Ezra Miller Once Shared That the Filmmaking Behind First Film Was ‘Psychotic’
Actor Ezra Miller quickly attracted a lot of attention thanks to featuring in the dark teen film Afterschool. Apart from being Miller’s first film, the actor also enjoyed shooting the movie because of how psychotic it was.
Ezra Miller called first film psychotic
For Miller, the art industry was something that ran in the family. Miller’s father was a book publisher, and the actor’s mother was a dance instructor. The Flash star would continue the family’s tradition of being involved in the arts by pursuing acting. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the New Jersey native talked about taking the bus to Manhattan for auditions. Miller’s persistence paid off after being cast in a retelling of the Broadway play The Runaways.
“This guy came backstage and gave me his card, and was like, ‘You wanna work in film,’” Miller recalled.
This casting connected Miller to director Antonio Campos, who gave the aspiring actor the lead role in the movie Afterschool. It was a film that Miller enjoyed filming because of how psychotic the shooting was.
“That was a great film experience because of how f***** up it was and like a psychotic filmmaking process with young kids,” Miller said. “And then I was just hooked to film.”
Ezra Miller wanted to become an actor after having a nightmare about Beethoven
Miller once opened up about dropping out of school because of Beethoven. The Fantastic Beasts actor spoke to Shortlist about the advice he gave the classical artist that was life-changing.
“It was serious to me at the time, in my highly energised, romanticised brain,” Miller said.
In Miller’s dream, Beethoven felt incomplete and miserable upon reflecting on his life’s work. But Miller would offer the artist words of wisdom and encouragement.
“I told him he’s doing great, I asked how many symphonies [he’d done], and I told him to keep making more. Then there were these sort of zombie creatures, made of a clay-like substance, so we had to run away and survive the zombie apocalypse together. There was more,” Miller said.
Afterward, the dream gave Miller “a burning sense of purpose to make art.” Speaking to New York, Miller theorized what the dream symbolized.
“I think it’s about how it’s the responsibility of every artist to make sacrifices and seemingly irrational decisions in order to carve out their little pebble of work to put on the big, like, art kingdom that everyone’s been building for so long,” Miller said.
How Ezra Miller felt about being a role model to the LGBT community
One of the more unique aspects of Miller’s career was the actor’s appeal to the LGBT community. Miller has been open about being queer, and has offered transparency that many admired the actor for. But the star once opened up about feeling very little pressure being a role model for so many people.
“I don’t feel pressure. Pressure would only come from a dam, or a block. And when I came out I took the block away, removed the dam. I’ve undammed my identity in the world. I was told, when I gave that interview…” Miller said. “This is an interesting thing to talk about. I was told by a lot of people I’d made a mistake.”
But Miller didn’t believe a mistake was made.
“I won’t specify. Folks in the industry, folks outside the industry. People I’ve never spoken to. They said there’s a reason so many gay, queer, gender-fluid people in Hollywood conceal their sexual identity, or their gender identity in their public image. I was told I had done a ‘silly’ thing in… thwarting my own potential to be a leading man,” the actor added.
