Elliot Page on nature doc ‘Second Nature’: ‘Queerness is part of the natural world’

[0:00] there have always been scientists who have been willing to stand in opposition [0:04] to the existing worldview and there are consequences for that i was completely unprepared [0:10] as a scientist to deal with this we learned what we learned in school and we want to believe that [0:14] it's true and it's messy to now say oh it wasn't really that way i realized it can't be the people [0:20] who are defective it's got to be the science academy award nominee elliot page has become [0:26] a powerful voice for authenticity and self-discovery using his platform and production company to [0:31] champion stories from underrepresented communities now in his latest project he is turning to the [0:36] natural world to reveal truths many of us never knew in second nature paige narrates a funny and [0:42] heartwarming documentary it explores the animal kingdom and the scientists pushing back against [0:47] censorship to uncover surprising truths about love identity and evolution in the wild so for example [0:53] did you know clownfish can change sex yeah how about that let's take a look not only do many [1:00] species illustrate homosexuality and gender multiplicity they also illustrate sex transition [1:07] biologists now know sexuality is fluid and that all of that is normal i don't know any species where [1:14] homosexual sex or gender non-conforming is a taboo or cannot be done except when it comes to humans [1:22] all right joining us now in studio is elliot page and director of second nature drew denny thank you [1:28] both for being here so elliot let's start with you so at the center of this documentary kind of explores [1:32] the idea that there's nothing unnatural about being queer what drew you to this project as narrator and [1:37] producer gosh well i think when i watched it i mean i learned so much absolutely and i felt really affirmed [1:46] you know as a queer as a trans person and i've also felt silly for not knowing this information and not [1:53] assuming it to actually be the truth um and i just found it so profoundly enlightening so important [2:00] and like you said before also just funny and heartwarming and i think drew just did such a incredible [2:07] job about taking a lot of information and making it just such a succinct and an enjoyable watch so [2:15] for drew why tell the story now well i've been trying to tell it for about 11 years so when i first [2:21] started i thought i had to tell it really fast i thought i had to make this movie immediately because [2:26] everybody would surely know this stuff any second and it would become old news [2:32] i guess i called that wrong um 11 years later it still is relevant if not more than it was when i first [2:39] started and i just wanted to you know as someone who grew up in texas in the 1900s i was taught that [2:44] females are naturally inferior to males and queerness is simply unnatural and i just wanted people [2:50] to know that that's not true at all and that if you're queer you absolutely belong here on earth just [2:54] like anybody else and nobody can kick you out elliot when i was asking you the first question [2:59] something stuck out when you said that you felt affirmation when you were watching this in what [3:03] way did you feel affirmed well i think i mean i also grew up in the 1900s um and and in nova scotia [3:11] where i grew up you know there were not examples of queerness around me it was not something to be [3:15] spoken of and if it was it was usually in a very negative way and you i think you know growing up in [3:24] that way do you feel alone like something's potentially wrong with you and i a documentary [3:31] like this that shares all this information that we should know that we should be learning in biology [3:35] biology class and we're not learning it um you know is something that makes me feel more welcome [3:43] on this on this planet you know and understanding that uh queerness transness is just a part of you [3:52] know the fabric of of the natural world for somebody who might feel alone um watching this or before [3:58] watching this what do you hope they take away from this documentary gosh i guess just the the feeling [4:04] that like you are a part of this world there is absolutely nothing wrong with you the idea of this [4:11] you know strict gender binary this sort of cishet patriarchal like approach and formulation of society [4:19] is it's it's actually just a quaint little myth biology shows science shows that gender and sexuality [4:28] are on a wide spectrum and to me all the potentials of just like what it means to be alive and what it [4:34] means to be a human being drew for this film it went through a couple different formats how did you [4:38] settle on nature documentary well i knew i wanted it to be a nature story because of this thing that elliot's [4:45] talking about that we're so often shown a nature doc that that teaches us how the world is right and it's [4:50] usually a man's voice comes in and tells us how we came to be and this stuff is never included you [4:58] know and i've learned now since i've been gathering this footage for so long that this this behavior is [5:03] observed all the time but people were simply framing it out or cutting cutting it out so i knew that i [5:09] wanted to make it a nature documentary because i felt that we'd never been shown actually how we truly came [5:14] to be and we needed a man's voice again to tell us how to think about it and this time it's elliot [5:22] page's voice so i think we've always needed you and then elliot looking ahead for you you have the [5:27] odyssey coming out christopher nolan's odyssey basically it's coming out this summer what was it [5:32] like being on that project just i just feel so grateful so grateful to to be asked to be a part of [5:39] it and to be working with chris again and that you know extraordinary cast and what can i say other [5:45] than i just feel really lucky to get to be a part of such an extraordinary project thank you both for [5:50] being here ellie and drew thank you guys so much second nature is playing at the real wild film [5:55] festival on april 24th at lincoln square theater in new york city it's going to be in theaters in la [6:00] new york city on may 24th and new york city on june 26th