From the roller rink to Thornfield Manor, reports ew.com:
Ellen Page will play the title heroine in a BBC Films adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's 19th-century novel Jane Eyre. No director is yet attached, but Moira Buffini has written the screenplay, and producers hope to begin filming this fall.

Page will grace the cover of the new Teen Vogue, about to crop up on your finer newsstands. She looks the most relaxed (and the most herself) we've seen her on a magazine cover yet. "The Barbara Walters interview, the Academy luncheon, meeting Sissy Spacek—there have been all these moments that it’s really hard to wrap my head around," she says in the piece. "To be recognized with these women that I have so much respect for, it feels wrong, in a way." Page's new movie Smart People opens on Friday. Though The Tracey Fragments gets its US release on May 9, this is likely the last we'll see of her for awhile as she shoots her next two projects back-to-back until the fall.

Way more fun than the Oscars, fo shiz -- Page hosts Saturday Night Live tomorrow, which after three decades and scores of SNDead jokes is still a huge fricking deal. You can always tell who the real talent is within this structure. Last week's host Tina Fey played Juno in a sketch, so even if she weren't involved in the show directly, Page has already been honoured by the venerable comedy institution. (Fingers crossed for Page as a school chum of Amy Poehler's hyperactive Kaitlin.) Wilco is the musical guest. (Next week's host? Amy Adams. Three times makes it a trend.)
Looking like a cross between her old and new selves in a suit and ballet flats, Page picked up Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards (aka the Cool Oscars) last night, besting a weird bunch of nominees including Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart), Parker Posey (Broken English), Sienna Miller (Interview) and Tang Wei (Lust, Caution). Juno also picked up Best Feature and Best Screenplay for Diablo Cody. Don't forget to check out Ms.Page's chat with Barbara Walters tonight at 8pm. Or, you know, that other show.
In September 2007, Juno was just another program blurb in the 200+ film slate at the Toronto International Film Festival. Then it screened to deafening acclaim, and Roger Ebert was there to help set the hype stirring. Though unable to speak due to a recent surgery, his words were no less powerful in a September 9 blog entry: "I don’t know when I’ve heard a standing ovation so long, loud and warm as the one after Jason Reitman’s Juno, which I predict will become quickly beloved when it opens at Christmas time, and win a best actress nomination for its 20-year-old star, Ellen Page." Check his glowing fest review here.
This month's Interview features Page on its cover in a suit flashing her red Y-fronts, looking slightly less uncomfortable than she does in Vanity Fair but clearly unnerved about the red lipstick. (Last month's Interview cover subject? Amy Adams. Just saying.) She is interviewed by Drew Barrymore, who will direct her in Whip It, a roller derby film we are not entirely convinced about, slated to shoot this summer. It's a pretty good read, and Page reiterates something we'll never get tired of hearing her say, about how her job as an actor is to connect her own heart to the character's heart. But we prefer this fangirl quote about meeting her idol, Kate Winslet: "I was all starstruck and trying to be supercool, but she came over to me!"

Page turned 21 today, meaning she can swig all the champagne she wants at both the Oscar and SNL after-parties. Except she doesn't really drink ("I'm not a crazy boozehound" is how she put it to us a couple years back). Note: this time last year she was in Vancouver shooting Juno, which is the last time she has made a film. Crazy! Have one of those hipster LA microbrews on us tonight, lady.
We've been keeping an eye on Ellen Page since she played Molly Parker's daughter of incest in Marion Bridge, but you'll have to check your own archives for those pieces. In the meantime you can follow our coverage of Juno from back when it was just another project Page had wrapped up, or our report on Page's yet-to-be released Sundance thriller An American Crime with Catherine Keener; head back to 2006, which seemed like a stellar year for Page at the time (come to think of it, so did 2005) or check out our reviews of Juno, The Tracey Fragments, X-Men 3 and Hard Candy.

By the end of the year it was evident that Page was the story of 2007, if not the decade. After weeks of email tag, we managed to grab 15 minutes with her on the morning of Juno's LA premiere, which came weeks after a grassroots Q&A tour across America. Page sounded weary and stoked to come home for the holidays, and as it turned out, the real crazy was yet to come. But she always made it a point to keep her head steady. "I wanted Juno to be very confident, outspoken. I wanted her to have a lack of vanity, because I don't see that in teenage female characters very often," said writer Diablo Cody. "I wanted her to be multi- dimensional. And Ellen is all of those things herself."

Two thousand six brought X-Men 3, the film that was supposed to be Page's big break. But she got lost in the sprawling ensemble -- try to find her on the DVD cover -- and it would be the tiny indie Hard Candy that changed everything. Sue Carter Flinn caught up with her during a short stint living in Brooklyn, and the young actor had insightful things to say about her movie, which turned the tables on the typical man-tortures-woman plots so prevalent in popular culture these days. "'It's pretty unbelievable the amount of violence we see our sex go through,' says Page. 'It's kind of like, 'Hey, it's your turn.'" Read it all here.

Back in 2005, influential Variety critic Todd McCarthy saw Hard Candy at the Sundance Film Festival. Though it turned into, essentially, an audition reel for Page -- both Juno director Jason Reitman and X-Men 3 helmer Brett Ratner have said they cast her because of it -- McCarthy had many reservations about the film, a polarizing two-hander about a teenager who castrates a predator. But he also had this to say: "Self-possessed to an astonishing degree, both as an actress and as the character, Page handles her enormous load of dialogue with adult-sized portions of emotion, insinuation and driving rage, not to mention an appreciation of sexual dynamics and consequences that repeatedly astonishes. The actress will be in great demand as soon as Hollywood sees this, if she isn't already."

Though Page has been seen crossing red carpets in a variety of black designer dresses and heels on the awards circuit, her preference for jeans and Chucks has become so noted that the Los Angeles Times Magazine turned it into a new angle on the actor, and then photographed her in a foofy dress. "She’s come a long way from her low-key surroundings in Halifax," writes Ginny Chien, "where she’ll return soon after months of being thrust into 'surreal' situations, such as participating in a roundtable with Jodie Foster ('I was definitely staring at her like a total geek') and rubbing elbows with Sarah Silverman ('I, like, freaked out; I show everyone Jesus Is Magic')."

The New York Times Magazine has been celebrating great performances for years, producing beautiful portfolios featuring a fine balance of usual, awards-grabbing suspects and surprising, mostly overlooked portrayals from the year past. Page graced the cover of this year's edition, focusing on breakthrough performances including Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Marion Cotillard (Ma Vie en Rose). See it here.

Entertainment Weekly has been all over Juno from the start, even giving screenwriter Diablo Cody her own column (perhaps to detract from the embarrassment of Stephen King?). A cover story was inevitable. "She comes shuffling through the dining room of the Four Seasons Hotel wearing jeans and magenta high-tops," writes Christine Spines in the intro to "Inside Oscar's $100-million baby." "With her hands thrust deep into her front pockets and her brow tilted toward the floor, Ellen Page looks like a kid who has wandered into enemy territory in the high school cafeteria. She sits, and at one point pulls her hoodie up over her head and tightens the strings, hiding all but her eyes, nose, and mouth. It's about as close as a human can come to disappearing in plain sight. 'This is all definitely surreal,' she says."

Ah, the Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue, which launches as many careers as it kills. Shot in stages back in 2007, before Juno exploded, means that Page is relegated to one of the inner foldouts (while Jessica Biel -- what? -- sits pretty on the cover proper), but it's the exposure that counts. Plus she's wearing pretty much the same outfit as Amy Adams, which we choose to take as a good omen.
| ||||||
|