Ezra Miller opens up for ES Magazine

Adam Lowe
Adam Lowe
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In today’s issue of ES Magazine, Fantastic Beasts and Justice League actor Ezra Miller talks exclusively about his bullying, coming out as queer in Hollywood, and his admiration for David Bowie.

Later this month, Ezra will appear in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (released 16 November), despite his character being ‘killed’ in the last movie (although his death was always debatable).

‘There were people [in the industry] who gave me a rough time for coming out,’ he says. He describes the years afterwards, however, as ‘a beautiful, ongoing and very sexy journey’.

Ezra is also a firm believer that people shouldn’t be made to discuss their sexuality. ‘It is everyone’s choice how they want to handle that delicate and complicated matter.’

Ezra is no stranger to rough times, though, and had plenty of material to draw from when playing the tortured wizard Credence Barebone in Fantastic Beasts.

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‘I was repeatedly assaulted as a young teenager, for being weird and gender ambiguous. They couldn’t figure out if I was a boy or a girl, and they thought that was hilarious and also despicable,’ he says. ‘There were also [boys] who wanted to make out with me because they thought I was a girl. And when they found out I wasn’t, they were very angry, as if I’d been deceptive.’

He’s also said he doesn’t identify as either male or female, and has been attacked for how he dresses.

‘I’ve been physically attacked in public for wearing short floral overalls. I’ve been attacked in New Jersey, New York City, Asheville, North Carolina at a Waffle House…’

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he also has an affinity with David Bowie. ‘I saw Bowie’s spirit above his vigil in Brixton when he died.’ He lights up his joint as he adds, ‘It was gold.’

Most importantly, he warns not to get too complacent about recent LGBT rights wins. ‘We celebrate progress in very privileged pockets of the world. We get together in halls and present each other with awards for minuscule bits of crawling progress, when we are killing the whole earth and we’re killing ourselves.’

The full interview appears in this week’s issue of ES Magazine, out Thursday 8th November 2018

About Adam Lowe

Adam Lowe is an award-winning author, editor and publisher from Leeds, now based in Manchester. He runs Dog Horn Publishing and is Director and Writing Coordinator for Young Enigma, a writer development programme for LGBT young people.

View all posts by Adam Lowe →

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