https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2RXXuPfQr0

Perhaps "pressure" isn't the right word, but Ellen Page knew she had to nail her role as Stacie Andree in her upcoming movie "Freeheld," if for no other reason, because Stacie is a real person who helped to advance equality for the LGBT community.

"I think when you play a real person and someone who's as inspiring and incredible as Stacie - who went through something so difficult and did something important and crucial at a time of incredible difficultly - you feel a sense of responsibility," Page explains Tuesday to Stephen Colbert on "The Late Show."

The story took place in 2006 when police detective Laurel Hester (played by Julianne Moore) was dying of cancer and tried to leave her pension to her domestic partner, played by Page.

Page hasn't had to deal with the struggles that Hester and Andree dealt with, but she knows something about intolerance. She came out as gay last year. But, the 28-year-old admits, being gay is so much more accepted now than it was 10 years ago.

"I think, for the most part, LGBT people started to become more visible," she explains. "I think what happens — intolerance is always correlated with, you know, less people being out of the closet, and the more people started living their lives, the more we've had films about it, on television... incredible activists like Laurel and Stacie, it really changes minds."

The visibility and understanding, she says, "touches people's hearts, and it makes it shift from seeing something as different and, of course, realizes we're all the same, and all we're asking for is equality, and to grow up in a society that doesn't make us feel less than, that doesn't make us feel shame and doesn't make us have to deal with repercussions of that, which are really destructive."