It’s not often an actor gets the opportunity to take on a cinematic universe, but for Ezra Miller, one just wasn’t enough. Miller has the responsibility of playing Barry Allen aka. The Flash in the growing DC Extended Universe, starting with Justice League (2017) but has also signed on for J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World as Credence Barebone in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.
It can’t be easy to balance two growing universes, but Miller sounds more than excited by the challenge. In an interview which recently popped up on Pottermore, the young actor discussed how the two roles ended up in his care and how he fought for Fantastic Beasts.
So I’d heard about the part, and remember that to me – someone who got into Harry Potter so young, as a fan – I thought this was a universe that had been closed to me forever. I thought we’d had everything we’d ever get from that world, I thought it was over. I spent years devastated that I wasn’t in that world, that I wasn’t in those movies. I would say, “I can do British, I promise!”
And then, to hear that J.K. Rowling had expanded that universe. That there was more and that there was this character… I almost couldn’t believe it.
At that stage I’d already signed up to become [DC Comics character] The Flash and there were serious scheduling issues. For a while it looked like I wouldn’t be able to do this movie.
So I’m thinking about the part, I’m dreaming about it, I want it and I know deep down that I will do anything for it. So I start emailing Warner Bros. and I say, “Look at Humphrey Bogart!”
Casablanca (1943) was his eleventh film with the studio that decade. We don’t do that anymore, we don’t develop relationships between actors and studios. There’s no loyalty like that anymore. I say in these emails that I want that with you. I want Credence and I want The Flash.
While we’re yet to see any footage of Miller in Fantastic Beasts, he is already proving himself as a great cinematic version of The Flash. After appearing for a second in Batman v Superman, and slightly longer in Suicide Squad, it looks like the DCEU Flash is in safe hands. As for the Wizarding World, Potter fans don’t be worried. Miller has proved in each of his roles that he has the talent and variation to offer a great character.
