Page is herself in ‘Beyond: Two Souls’
In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 complex sci-fi thriller Inception, Ellen Page was part of a Leonardo DiCaprio-led ensemble. Now Page stars in her own sci-fi mindbender: the highly anticipated suspense-action video game Beyond: Two Souls.
Protagonist Jodie Holmes looks, sounds and moves like Page, who performed the motioncapture. The supernatural twist: since she was a girl, Jodie has had a mental connection with a spiritual entity, Aiden. With Beyond’s release due next year, details are sketchy. But based on footage shown at Comic-Con, Jodie and Aiden’s relationship leads to a fugitive existence.
When Page, 25, was offered the role, she couldn’t “wrap my head around it, because I didn’t understand what it meant to be in a video game,” she said in a phone interview from Comic-Con, where she and game designer David Cage promoted the project. But after reading Cage’s script, Page said, she “was so moved by this young female protagonist, who was strong and complex and interesting, and a story that was profound and subversive and emotional.”
In its 2010 release Heavy Rain, Cage’s studio, Quantic Dream, challenged players with the mystery of the Origami Killer. As in Heavy Rain, Beyond’s players must make decisions with great impact on the game. “David is telling stories by having these games with complex emotions and ethical and moral choices that lead to significant consequences,” Page says. “How an audience interacts with that, I think, is really interesting.”
— Mike Snider