- Let's talk about "Freeheld..." - Yes, please.
- Because this movie, I pray that
everyone goes to see this movie. - Me too.
I really want everybody to see this.
- It's so good. You're great. - It is. Yeah. Thank you.
- Ellen Page is great. Steve Carell is great.
- Ellen Page is wonderful. Mm-hmm.
Michael Shannon. - Yes.
- Yeah, it is the story of Laurel Hester and Stacie Andree,
the women who changed the Domestic Partnership Act
in New Jersey.
Laurel was a police detective who is diagnosed
with lung cancer and wanted to leave her pension benefits
to her partner and she was turned down
by the county officials.
So, she spent the last year of her life
trying to overturn this ruling,
and, um, it's a really inspiring story
about some very very special people.
- It's amazing 'cause she was not an activist,
she was not--she was closeted. - Yeah.
- She wasn't even openly gay
and then she ran up against this thing when she's dying...
- Yeah. - And realized, if I don't
come out and speak out against this, you know...
- Yeah. - My partner's gonna
lose her hou--our house... - That's right, our house.
- The house--the life that they had built together.
- Everything. Yeah. - And they really, you know,
Edie Windsor said that Laurel Hester was a hero
because she demanded to be treated like everybody else.
- Mm-hmm. - So, that's really it too.
It wasn't like--and there was no special treatment involved.
It really was what, by all rights, should have been theirs.
- Yeah. - But what's so--I mean,
this is a true story, and these are real people,
and also we're lucky enough to have the real Stacie Andree
and Dane Wells, who was Laurel's police partner,
here in the audience today. - Yeah.
They're sitting right there. - Yay. Where are they?
Congratulations. - Wait a minute, where are they?
There they are. Hi, there you are.
[applause]
- And I just adore them both.
They're such wonderful people,
and what they did for us, what Stacie and Dane did
with, you know, they basically opened their homes
and were on the phone with us and talked to us
about every little detail
because Ellen and I wanted to get it right. You know?
- Yeah. - So we hoped that we could
get it right. - It was, I mean, Portia and I
were sobbing at the end of it,
and especially when the real pictures came up
of you and Laurel. - Yeah.
- It was--so Ellen--so it was at first, it's kind of like,
"Oh, well there's a big age difference."
There was a big age difference between the two of you.
- Yeah. - And you were played
by Ellen Page... - Yeah.
- And it's amazing 'cause Ellen Page had just come out.
- Yeah, exactly. - So, she actually got to
play this role,
which would have been really tough for her
if she hadn't been. - I think so, and I think
it was a meaningful project because she had been attached
to it as a producer for so long. - Yeah.
- And it meant so much to her personally,
and it was meaningful for me to talk to Ellen
about her experiences, and for her to talk about
what it means to be closeted and to then come out,
and what are the repercussions in your personal life,
in your professional life,
and, anyway, Ellen and I got very close.
It was a really special special experience.
- Yeah, it was great, and you had great chemistry.
It was really fantastic. - Thank you.
- All right, well, and like like I said,
I hope everyone sees it 'cause it is not--
I hope people don't think it's a gay movie.
It is not. It is a movie about love.
- Yeah, it's about love. - It's just a movie about love.
- Yeah, exactly.