Biography

A Canadian by birth, Ellen Page was born on February 21, 1987 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She had an inclination for acting from an early age. This soon became evident when her professional career started at an early age of 10 when she did the TV Series Pit Pony. Her character in the series was quite appreciated and it was evident that soon she would foray into the big entertainment industry. Her fans needn’t wait for too long as she landed a plum role in a brilliant movie, Juno in which she played a charismatic role of a pregnant teenager named Juno. This was the role that shot her into limelight and she acclaimed notice not only from the media but audiences and critics alike.

Ellen page attended the acclaimed Neptune Theatre School, Halifax, as a young girl. Her career started with a staged version of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory in which she played Charlie Bucket. Soon after this, her first on-screen role came in the form of Pit Pony (1997) in which she played Maggie McLean. This debut on-screen role earned a number of awards and nominations for her, which included the Young Artist Award and Gemini Award nominations. A little later she landed the role in the short-lived sitcom Rideau Hall, followed by an appearance in two episodes of Trailer Park Boys, which was an award-winning Showcase series. Such was her impact in the two episodes itself that people still remember her and recognize her after so many years later.

Personal trivia of Ellen Page

• Dennis Page, Ellen’s father is a graphic designer and her mother, Martha Philpotts is a teacher. She has an elder stepbrother and an elder stepsister and her parents are divorced.
• During her growing up years she loved climbing trees and playing with action figures.
• She was into playing soccer and her nickname while playing soccer was “Peeps”.
• She attended three high schools and graduated at Shambhala School in Halifax. For two years she trained under the Interact program at the Vaughan Road Academy in Toronto.
• Kate Winslet, Patti Smith and Sissy Spacek are her role models.
• She owns an apartment in New York City and a house in Halifax.

Ellen is good friends with her co-stars Ben Foster and Olivia Thirlby from the movies X-Men: The Last Stand and Juno, respectively.

Her personal interests include playing soccer, basketball, downhill skiing, cycling, snowboarding, swimming and running.

Veteran Canadian actor Maury Chaykin was her costar in the short film The Wet Season, in the year 2002. Again the same year, she did Marion Bridge which was an acclaimed drama by Wiebke von Carolsfield, thus adding weight to her already impressive resume. The drama was written by Daniel MacIvor and Molly Parker, Stacy Smith and Rebecca Jenkins were her costars. For her role as Joanie, a local girl in the movie she won an ACTRA Maritimes Award for Outstanding Female Performance.

The young actress continued her stint with awards and accolades as she received the 2004 Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children’s or Youth Program or Series. The award was given for her role in Mrs Ashboro’s Cat which was a television feature film. Soon after this performance both American and Canadian agents started taking notice of her.

Her acting stint continued with a small appearance in Touch & Go, a comedy set in Nova Scotia. After this she was cast in two television movies, namely Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story and Going for Broke. Both these movies were an American production. She also made an appearance in the big screen Canadian romantic comedy, Love That Boy which was directed by Andrea Dorfman.

Her acting was really tested when she landed the lead role of the movie Mouth to Mouth in which she played the character of a runaway who falls in the company of similarly alienated young people. After her gritty role in this movie, she starred in the lighthearted movie I Downloaded a Ghost which was a typical contrast to her role in Mouth to Mouth.

In 2004 she won the Gemini Award for her performance in the sci-fi Canadian drama series ReGenesis. The same year she got another successful film Wilby Wonderful which was written, directed and starred by Daniel MacIvor, the screenwriter for her earlier movie Marion Bridge. Her performance in Wilby Wonderful was nominated for a Genie Award. In 2005, she appeared in two significant films which characterized two heroic females. Hard Candy was the first of these movies and Page’s character and her performance had critics and audiences talking about it. She played the character of Hayley a teenager who was flirted online by Jeff a person with pedophiliac tendencies.

Page graduated from the Shambhala School in Halifax in the year 2005 when she received the invitation from Brett Ratner to act in his next film X-Men: The Last Stand, the hugely popular series. The audiences saw her as “Kitty” Pryde/Shadowcat in the movie, who could pass through solid objects.

Juno started in 2007 with Jason Reitman as its director and was mostly shot in Vancouver. This one role proved phenomenal for her as she just burst into the limelight and critics and audiences took notice of this young and novice actor from Halifax. The movie brought her the Oscar nomination for Best Actress and she was then just 20 years of age.

With her emphatic and different roles much serious than her age, Ellen Page has easily navigated the path to stardom which is very difficult for a young actor. In contrast to her more high-profile contemporaries, she avoided the tabloid notoriety and drama and has carved a niche for herself in the Hollywood. Fans adjudged her to be the young face of Hollywood and they look upon her as a person who could get into this industry just by her talent and not by being rich or glamorous just as some of the more famous names in the American entertainment industry.