The actor announced his transition in 2020.

Elliot Page said he “felt such a surge of energy” when he announced his gender transition in 2020, the actor said this week.

Page came out as gay in 2014, and nearly seven years later announced he was transgender via an Instagram post that now has over three million likes. In a profile from Them this week, the actor said being able to live honestly left him with surges of “energy, creativity, inspiration and true joy in creation.”

Part of this renewed passion led to the foundation of Page’s production company, Pageboy, which develops “genre-agnostic” projects centering on queer stories.

“Sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh my God, being trans is such a life hack,’” Page told the outlet. “Because before, I was so miserable. And now you’re like, ‘What? This is great. I don’t mind. This is kind of cool.’ Like, what?!”

In the profile, The Umbrella Academy star opened up about feeling miserable prior to his transition. He described his gender dysphoria as “the thing writhing through my mind and body” and shared that he thought about it regularly.

“I would constantly verbalize and think about it,” Page said. “But I still somehow managed to convince myself like, no, no, no. Or there’d be that next part to play. For so many people, life keeps going. People don’t get opportunities to necessarily stop and figure out how they actually feel.”

Coming out as gay was a “big major step,” he continued. “Never would I have gotten the release and the space that would’ve let me get to where I really ultimately needed to be.”

Now able to live as his true self, Page said the freedom “doesn’t mean I’m always going to make the best decisions, but I am able to move through the world in what feels like a more present, decisive [way]. I know I’m not being pushed to do something else for someone else’s reason.”