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Ellen Page as Juno

CANADIAN actress Ellen Page has been described as "the next Jodie Foster".

The 20 year-old (who turns 21 on February 21) has already made a splash in tough art house films like Hard Candy - where she played a not-so-innocent young girl who lays a trap for a sexual predator - and The Tracey Fragments, in which she was a disturbed, deluded, self-hating teenager. Now, though, her career is about to move into overdrive.

In Juno, Page plays a cocky, articulate, independent sixteen-year-old girl living somewhere in small-town America, who suddenly finds herself pregnant.

She was born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia - and with no particular desire to join the Hollywood rat-race, she still lives there. Her first acting role came at the age of ten, when she starred in a made-for-TV film called Pit Pony. She continued acting, mostly in TV, all through her years at Halifax's independent Buddhist-inspired high school, Shambhala, but she also found time to play football (mostly on the right wing), strum the guitar, and do a lot of hiking.

After a role in an ultra low-budget European film called Mouth to Mouth, Page landed the role - as Hayley in Hard Candy - that made international audiences sit up and take notice. Presented at Sundance in January 2005, the micro-budget thriller sold to Lionsgate on the back of strong audience reactions, and Page was suddenly hot property.

A few weeks later, Brett Ratner cast her as teen super girl Kitty Pryde in the third part of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand.

Since then, Page has been working more or less constantly, alternating small projects like An American Crime - in which she stars alongside Christine Keener as a teenage girl who was abused and tortured by her stepmother - with more commercial films like the upcoming dramatic rom-com Smart People, where Page is the faculty brat' daughter of Dennis Quaid's widowed English professor.

Q: How did you get involved with Juno?

A: I was sent the script a couple of years ago and I fell head over heels, obsessively in love with the character. This was one of those scripts where I felt: I need to play this person!' It was just one of the best scripts I've ever read. I love the witty, intelligent dialogue, and I was so thrilled that a character had been written like this for a teenage girl... she's unique, honest, sincere, but unapologetic, and unbelievably refreshing. And completely necessary for right now. I just feel so grateful that I was given the chance to play her. I don't think we've ever really had a teenage female lead like Juno in a film that looks like it's going to be seen by a lot of people. It really excites me that that girl's out there for a lot of girls who aren't like what the popular media portrays. That's really exciting.

Q: What did you like so much about the script?

A:One of the most exhilarating things about it is that, even though it's a dark comedy, it's also delicate. It would have been easy to force it and make it annoying and contrived. But luckily I was working with Jason Reitman, who I think is incredible at creating tones, and he created an excellent balance, and just guided me through it.

Q: What attracted you to the character of Juno?

A: She's extremely independent, and intelligent, and so genuine, so herself... and I love her abruptness. But she's still very naive, especially in the relationship with the Jason Bateman character.

I feel like whenever I play a character I have lots of things in common with them, because we're all made of the same stuff. It's always a really interesting experience when you enter a film to know what a character's like on a surface level and then realise as you're shooting how much you're like them. It happens with every character I play.

Q: Would your parents be as supportive as Juno's if you got pregnant?

A: You know what I think? I feel like they would I mean, it's obviously a difficult situation but I feel like they would be open and want to support me. I actually have a pretty honest, trusting relationship with them. I actually can pretty much talk to them about anything. But I'm going to practice safe sex because that's not something I really want to deal with right now.

I do think there's this hypersexualised energy that happens with young girls, especially because so much is projected on you. You're told what you're supposed to find sexy, what to listen to, how to dress, it just goes on and on. I get pretty frustrated with how young females are commonly portrayed in popular media, but maybe with a film like Juno that will slowly start changing and people will be less narrow-minded and less judgmental. Because it is hard when you're in junior high and you don't dress like everyone else. Things get projected on you about lots of different things. It's too bad that it has to be that way. It's a drag.

Q: Did you have any input in the film on, for example, the way that Juno looks?

A: Yes... I was very specific, I was like: "This girl's wearing a sweater-vest!" I knew how I wanted her to look. I wanted her to wear a sweater-vest, or wear baggy pants or wear a flannel shirt and be unapologetic for it. Like, that's okay, that doesn't mean anything, you know what I'm saying? People get judged for the way they dress, especially in junior high or high school, and it's, like, really childish.

Q: How was it working with Jason Reitman? Do you tend to lean heavily on a director?

