CULTURE

Everything We Learned About Ezra Miller During the Fantastic Beasts Press Tour

He likes to cry and he’s part of a polycule.


"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald" UK Premiere - Red Carpet Arrivals
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Amid consternation about the state of the in-depth celebrity magazine profile, Ezra Miller consented to not one but three telling interviews, released in the lead up to the release of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, all conducted in person by actual journalists and not, say, via text message with another celebrity pal. All three were accompanied by polished, fashion-forward photo shoots as well: first, a gender-bending, romantic spread for GQ Style (the Eckhaus Latta skirt he wore likely had half of Bushwick shaking); then, an outerwear-focused shoot for The Hollywood Reporter; and, in the grand finale, we got the Playboy feature, in which Miller poses in bunny ears and lingerie and perhaps proves he owes some stylistic debts to the likes of Mykki Blanco and Perfume Genius. Miller kept the sartorial boundary-pushing going by wearing many an eye-catching garment on the red carpet throughout the Harry Potter spinoff’s press tour, most notably a conceptual puffer gown by Moncler at the film’s Paris premiere.

The end result is that, collectively, at least, we have all thought about Ezra Miller more in the past 10 days than we ever had before, and learned a lot about the 26-year-old actor along the way. Indeed, this might have been a rare week when you could see, in real time, an actor’s public image cement itself in a way that will follow him around for the rest of his career. And, naturally, there’s already been some backlash too. Here, everything we learned.

He lives on a Vermont farm and loves goats (especially pregnant goats).

Like Zayn Malik, Miller is just the latest young celebrity who has left city life behind for a return to the land. “I live on a farm in Vermont,” is the very first quote in his GQ Style profile, and indeed he does live on an actual functioning farm in Vermont. It’s about 100 acres, by the magazine’s estimation (The Hollywood Reporter posits a more conservative guess of 95 acres), and he shares it with not only fellow members of his band, the Sons of Illustrious Fathers, but also a small number of goats, most of which are or were recently pregnant. “They’re all pregnant,” he says. “Every goat you’re near right now.” We are left to assume that they are his own goats, and not professional goat models, that pose with him in pictures in the Reporter photo shoot.

He is part of a queer polycule.

The recent phenomenon of celebrities giving quotes along the lines of, “My sexuality? Well, let’s just say I’m not 100 percent straight, if you know what I mean,” and then promptly landing a spot on the Out 100, being handing a trophy by the HRC, and landing a part as a struggling gay teen in a buzzy Sundance movie has caused some amount of frustration within the queer community. Miller originally came out as queer in 2012, and, to his credit, he’s continued to openly discuss both his identity and his experiences.

“Queer just means no, I don’t do that,” he told the *Reporter. “I don’t identify as a man. I don’t identify as a woman. I barely identify as a human.”

In Playboy, he reveals his relationship status as being part of a “polycule” (a “polyamorous molecule,” if you will) that includes a number of people (including his bandmates).

“I’m trying to find queer beings who understand me as a queer being off the bat, who I make almost a familial connection with, and I feel like I’m married to them 25 lifetimes ago from the moment we meet,” he says. “And then they are in the squad—the polycule. And I know they’re going to love everyone else in the polycule because we’re in the polycule, and we love each other so much.”

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He’s had his own #MeToo moment.

Miller opened up to the Reporter about an incident when he was an underage actor, when a director got him alone and tried to make a move on him. “They gave me wine and I was underage,” he said. “They were like, ‘Hey, want to be in our movie about gay revolution?’ And I was like, ‘No, you guys are monsters.’”

Crying often happens in Ezra Miller interviews, and it’s fine.

“Gaia, we don’t understand her. We don’t understand how powerful she is. We don’t respect her rights,” he told the Reporter. “I’m just an emotional person. I just feel things differently. Yes, I’m crying already in the interview.”

With Playboy, it was the interviewer who ended up crying. “No. I feel you, baby. I’m crying, too,“ Miller says. “A journalist who can cry when something hits their heart is the one I would like to read the article of, personally.”

Joints also often happen in his interviews, and it’s also fine.

The Reporter describes the actor as smoking a “spliff,” while Playboy describes his weed as a “meticulously rolled” and “impressive” joint. GQ Style describes something that “appears to be a joint.”

He thinks being famous is beautiful, but also likely a sign of mental illness.

To GQ Style, he describes fame as like a “beautiful” journey of paddling through a misty river in a boat with a bag full on sandwiches to a magic lake. In the Reporter, though, he says being famous might be a sign of mental illness. “We’re all probably mentally ill,” he says. “I watch television or the news and I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s my people. Were all mentally ill together. Cool.’”

Ezra Miller’s Red Carpet Journey Into a Glittery Hedwig

Ezra Miller at the premiere of City Island in New York, March 2010.

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Ezra Miller at the premiere of Every Day during the 9th Annual Tribeca Film Festival, in New York, April 2010.

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Ezra Miller at a photo call for We Need to Talk About Kevin during the 64th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, May 2011.

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Ezra Miller at the New York premiere of Higher Ground, August 2011.

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Ezra Miller at the premiere of We Need to Talk About Kevin during the Toronto International Film Festival, September 2011.

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Ezra Miller at at the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival Spotlight on We Need to Talk About Kevin, in San Rafael, California, October 2011.

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Ezra Miller at a screening of Another Happy Day in New York, November 2011.

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Ezra Miller at the Haiti Carnival in Cannes Benefitting J/P HRO, Artists for Peace and Justice & Happy Hearts during the 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival, May 2012.

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Ezra Miller at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards, in Universal City, California, June 2012.

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Ezra Miller at the Los Angeles premiere of Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, in Hollywood, California, June 2012.

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Ezra Miller at a screening of Red Lights in New York, June 2012.

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Ezra Miller at a special screening of The Amazing Spider-Man in New York, June 2012.

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Ezra Miller at 2012 MTV Video Awards, in Los Angeles, September 2012.

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Ezra Miller at the New York premiere of Trainwreck, July 2015.

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Ezra Miller at the European premiere of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, in London, March 2016.

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Ezra Miller at the European premiere of Suicide Squad, in London, August 2016.

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Ezra Miller at the European premiere of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in London, November 2016.

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Ezra Miller at the CinemaCon 2017 Warner Bros. Pictures film presentation, in Las Vegas, March 2017.

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Ezra Miller at the premiere of Justice League in Hollywood, California, November 2017.

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Ezra Miller at the world premiere of Ocean’s 8, in New York, June 2018.

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Ezra Miller at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund 15th Anniversary Event, in Brooklyn, New York, November 2018.

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Ezra Miller at the world premiere of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in New York, November 2016.

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Ezra Miller in a puffer-coat gown at the world premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, in Paris, November 2018.

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Ezra Miller at the U.K. premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, in London, November 2018.

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Ezra Miller’s hands at the U.K. premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in London, November 2018.

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