You may know self-identifying queer actor Ezra Miller as gay high school student Patrick in Perks of Being a Wallflower or perhaps the entirely unsettling Kevin in We Need To Talk About Kevin, but hiding underneath all that marketable teenage angst is a superhero in the making.
Warner Brothers has announced an ambitious lineup of DC Comic-inspired films over the next five years, and Ezra will don a spandex suit as the star of The Flash in 2018. He’ll also appear first as The Flash in 2017’s Justice League Part One.
And judging by this photo he took for Paper Magazine, he certainly has the abs for superhero stardom. Give him a few more years to come into his own, and we may have a veritable queer leading man.
Luke Evans, are you taking notes?
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Here’s the full slate of WB releases with DC Comic characters through 2020:
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, directed by Zack Snyder, opening on March 25, 2016
• Suicide Squad, directed by David Ayer, for 2016
• Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot, for 2017
• Justice League Part One, directed by Zack Snyder, with Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, and Amy Adams reprising their roles, for 2017
• The Flash, starring Ezra Miller, for 2018
• Aquaman, starring Jason Momoa, for 2018
• Shazam, for 2019
• Justice League Part Two, directed by Zack Snyder, for 2019
• Cyborg, starring Ray Fisher, for 2020
• Green Lantern, for 2020
Cam
Open, not closeted and cast in a big budget movie franchise that could get him a spin off. Well done.
money718
Queer, not gay, as he explains it.
NG22
Proud of Ezra. I hope these movies have good writing. More Dark Knight, less Iron Man.
At the same time, I find it disrespectful to Grant Gustin, who’s playing the Flash in the CW TV series (and doing a great job). They’re saying it would be hard to work around Grant’s TV schedule and that it will cheapen the Justice League movies to have it associated with a CW show watched by four million people. WB wasn’t saying that when they were cashing the check from the as revenue. The series had the CW’s best viewership in five years. And it has a very loyal audience of young people who would be the first folks in the theater to support Grant Gustin or Stephen Amell. Finally, they say the Flash has changed a lot in the comic books over time, so Ezra might not play the same character as Grant, and they will exist in different universes.
Still, I feel torn by my LGBT pride and my loyalty to a cool program and its charismatic star.
jmmartin
I have adored him since Andy Warhol’s Interview gave him a page a couple of years ago. He is the essence of androgyny, and both of the movies you cite happen to reveal a smart, extremely gifted actor as well. Not just a pretty face. Which is not suggest he makes a nasty vampire protagonist in the play-within-a-movie in the coming of age dramedy, and makes one gaze guiltily on so pretty a face knowing that the person in the film is pure evil, a boy with no moral strictures soever, thus all the more deadly. (Anyone doing a film with Tilda Swinton is OK in my book.) Go, Ezra, go!
jjose712
I was very critic with Luke Evans a lot of times, but let’s be fair here. Ezra is not gay, he is queer, everybody knows his girlfriend but nobody a single guy he dated.
I appreciate him being sincere about his sexuality, and i think he is a smart and talented guy, but even he is a weird choice for a superhero film (he was basically in indie and small films) he is not a risky choice for his sexuality at all
jaker7777
I thought superheroes were supposed to be secret
tardis
He’s a really good actor, but completely wrong for this part. It really is a weird casting choice.
Michael
If ever they dare to remake Rocky Horror Picture Show, he would have to be the first actor in history perfectly capable of filling Tim Curry’s heels. So great in Perks.
hotshot70
He is not the Flash. Unless he is future Flash, Barry Allen was a Caucasian, as was Wally West.
Bob LaBlah
Personally I always found the characters of DC comics uninteresting or just mediocre, save Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash. I must admit that so far they have done a good job bringing these characters to life. I am not so sure this guy was the right choice. Nor was the guy who was picked a few years back for Green Lantern. The villans out shined the hero in that movie.
The guy on CW currently playing the Flash is a hit in my book. As is Green Arrow, a character in the comic book version that I had always figured, since I was ten years old, was gay. I mean come on, light green tights, a mask and a skirt, kilt, tunic or whatever the hell its called?
He might do better as Kid Flash than the original Flash. At least Kid Flash was never taken seriously.
Cagnazzo82
Um he doesn’t even look remotely like the Flash. At least with Quicksilver you can argue it was a younger version of him.
I’m glad for this guy, but this is just an odd casting choice. Is he that good? Or were the other actors who tried out for the part just that bad :S
capsule
Ezra Miller is not actually a “queer”. He has never has a boyfriend. He is now engaged to his girlfriend Erin Axtell.
Cam
@capsule:
Weird you might be right, it says that they have been together a long time and the rumor is that apparently she might be pregnant.
http://en.mediamass.net/people/ezra-miller/pregnancy-rumors.html
iggy6666
He was amazing in perks of being a wall flower
Realitycheck
Cute label Queer, but when your BF is like 12 years then you… you IS gay little boy!
SteveDenver
He’s fit head-to-toe, not just his squatter.