A: It depends on the director, how much leaning you can do - if they're going to stay there for you. Jason's fantastic. I would work with him again in less than a second. I adore him. He is extremely assured, he knows what he wants, but he was completely open to whatever I had to say and we had a great relationship.

We could totally communicate with each other, and he is such a great collaborator and I just think he's perfect for this film, because I think the script could have been taken and forced and become knowing and contrived - but I think he established a tone, and a sense of balance, that I personally think is fantastic.

Q: Is acting what you always wanted to do?

A: I love doing this more than anything. And right now I'm in a position where I get to make decisions and have choice and as an actor of any age that's a profound gift. Hopefully that'll continue. And if it doesn't and if I don't feel that passion any more I'll stop. But it feels like for some reason acting is something I can do and people are responding to and it's very bizarre and surreal. I just feel unbelievably grateful.

I fell into it actually. I was like 10 and I was at school and a local casting director came looking for kids the right age to audition for something and I was short and had brown hair so I got picked. So I was in that movie, and that movie turned into a TV show, and then that TV show led to something else, and here I am! But I was a child actor in Nova Scotia, which is a very different place, believe it or not, from Los Angeles. So as much as I was working when I was a kid, I still went to a normal school and played soccer really competitively and climbed trees and whatever.

Q: How did it feel to win the 2007 Hollywood Breakthrough Actress of the Year award?

A: Oh I mean it's interesting, I mean this is what I love to do and I'm getting to do it and I can pay my rent and that's already extremely exciting. And having something like that I don't do it obviously for those reasons... but receiving something like that just makes me think Oh, wow! I might have a future, or someone might stick me in a couple more movies!'. And that's exciting for me. I think it represents control.

Q: Are you worried about getting sucked into that whole media circus, with talk of Oscars and people suddenly getting interested in who you're dating?

A: I think that, like a lot of people, I don't really understand why actors are treated the way they're treated. I just try not to take it too too seriously. This is what I love to do, but I'm not going to attach my happiness to it because it's remarkably fragile and there are a lot of other things going on in the world. And I feel like if you really want that media attention you can have it, and if you really genuinely don't want it, it's something that can be avoided: I think there is an element of personal choice.

Things are getting a little crazy right now and I feel it, but I think it's about using it to your advantage, and also being able to step away from it. Clearly you need an element of that to be an actor these days, that's just the way it is. But no, I will never submit to my privacy being completely invaded - and I think you can avoid it.

You know, I still live in Nova Scotia in a small apartment with used furniture and that's just genuinely who I am. It's not to make some judgment or statement against Hollywood. I keep my feet on the ground and just try to be as sincere as you know, as honest as possible. And anyway I'm pretty boring. I mean, I'm an active person, I love camping, I love hiking, and I love to travel, and I love to read, and I play the guitar, and that's about it. I don't go out a lot. I'll never receive that kind of Lindsay Lohan attention because people will be like: "Here's Ellen Page with her tent going camping!" I don't really think they'll do a story about Ellen Page eating a mooseburger in Newfoundland.

Q: What other actors do you admire?

A: I'm a huge Sissy Spacek fan. I love her. I like all of her work but I really love her work in the seventies - I love Badlands, and I really love Carrie. I'm also a big Kate Winslet fan, I think she's fantastic, and I think Laura Linney's great too, and Catherine Keener. You know, there are so many really awesome, really strong women out there, who clearly act because they love it.

I would love to direct. And I'd love to see more female directors. Actually, one of my favourite films is Ratcatcher by Lynne Ramsay, she's incredible. To me she's like a modern female Truffaut. I know that's like a BIG statement to make but I just think Ratcatcher's brilliant.

Q: You've described yourself as a feminist...

A: All I mean by that is that I would like women to be equal to men, so I'd probably hope that everyone's a feminist. Women still get paid less than men, and women's bodies are still treated like ornaments, and young girls are being hypersexualised, and it's really unfortunate. I hope that most people would be feminists, whether male or female.

Q: Are you a romantic person?

A: I do think I'm totally romantic, it's disgusting. But I think that's good. I think love's a really exciting thing that we can hopefully all identify with, but I'm not, like, a diamonds are a girl's best friend kind of girl. Anyone who gets me is really lucky because I'm not really crazy about jewellery or flowers.

Q: What advice would you give to a ten-year-old actress starting out today?

A: It sounds remarkably cheesy and corny but, like, be yourself, and be 100% honest and sincere. People will abuse you and mistreat you, and you have to be aware of that. It's easy to be young and naïve and think that everyone cares about you. They don't.

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