Elliot Page alleges queerphobia, misogyny and unsafe stunts on set of 2017’s ‘Flatliners’
Actor Elliot Page has recalled his experience filming the 2017 remake of Flatliners, labelling it “a true mess”. The Canadian reflects on the period in his new memoir, Pageboy, and alleges unsafe stunts, queerphobia, and misogyny on set.
“It went off the rails,” Page reports in a chapter dedicated exclusively to Flatliners. Page first details a scene in which he and co-star Kiersey Clemons performed a stunt without adequate safety measures.
“We were getting ready for a car stunt when Kiersey and I realised that everyone had a built-in thick seat belt, except for us,” the actor writes. “No restraints, a basic safety measure of the carefully orchestrated, expensive, and elaborate stunt that hadn’t been thought through… We looked to the various stunt crew members strapping the others in, perplexed, questioning why we weren’t being secured for the scene. ‘Why does everyone else have a safety belt but not us?’ we’d inquired.”
Page claims the stunt coordinators told him he’d be “fine”. After the first take, though, he and Clemons were left shaken after flailing around in the car with no control. He also recalls that a pedestrian car drove onto the closed-off set, causing the driver to slam the brakes.
“Luckily, everyone was fine, but I think back to how reckless and dangerous that was,” Page continues. “How Kiersey and I were treated with such flippancy and disrespect. Regardless of a stranger’s car making it onto the closed set of a car chase, what if something just… went wrong?”
Detailing the bigotry his co-star experienced, Page says, “In retrospect, I should have known the shoot was going to be a shit show. Within our first week, someone approached Kiersey on set, sitting in her chair between takes, you only have this part because you’re Black, you know, he said to her”.
Following this, Page explains that he experienced queerphobia “from the initial wardrobe fitting” when producers wanted him to dress “more like a girl” and “less queer”. Page came out as gay a couple of years before the making of the movie and came out as a trans man in 2020.
Page recalls that he was confused at why “heels and skirts were laid out” for his character as “they were medical students in residency at an intensive care unit.” He then looks back at the first table read, when he claims he was approached by “one of the heads of the production”, who asked him: “Are you mad that this character isn’t gay?'”
The actor continues: “‘Are you asking me this because I did not want to wear a skirt?’ His face remained the same, an annoying grin with a glinting youthfulness in the eyes, but I pressed on. ‘Are you really asking me if I am angry about this character not being gay because I am not wearing a fucking skirt?’ He looked on inscrutably, as if being pleasant means you are not queerphobic. ‘Your view of women is egregiously narrow,’ I said to the man, reminding him lesbians wear skirts, too.”
Page quickly went to the studio with the matter. “When I arrived, I beelined to an executive’s office, a man I would later watch give a woman an unwanted massage on set,” he writes. “His subsequent texts to Kiersey asking her to go to dinner glared with (were) gross.” Page asserts that he confronted the unnamed executive, “speaking of the limitations, the misogyny, the queerphobia. All that I had swallowed for years, I hauled out my insides for him to gorge on.”
Elsewhere, Elliot Page recently revealed that he contracted shingles when filming Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film, Inception.
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