Elliot Page is back to work. On Wednesday, Page was spotted filming season three of The Umbrella Academy, the hit Netflix superhero show. The images published in U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail are the first of him on set since coming out publicly as transgender late last year.
Page previously confirmed his return to the show with an apparent dressing-room selfie posted to Instagram over the weekend. The photo shows Page looking in the mirror, wearing a baseball cap and a flannel shirt. Below him, a piece of paper featuring the show’s logo — a circle around an umbrella that has the number three embedded inside, with a bird sitting on top of it — is propped up, in frame.
In the most recent photos from the set, Page can be seen wearing black pants, a black windbreaker, and black boots. His hairstyle appears to be the same one he wore on his recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, making it unclear if he is in costume. The series is filming in Hamilton, Canada, an Ontario city outside of Toronto.
After Page came out in December, Netflix’s Twitter account joined in the chorus of people congratulating him, and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Page would continue to play Vanya Hargreaves, who is cisgender. The storyline for season three is not yet known, and whether Page’s identity will be reflected in the character remains to be seen.
The show is based on the comic books by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. In previous seasons, Vanya’s character triggers the apocalypse, but Page told Variety that it was actually a positive thing for Vanya: “There’s a weight, to a degree, that has been taken off her shoulders [and] she is able to exist more comfortably in her body, despite not remembering anything.” (Hello, trans metaphor!)
Although several other Netflix shows — such as fellow queer fave Atypical — delayed by COVID-19, coronavirus did not impact the release of the show’s coming third season, as the second had already filmed by the time the pandemic hit. The next installment is expected sometime this year.
Page had previously indicated that production on season three had started back in February when he posted a photo from the set alongside the caption: “Omg we’re back again.”
With the show’s increased popularity during its acclaimed sophomore season, the cast of the show is returning with larger salaries, too. Core cast members Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, and Justin H. Min banded together to lobby Netflix for higher pay after the show was picked up for another season and won. The cast will reportedly be making $200,000 per episode.
Page, too, will be getting more money for season three, although he was not part of the organized effort because he has a separate contract with a higher salary, according to Variety. He was supportive of his co-workers’ efforts to secure raises for themselves, however.
Since coming out, Page has thrown himself into advocacy for the trans community, speaking out consistently about the relentless flood of anti-trans legislation currently sweeping the country. He recently told Oprah that the current political climate made coming out feel “imperative.”
“All trans people are different and I’m only speaking from my experience,” he said during an emotional Apple TV+ interview. “It feels important to say when there is such a lack of representation and misinformation.”
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