season of “The Umbrella Academy” rages around him, the Halifax-born actor is using his current moment in the spotlight to draw attention to a much more intimate passion project — one that took him to a place far away from the Academy’s CGI-rendered multiverse of apocalyptic battles and talking chimpanzees. And that place is Cobourg, Ont.
That’s the small-town setting of “Close to You,” which premiered at TIFF last year and has just been released in theatres. In his first big-screen leading role in seven years, and his first since coming out as trans in 2020, Page stars as Sam, a trans man living in Toronto’s Kensington Market who hops on the VIA to visit his family in Cobourg for the first time since he transitioned. But it’s not long before he’s confronted with reminders of why he had to fly the coop in the first place.
Page developed the plot in close collaboration with award-winning British director Dominic Savage, who worked in a style as raw and real as the story being told, with a heavy emphasis on improvised dialogue, wintry on-location shoots, and long, uninterrupted takes shot with hand-held cameras. With Savage at his side, Page explains how the director’s off-the-cuff creative process helped make “Close to You” “undoubtedly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”
Elliot, why was making this film so gratifying for you?
Page: It’s Dominic, and how he works. The first thing I saw of Dominic’s was the (TV) film he did with Samantha Morton (“I Am Kirsty”), which completely blew my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop feeling it. And then the moment we first met on Zoom, I realized how lovely and how sensitive he is and how much he puts his heart into his work. It was just like, “My gosh, would I be so lucky to do this.” When you work in this way, you get that great joy, that inexplicable feeling that happens when you’re acting, where you’ve created this other reality that feels so honest. You’re used to getting it for a minute or a couple of minutes and then “Cut!” and then, everything’s moving around (on set) and then you get to go again for a few more minutes. But here, it keeps going and going and going and you truly disappear.
When you read the initial premise of this film, about a trans man coming home to a small town for the first time in several years, it’s easy to assume he’ll be returning to a disapproving family. But that’s not the case here …
Page: We wanted to avoid anything that was in a super-trauma sort of space. The goal was to have this family who loved Sam for who he is. But we were trying to capture the nuances in that experience of people really trying to be accepting. They might not be getting everything right, which is OK. Or they’re still not truly seeing him. They still have their own expectations or projections of what’s going to make him happy. So it was about trying to capture all those moments.
I found it interesting that, once he arrives back at his parents’ house, Sam doesn’t ever take off his jacket and toque, which reinforces the sense that he still doesn’t feel completely at home there.
Savage: The way these films work is that you don’t set about saying, “This is going to be like this because of that.” It just looked right, and it felt right. And, as you said about the family not being typical — it’s much more interesting to do it in a surprising way, because that’s life, isn’t it? Life is not how we expect it to be. And yet, at the same time, there’s this undercurrent. As you watch it, things are just bubbling underneath — you don’t quite know what it is.
Elliot, this is your first leading film role in seven years. Was it always your intention to come back with a story about a trans man’s journey? And did the process of writing your recent memoir, “Pageboy,” inform this experience at all for you?
Page: It was all very organic. I’m not a person who’s like, “This is the film I should do!” I hadn’t even started writing the book when (Dominic and I) first talked, but I guess I was finishing the book (while filming) — literally, I’d come back from set and be like (makes manic typing gestures). It was a lot, actually. So, I’m sure that degree of self-reflection over that year and jumping into a mostly improvised film was helpful for an emotional calibration at that point in my life. But the actual film and family dynamics are quite different from my own. This film has literally nothing to do with my book. I just happened to write a memoir, and I happen to be trans playing a trans character.
So of all the small towns in North America, how did Cobourg become the centre of your story?
Savage: Fate, really, again. I just spent a bit of time looking around. For me, locations are really important in terms of the atmosphere and what they actually bring to the actors. We talked about setting it in a very small town that’s so unlike a city that’s diverse. I liked Cobourg because there was a beach, to be honest. I like water — it’s a very reflective, interesting element in films. There’s lots of esthetic reasons for it, but in the end, it was a place that was a train’s journey from Toronto, and the train was also an important part of Sam’s journey. I liked the fact that you had to get a train from Union Station — it just had all the right ingredients to tell the story. And it was a great place to film, too. But I didn’t like the cold weather!
Page: It’s not like when we first talked, we were like, “And we’ll be on a beach on Lake Ontario in the winter!” The next time we work together, it’ll be in Lisbon.
So there will be a next time?
Page: I mean, I would love to do another, but Dominic is busy with other things. I’ll steal him away again at some point, hopefully. Everyone’s fighting over him: Kate Winslet, Samantha Morton. Because he’s just such a good person. And I feel very, very lucky to be a part of this body of work.