- Elliot Page said his "Inception" costar Leonardo DiCaprio set him up on a date with a male friend.
- DiCaprio and his mom then joined the pair on their first date to Universal Studios.
Elliot Page said that while filming "Inception," his costar Leonardo DiCaprio set him up on a date with a friend of his and then decided to tag along with his mom.
In his new memoir, "Pageboy," which was released Tuesday, Page recounts his experience navigating his sexuality in the public eye after becoming an in-demand actor following the success of "Juno" and his journey to self-acceptance, which culminated in his gender transition in 2020.
At the time, Page was in his early twenties and had not yet shared publicly that he (while still presenting as female) was attracted to women, but had told his mom about some of his girlfriends in the past.
The actor was, he wrote, trying to conform to expectations and "be the person so many wanted me to be," so he "tried to be with dudes."
"Like in high school, I'd wanted to convince myself it was possible, that I could enjoy it or at least tolerate it," he wrote, adding that "the closet was grueling, it suffocated me."
So when Page struck up a "lovely connection" with a friend of DiCaprio's, who visited them on the set of the Christopher Nolan-directed movie, he decided to try and make it work.
Referring only to the friend by the name Peter, Page described him as "warm to everyone, eyes beaming with care."
"When I saw Leo next, I told him I liked his friend, to which he responded that his friend liked me, too," he continued.
"For our first date, we went to Universal Studios with Leo and his mother. Peter and I sat close on the rides, our thighs just touching."
Page said that his own mom, Martha Philpotts, who had expressed some disappointment over his relationships with women, was "over the moon" to hear that Page was dating a man.
However, Page's relationship with Peter didn't last longer than a couple of months.
He wrote that it was over in "a month, maybe two, like high school all over again."