The nominations for Film Independent’s Spirit Awards had been announced just prior to the Los Angeles press junket for Fox Searchlight’s Juno, a sharp, engaging comedy directed by Jason Reitman and starring Ellen Page as a teenager who gets pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption. The Spirit Awards are the indie world’s equivalent of the Academy Awards and while earning Spirit Awards nominations doesn’t guarantee Oscar recognition, it certainly helps the cause.
Juno picked up four nominations including one for Page as Best Actress. “It's very exciting,” said Page about the nomination. “It's very surreal. It's funny because it feels like an enormous gift to be in the movie in the first place. This is all just like, ‘Whoa, what's going on?’ It's on the beach. I'm excited about that. I hear it's really casual. Hopefully we'll just go lounge on the beach or something. “
Page plays an intelligent and mature-beyond-her-years high school student with a wicked sense of humor in the film from first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody. Tackling the comedy in Juno was the one thing Page was worried about going into the project. “That whole aspect of it really scared me because I'd never really done anything comedic. It was one of the best scripts I've ever read and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm playing Juno in Juno and I really don't want to screw this up.’ I got really scared. But then working with someone like Jason, he's so good at creating a sense of tone and a sense of balance. I got to work with [Michael Cera], Jason Bateman, Allison Janney and J.K. [Simmons] and Jen [Garner], and people that are really funny but really sincere and understated.”
Asked what appealed to her about the script, Page replied, “Well, I guess this is good writing, but it was devoid of stereotype which is really exciting. Just a teenage female lead that I felt like we hadn't seen before. A girl who was incredibly unique and witty and all those things, but also just very genuine.”
Page is just barely out of her teens and didn’t have a problem falling into the rhythm of Juno’s high school language. “I don't know, I feel like although it is unique and witty and all those things, to me when I read the script, it felt very fluid and rhythmic and organic. Although I didn't speak the exact same way as Juno when I was 16, I definitely had my own language with my friends which was different from the way I communicated with my parents. So it felt right.”
After filming began, Page found playing Juno in Juno wasn’t nearly as terrifying as she’d anticipated. “No, I think it all worked out. I don’t want that to sound dramatic. I wasn't like having night sweats, but I think it happens about most films,” explained Page. “I get really excited about shooting a film and then I get really scared because I think I've forgotten how to act and things. But when you start working with other people, it all just comes together. I was really lucky. I worked with really amazing people.”
Although Page wound up relaxing and having a great time on the set - including the filming of the sex scene in the chair which leads to the unplanned pregnancy - she did have one bad moment on the set. “I almost crashed the Previa. There was an [assistant director] in the back and all the seats were folded down. It was the inside of a van that you don't see. He was giving us cues and he wasn't tied down. I don't know what I did. Something went wrong and he went flying.”
After playing Kitty Pryde in X-Men: The Last Stand she got recognized from time to time. “It doesn't happen that much but it does,” revealed Page. “Hard Candy more. I went backpacking in Eastern Europe. That's kind of a random place to go, I guess, but I always really wanted to go to Romania. And in every hostel I was at but one, I got recognized. It was very bizarre. I think because it did really well internationally, Hard Candy, especially in the UK. And I was sitting…where was I? Definitely recognized in Bucharest but I was in Austria and this Irish girl like totally freaked out. It was very trippy.”
With her performance in Juno garnering positive reviews and awards recognition, Page can certainly expect many more ‘trippy’ experiences.
