The first thing I ever saw Ellen Page in was the 2005 film Hard Candy. Hard Candy was like Sleuth on drugs. Page turned in a tour de force performance that made me fall in love with her as an actress and fear her as a performer. It was plain that the young performer was already a seasoned actor and her co-star in the film, Patrick Wilson obviously had his work cut out for him.
Page was born February 21 1987 and she has been working professionally since 1997. If you look at her film and television credits you can see that this young Canadian actor has been busy. Not just working but working in the kind of films that makes sure folks notice you.
2007 was her busiest year to date, she worked in a total of five projects, three of which she was the ‘star’ player.
Juno , which had a wonderful cast: Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and J.K. Simmons, in which Page played a young teen who suddenly finds herself pregnant after her first sexual dalliance with Cera’s character. Ellen proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could pull off a comedic role. Her timing was spot on and in my opinion she acted Michael Cera off the screen.
In An American Crime she played the doomed Sylvia Likens in the ‘true story’ of an urban nightmare that ends in murder endured by two girls in the 1960’s.
In the The Tracey Fragments she played 15 year old Tracey Berkowitz in a ‘coming of age’ film in which she must find her missing brother.
She was also in The Stone Angel and she provided her vocal talents for The Batman television series as an uncredited ‘additional voices’ according to IMDb.
After 2007 she continued to work steadily and she amassed a further five credits. Then in 2010 she worked on the film Inception.
It was when I was starting to write a review on Inception that I got sidetracked by Page. I had an idle thought about her part and performance in the film. The idle thought was this, ‘Well at least they’re letting play her age for a change.’
That one thought made me look at her ‘track record’ and boy was it impressive. While Hard Candy and Juno got her noticed, Inception raised her value as an actor just by being in the film. 2010 was her second busiest year with four projects to her credit.
From that year on she has averaged two projects per year.
Now she is joining an already long list of stars who are putting their voices (and in this case her image) in a video game. In Quantic Dream‘s Beyond: Two Souls she provides her voice and likeness as Jodie Holmes, the main character in the game. But this is not the first time that Ellen’s features have been used in a game.
Naughty Dog ‘s The Last of Us features a character that is the spitting image of Ellen Page. Quite flattering if not a little off putting game wise. Watching the trailer, I kept thinking what is Ellen Page doing there?
It was even worse when watching the trailer for Beyond: Two Souls. Every time Jode Holmes opened her mouth and Page’s voice came out of it, I again had that ‘what’s Ellen Page doing there’ moment. I have a feeling it might actually distract the player from David Cage‘s newest game.
Blessed with a youthful appearance that most female actors would kill for. Ellen will be able to play those teen and young adult parts for quite a few years yet. It is a little sad that, so far, only Inception has let her play her age. She is rapidly approaching her mid-twenties and she must be ‘chomping at the bit’ to play roles a bit older than she has historically been cast for.
So Ellen Page, MikesFilmTalk salutes you. I can’t wait to see what you work in next.
**This is a new feature on my site. If you like it or have a suggestion as to who I should salute, let me know.
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