Elliot Page calls out Flatliners reboot as 'a true mess' for unsafe stunts, misogyny, and queerphobia
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Elliot Page is resurrecting some issues he had while filming Flatliners.
In his new memoir Pageboy (out now), the actor describes his experience making the 2017 reboot of the '90s psychological horror thriller as "a true mess from the very beginning," alleging unsafe stunts, misogyny, and queerphobia.
"It went off the rails," Page writes in a chapter dedicated solely to Flatliners.
He first details a scene in which he and costar Kiersey Clemons felt they were not protected during the filming of a stunt. "We were getting ready for a car stunt when Kiersey and I realized that everyone had a built-in thick seat belt, except for us," Page 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."
Robert Smith/Patrick McMullan via Getty Elliot Page
Page recalls how stunt coordinators allegedly told them they'd be "fine" and that it would be "even better if you aren't strapped in." After a dangerous first take in which they were "flailing" and had "no control," Page and Clemons were in "shock" and "speechless, staring at our shaking hands." It was the second take where tragedy nearly struck, he writes, as a pedestrian car had driven onto the closed set, causing the stunt car to suddenly slam on the brakes.
"Luckily, everyone was fine, but I think back to how reckless and dangerous that was," Page writes. "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?"
Page goes on to admit that "in retrospect, I should have known the shoot was going to be a s---show." He continues, "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."
Page writes that he had a similar experience dealing with queerphobia "from the initial wardrobe fitting" when producers wanted him to dress "more like a girl" and "less queer." Page, who was assigned female at birth and came out publicly as a trans man in 2020, had come out as gay only a couple years prior to Flatliners, and was confused as to why "heels and skirts were laid out" for his character as "they were medical students in residency at an intensive care unit." He adds that "there was categorically no rationale for the character to wear heels or a skirt," but after approving "fancy blouses, tight jeans, and boots with a heel," he "figured the issue was settled."
Michael Gibson/Columbia/Everett Elliot Page in 2017's 'Flatliners'
But after the first table read, Page was approached by "one of the heads of production," whom he doesn't identify by name in the book. "'Are you mad that this character isn't gay?' he asked me."
Page remembers responding, "'Are you asking me this because I did not want to wear a skirt?'" He continues, "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 f---ing 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 says he immediately went to the studio with his concerns. "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 gross." Page claims to have 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."
Representatives from Sony Pictures Entertainment did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.
The original Flatliners starred Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, and Kevin Bacon, and centered on five medical students who try to experience what happens after death by "flatlining" themselves. The 2017 remake starred Page, Clemons, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, and James Norton.
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