Ellen Page Recalls Her Own Near-Death Experience: 'I Really, Truly Thought This Is It'

Ellen Page’s closest brush with death sounds like a load of bull.

The actress, 30, who plays a medical student studying the afterlife in her new movie Flatliners, told PEOPLE about a time she barely escaped a personal visit to the great beyond.

“One time I was shooting a movie in Portugal,” she said, explaining that after one particularly long day of filming in the countryside, she decided to sleep in her trailer, rather than driving all the way back to her hotel.

“I went for a walk in the morning with the director in this field, and then all of a sudden there were just bulls everywhere — and the bulls started coming at us,” she explained.

“And I really, truly thought like this is it; this is how I’m going to die,” she added.

Fortunately, Page said, “We were lucky and the bulls veered off and we ran.”

While she’s never seen the “white light” for herself, Page admitted that her impromptu run with the bull was one of the “more jarring experiences” of her life.

RELATED: Ellen Page: Coming Out Was ‘One Of Most Nerve-Wracking Moments Of My Life’

 

In Flatliners, a reboot of the 1990 film of the same name, Page and her fellow medical students gain special powers by simulating near-death experiences in a lab.

Asked if she’d participate in the experiment if it were real — and safe — Page said, “I would, for sure.”

As for what powers she’d like to come back with, she said, “I’d love to be able to play the cello really well. Just to come back and be able to say, ‘Yeah, I can play the cello really well.’ Something like that I think would be rad.”

Flatliners is in theaters now.