A remake of the 1990 thriller, Flatliners stars Ellen Page as a medical school student who gets her friends to participate in an experiment exploring what happens after death. Of course, things don't go as planned. The actress says that she took the role because her character, Courtney, is a complex psychological mess. 

Ellen Page pictured at the Toronto International Film FestivalEllen Page pictured at the Toronto International Film Festival

"She's a woman with profound pain, grief, remorse and regret," Page says. "It's hard for her to really care about anyone because she's suffering so much, so she's willing to do such a risky experiment. And it cracks her open and makes her look at all those parts of herself, and that's hard! But it's what we have to do. And I think a lot of people can relate to the fear of contracting those difficult emotions."

For Page, the most intriguing thing about the script is the way it lets the audience members see things through their own points of view. "One thing I love about this is the ambiguity of it," she says. "It can be like, 'Oh, it's a portal, something's haunting them!' Or repressed trauma coming up, hallucinations that manifest in everyone differently. I like that it gives people the freedom to make their own decisions and just go on their own journey, because different people relate to different characters differently, and that's cool. You know, I think people can see it as they want to, and also just go and have fun and be scared and hopefully have a blast. That's the goal."

Watch the trailer for 'Flatliners' here:


To play med school students, the cast needed to go through some school themselves to get the details right. "It was fun having a few hours of training on the terminology and equipment," Page says, "and learning the medical things, like how to resuscitate a person. Not that I could do it for real! But as an actor I like learning new things and want to make it as authentic as possible."

Even more of a challenge was diving into the horror genre. "For me it was an enjoyable acting challenge to act for a 12-hour day like I was scared of something that wasn't actually there on the set," Page laughs. "Actually, playing fear is hard. Not so much the big stuff, I can do the physical stuff, but just being scared. But then for me a lot of the horror stuff starts in the body and then you go from there."