Inception - Ellen Page

This week’s thriller Inception gave us another chance to see the lovely young Canadian actress Ellen Page. She was well known for her role as the title character in the film Juno which got her both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in 2007.


Although being described as Hollywood’s next rising star and nominated for Time's 100 Most Influential People list in 2008, Ellen Page isn’t interested in being a celebrity. She reckons it’s best to stay out of the paparazzi spotlight of Los Angeles and keep things low key. “I think if you want it and you want to live that way, you can.”, she admitted during an interview, “and you can also choose to totally not live that way. I’m from Nova Scotia. I don’t know, it’s just not me. And I think you can avoid it.” He lives in a small apartment in her home town in Canada, drives a used car. “I think you can lose your equilibrium,” she once said. “But I think that has a lot to do with how your personality chooses to handle it. I mean I have my own place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and that’s where I like to spend my free time. I think being here where I’m from – which is a small city on the east coast of Canada – there’s just a different mentality here.” She adds: “I’m doing it (movie) because I feel really passionate. If I wanted to be in LA and do that thing, I could do that. But Halifax is my homebase.”

“Acquiring things fills me with anxiety,” says Page, now 23. “I’m constantly trying to give away things.” Her un-Hollywood-like lifestyle does not seem to hurt the easygoing young actress’s career. This week, she co-stars with leonardo DiCaprio in the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller Inception. With regarding to her future project, she said “I don’t think I have any rules. I just love to go with the flow and be happy and creative and still feel that passion. I definitely don’t want to lose that.”

Ellen Page was born on February 21, 1987, the daughter of a teacher mother and a graphic designer father. She began acting at age 4 and first acted in front of the camera in 1997 at age 10 in a television movie. When she was 13, she was offered a role in a high profile sitcom but her parents made her turn it down, telling her she was too young to handle the pressures of fame. She’s glad her parents refused to let her become a child star. While she admits to being angry at that time, she now sees their decision was “a good thing”: “I would have had to move to LA and I can’t even imagine what I would be like now. [My parents] said keep up your grades and then you can act.

This reminds me Lindsay Lohan, another Hollywood young actress of almost the same age. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in 1998 at the age of 11. She certainly has her talent as an actress, model and pop singer-songwriter. Unfortunately, what we know most is the significant publicity surrounding her personal life, including rehabilitation for drug and alcohol addiction, and DUI convictions

You can choose your life, right? Sometimes, maybe not.

From FEAR to Reese Witherspoon

In the past weekend, I came across the 1996 thriller film, Fear when watching the TV. It was directed by James Foley, starring Reese Witherspoon (Nicole Walker), Mark Wahlberg (David McCall, boy friend), and William Petersen (Steven, father).

Nicole Walker, a fairly innocent, and to some extent rebellious, teenager, lives with her father, stepmother, and stepbrother. Her life totally changed after she met and fell in love with David. What happened next becomes every parent’s nightmare. Her seemingly polite and handsome boyfriend turns out to be a violent psychopath. At the end, her family has to fight for their lives.

The movie raised an interesting question. At some point of a girl’s life, she may be in a dilemma to choose between her “sweet” boyfriend and seemingly “overprotective” parent. In all these situations, the girl is in the driver seat and should have a clear mind. This is not always easy as saying goes that people in love are blind. There have been many real life tragedies due to angry and obsessed suitors. Before making any emotional decisions, a girl should always remember that her parent always love her with ultimate intention to protect her. She should never expose herself and her family to a dangerous situation like in this movie.


This was one of the early movies by Reese Witherspoon. Later on, she was well known for her leading roles in Legally Blonde (2001) and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003). She received worldwide attention and praise for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in Walk the Line (2005), which earned her an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

As one of the most beautiful, the most likable, and also the highest-paid actresses, Witherspoon is also actively involved in children's and women's charitable organizations. She is a long-time supporter of Save the Children, an organization that helps children around the world through education, health care, and emergency aid. She also serves on the board of the Children's Defense Fund, a child advocacy and research group. She once said, "As a woman and a mother I care deeply about the well being of other women and children throughout the world and through the years, I have always looked for opportunities to make a difference."

Witherspoon certainly inherited a lot of intelligence from her parent. Her father is an otolaryngologist (physician specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of ear, nose, throat, and head and neck disorders) who previously served as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army reserves. Her mother has a Ph.D. in pediatric nursing and works as a professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University.