Ellen Page, the adorable star of the runaway hit “Juno,” is the toast of this year’s awards circuit.

For her role as a pregnant teenager in “Juno,” the 20-year-old star has scored Oscar and Screen Actors Guild nominations (the SAG awards air tonight at 8 p.m. on TNT and TBS).

“Juno” is a surprise audience favorite and one of the few box-office hits to get an Academy Award nomination. “It’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy,” said Page in a New York Daily News story.

But not everyone is surprised by Page’s success. “Ellen is completely flexible,” notes “Juno” director Jason Reitman, who earned a best-director Oscar nod for the film. “She can go anywhere. She’s a wonderful combination of an intellect far beyond her years, and yet there are qualities of hers that are still a young girl, and those qualities charm the pants off you. She’s a perfect combo.”

So far, Page has been wary of buying into all the hype surrounding her. The down-to-earth girl prefers jeans and flannel shirts, but also cleans up pretty well when the need arises.    

“All of this is pretty surreal,” she says of the attention, adding that she empathizes with celebrities who stress out from all the publicity. “The more I do it, the more I’m like, ‘No wonder so many actors have problems!’”

More after the jump, including a video clip of Ellen’s appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” in which she talks about a haunted whorehouse. Yes, you read that right.

“It makes me feel a lot of compassion for individuals who are going through hard times. And no one is offering compassion, no one is asking the question, ‘Why does this happen?’”

A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Page got her start as a child on Canadian television, but earned attention for the indie thriller, “Hard Candy,” in which she plays a teenager who threatens to castrate a predator she meets on the Internet.

It’ll be fun to see where this talented actress goes in her career. Let’s just hope she can maintain a good balance and not go crazy with stardom. Think she can? I’m pullin’ for her!

Check out Ellen’s appearance on the January 3, 2008 episode of “The Late Show With David Letterman”:

Image: Corkery/News

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