Elliot Page has said he “got sick” on the set of Christopher Nolan’s Inception due to stress.
Page, who has just published his new memoir, Pageboy, appeared in the film as Ariadne in the hit film alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy.
In the memoir, Page revealed that he came down with a case of shingles, which “popped out of my spine” while filming. Page said he thought this was because of the stress caused by being part of “a cast full of cis men”.
He explained: “Despite everyone being delightful to work with, I felt out of place… I did not understand the role I found myself in. For the first two weeks of the film, I joked I would be recast with Keira Knightley, and rightfully so.”
Page worked on Inception over a decade before undergoing gender transition, and he described this period as “chaotic”. He continued: “My body hoarded the unexamined emotions, sensations, wants, and needs. Easy sentences prepared in my brain, stuck.
“They were visible to me, written out, I heard the voice but my mouth refused to cooperate. Just the tick tick tick of the windup toy, or nothing at all.”
Elsewhere in their new memoir, Page opened up about a past romance with Kate Mara.
Page revealed the relationship happened “right after” they came out as gay in 2014. In 2020, Page later came out as a trans man.
In an extract from the book, Page said: “The first person I fell for after my heart was broken was Kate Mara.”
“She had a boyfriend at the time, the lovely and talented Max Minghella. I never thought I could be in love with two people and now I know I can,” Page continued. “This was right after I’d come out as gay and it was a time of exploration and also heartbreak.
“I think my relationship, or whatever you want to call it with Kate, very much encapsulates a certain dynamic that I consistently found myself in, which was falling for people that – I think a lot of us do this – who aren’t fully available. And the sort of safety in that and the highs and the lows and the serotonin bump, and then it goes away.
Mara has previously appeared Brokeback Mountain, American Horror Story and opposite Page in My Days of Mercy.
Page went on to say that while no longer together, they are still close. “I think the love and care that we have for each other is its very own special thing,” Page continued. “Separate from the intimacy that I write about”.