Elliot Page and Dominic Savage on their heavily improvised family drama Close to You
The powerful new film marks the first time Page has stepped onto a movie set in his full identity
Elliot Page's new film, Close to You, directed by Dominic Savage, tells the story of Sam, a trans man living in Toronto's Kensington Market who returns to the small town he grew up in for his dad's birthday. On the train home, Sam runs into an old friend who was incredibly important to him, and who he still feels close to.
This is the first time Page has stepped onto a movie set in his full identity (he's been vocal about his last film, 2017's Flatliners, not being a great experience for him).
In an interview with Q's Tom Power alongside Savage, Page says it was critical that the film not only portray Sam's family's acceptance of his trans identity, but also "the slightly more nuanced interactions that can come up, especially after he's been away for a few years."
Page talks about a scene he shares with his longtime friend, Sound of Metal actor Hillary Baack, who plays the role of Sam's old friend, Katherine. "I'm so proud of you, just how far you've come and everything you're going to continue doing," Katherine tells Sam in one of the film's tender moments.
"When we were filming that, I had such an outpour of emotion," Page recalls. "I think it was because I've known Hillary for a long time. We're very close friends … and I felt her also kind of saying that to Elliot."
Capturing raw moments with improvisation
As a director, Savage is known for projects where the storyline is sketched out but the dialogue is improvised. For his female-led drama anthology series I Am…, Savage worked closely with actors like Kate Winslet and Samantha Morton to create entirely improvised dialogue on set.
Influenced by his background in documentary filmmaking, Savage says his approach to directing is based on building trust with actors and capturing the rawness of their reactions.
"It's a kind of a lived experience," he explains. "I try to make the journey of making the film and shooting the story as realistic as possible to the actors. So there's a sense that they're reacting to things going on. They're reacting to each other. They're feeling things as they're happening. They're not predicting how they're going to feel because they don't know."
For Close to You, the longest improvised take was 53 minutes.
"There's nothing in it that's false, or manufactured, or demanded," Savage says. "I almost felt like cheering slightly by the end."
The full interview with Elliot Page and Dominic Savage is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Elliot Page and Dominic Savage produced by Lise Hosein.
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