Elliot Page on the 'cathartic' experience of playing a trans man in new film 

Close to You has Elliot Page in the role of a man leaving the city and travelling back to to his small hometown 

Elliot Page in Close to You.

There was a catharsis, Elliot Page says, in portraying a man who had recently transitioned visiting his family for the first time as who he really is.

The Umbrella Academy actor, 37, who first came to public attention as Ellen Page (Juno, etc),  came out as a trans man in 2020, says he doesn’t think he’d have been able to play Sam – the lead in Dominic Savage’s largely improvised drama Close to You – prior to his transition.