Ellen Page has established herself as a serious young actor seemingly driven to provoke audiences in some of indie film's darkest roles, performances that capitalize on her innocent, open expressions -- then pervert and mangle them.
She's played a murderous adolescent who baits a pedophile in the 2005 Sundance Film Festival hit "Hard Candy," a street urchin seduced by a nomadic cult in the Canadian release "Mouth to Mouth" and a mentally ill girl wandering the streets naked in this year's "The Tracey Fragments." In "An American Crime," she literally starved herself to portray the real-life story of Sylvia Likens, the daughter of carnival workers who was tortured, starved, beaten and raped for no apparent reason in 1965 by an Indianapolis housewife and her kids.
Yet it's Page's role as the quirky, quick-witted pregnant teenager in the endearing new dramatic comedy "Juno" that's expected to launch the 20-year-old indie film darling as a new mainstream star and Oscar contender. The film, opening Wednesday in L.A., has already earned accolades on the fall festival circuit and landed Page a lead spot on Fox Searchlight's busy promotions calendar.
Even an otherwise escapist exercise -- in this case, a recent morning hike through the misty hills of Will Rogers State Historic Park -- carried a sense of urgency and executive planning. Page was chauffeured to the park in a sleek black sedan. A studio publicist trailed behind and a stylist awaited her in an SUV for touch-ups before a photo shoot.
None of this seemed native to her, though. The petite actress wore a girlish ponytail that kept time with the purposeful stride she cut in her colorful, bowling-themed high-top sneakers. She planted her hands deeply into the pockets of her windbreaker on which she wore a button that read "Nova Scotia: Canada's Ocean Playground." As she walked, she absent-mindedly smoothed her bangs against her face.
Page, who still lives in Nova Scotia, seemed to be observing the whole PR spectacle from a safe distance. She possessed an ethereal sense of calm, as if comfortable knowing that soon enough she'd return to her quiet life in Halifax. There, she doesn't own a car. She walks everywhere. She goes camping and reads a lot. She recently returned from a monthlong trip backpacking in eastern Europe.
