Career-wise, Page at 21 was a seasoned professional, and knew that Juno would put her in a different category, one in which she would have "a lot of control over what you're going to choose," she said. She would use her position to go back and forth from smaller movies such as Whip It (2009), Super (2010), and The East (2013) to massive ones like Inception (2010) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2013).

But personally, Page was suffering. Today, she appears to be so open and frank and optimistic; before she came out, though, she was miserable. "I'm embarrassed to say how closeted I was," she said. "I get sad thinking about it, honestly, because it was painful. And painful for people I was in relationships with. Just all-around destructive. Intolerance and closetedness is just a ripple effect of shit."

She would hide women she was dating, she said, making them, for instance, leave a hotel by a different entrance to wait for her in a car. "That kind of shit," Page said, sounding disgusted. "Go in the bathroom when room service comes. Or: This is my friend." And, of course: "Noooo public interaction." She cringed: "I feel bad about it. And I did start feeling really guilty about it. And I think that I should feel guilty about it."

Page had her reasons, of course. "Being told that this thing that I love, acting —." She stopped herself. Then, more carefully, she said: "Not even necessarily being told. But the believed, subtly expressed idea that you wouldn't get to do that anymore. And that is a huge part of my life."

That led to her lowest points, she said. Then, in her mid-twenties, Page began to relax — a bit. "I'd be working with people and be like, 'I have a girlfriend,'" she said. By the time Page was ready to publicly come out, "I couldn't have been more out. I was very, very out in my life when it got close to the point,” she said. “I just assumed that everybody knew I was gay. It was shocking to me to meet someone who didn't know I was gay."

Because she had been outed so many times, or because she was living in the so-called glass closet, or — why? "No, I assumed people knew I was gay because of, like—" Page pointed at her clothes — she was wearing a black button-down shirt and black pants — and whole self. "Do you know what I mean? You have to be careful what you say, because a lot of gay women wear tight dresses and heels and lipstick, right? There's all kinds of gay people, bi people — how they want to present themselves. Trans people. I know those stereotypes become tiresome. So I want to preface what I am about to say with that."

Page paused, and laughed hard: "But yeah, I just assumed."

And Freeheld loomed over Page during this whole trajectory toward self-acceptance. When Moore signed on to play Laurel Hester in early 2014, Page knew that the project was finally coming together. "I think I almost cried when she said yes," Page said. "Because I think she's one of the best working actors. And because she's played a lot of gay people."

"I was pretty emotional," she continued. "Because I did have that feeling of, We're going to make our movie now. We're going to get to make this movie."

Page, a feminist and a politically engaged person in the world, couldn't stay quiet about herself any longer. "First of all, I didn't want to be a closeted person anymore," she said. "But then also: What, are you going to not be an out gay actor when you shoot a movie like that? Of course not."

"And it is people like Stacie and Laurel that inspire you," Page told herself.