Canadian actress Ellen Page stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Thursday to talk about her new Netflix superhero show The Umbrella Academy.
But rather than going into details about her new show in which she portrays Vanya, a troubled violinist, the 31-year-old actress launched into an impassioned speech covering topics that included the harmful effects of climate change; the Trump administration enabling hate crimes; and Mike Pence's homophobia.
While admitting there has been some progress made for representation in Hollywood, she insisted, "we need to hurry it up."
She spoke on behalf of a fed up community in what turned out to be a raw and emotional interview. Page did not hold back, and Colbert allowing her to have the floor without interrupting her introspective pauses was especially poignant to witness.
"Sorry, I'm, like, really fired up tonight," Page said halfway during the interview.
Watch the YouTube clip below from her Thursday-night appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in which she called out our leaders.
Ellen Page Calls Out Hateful Leadershipwww.youtube.com
When Colbert asked the environmentally conscious actress to define her earlier mention of "environmental racism," she explained that climate change "disproportionately affects people of color.
"This is something that's happening, and it's happening to the most marginalized people, and we need to be talking about it. It's really serious."
She laid into the media that passively informed the public of Jussie Smollett's attack as a possible hate crime.
"The urgency is so severe, and yet we have a media that's barely talking about it. We have a media that's saying it's a debate whether or not what just happened to Jussie Smollett is a hate crime. It's absurd! This shit isn't a debate."
Smollett, the actor who stars in FOX's The Empire, wound up in a hospital after he was viciously attacked by two masked-men in downtown Chicago who shouted racial and homophobic slurs and tied a rope around his neck.
"It feels impossible not to feel this way right now with the President and the Vice President, Mike Pence, who wishes I couldn't be married," she said, referring to her wife Emma Portner, whom she married last January.
"Let's be clear. The Vice President of America wishes I didn't have the love with my wife. He wanted to ban that in Indiana. He believes in conversion therapy. He has hurt LGBTQ people so badly as the governor of Indiana."
"This is what happens," Page said, connecting the dots to indicate an administration whose anti-LGBTQ policies include reversing the lifted ban of transgender people in the military and refusing to acknowledge Pride month.
"If you are in a position of power, and you hate people, and you want to cause suffering to them, you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering — what do you think is going to happen?"
"Kids are going to be abused, and they're going to kill themselves. People are going to be beaten on the street."
Visibly frustrated and fighting back tears, Page tried her best to maintain composure while Colbert and his audience hung on her every word.
Page concluded the interview with a very powerful statement.
"I have traveled the world and I have met the most marginalized people you could meet."
"I am lucky to have this time and the privilege to say this. This needs to fucking stop."
Many Trump-supporting conservatives dismissed her speech on Twitter as just another Hollywood rant and said that Pence was entitled to his opinion.
Fortunately, humanity prevailed and people lauded the actress for her riveting interview.
Like the actress said, it's time to "f****** stop."
FEC
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