What does Ezra Miller need to do to get fired?
Miller is the latest example of Hollywood privilege. If you had multiple arrests in Hawaii over the course of 2022 — including for harassment and assault — you’d likely lose your job. Same if there were reports of a child walking around your Vermont compound (that word alone so seldom augurs well for things to come) with a bullet in his mouth. Or if there were a video of you allegedly choking a woman in an Icelandic bar.
What’s more, if there were allegations you were grooming multiple underage children and rumors that you were running a cult, you’d be ostracized from the community completely; you’d have to pick up and start over again in another part of the world, praying your new neighbors didn’t find out.
Not Miller, though. Even though a single one of these incidents would cost us mere mortals our employment, the Hollywood star is apparently still going to appear in multiple upcoming films — including appearing as the titular characters in “The Flash” and “Dalíland.”
But don’t blame “Dalíland” director Mary Harron. According to Variety, before the premiere of the movie at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, she wanted everyone to know shooting had already wrapped when Miller started behaving erratically — and, well, why go back and reshoot?
Harron, who’s best known for her adaptation of the novel “American Psycho” (“You like Huey Lewis and the News?”), told the media that, look, what’s finished is finished.
“The film was completely finished and wrapped,” Harron said. “It might have been different, especially if we were shooting, if there had been bad behavior during that. But this all happened after the film was not only filmed, but edited and mixed and done. I also felt like everybody shot all those things in good faith. Nothing bad happened during our filming, and the film is the film.”
It’s not that Harron doesn’t realize the seriousness of the whole thing, it’s just that the show must go on.
“I’m not condoning anything they’ve done wrong. I think it doesn’t matter how talented someone is, if they’ve done anything wrong, they have to face it,” she continued. (Miller, who identifies as non-binary, uses they/them pronouns.)
Should the scenes with Miller be reshot completely?
“I also think that clearly this is not just a young star acting out. This is much more serious. This seems like something that needs a serious intervention, which I hope has happened.”
At the very least, Miller entered a mental health facility in August.
“Having recently gone through a time of intense crisis, I now understand that I am suffering complex mental health issues and have begun ongoing treatment,” Miller said, according to Variety.
“I want to apologize to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior. I am committed to doing the necessary work to get back to a healthy, safe and productive stage in my life.”
It’s not quite that easy, however, given his legal issues. In addition a felony burglary charge in Vermont, Miller has been accused of grooming two minors and has received court orders to steer clear of them.
In one case, he was accused of showering attention and gifts on a 12-year-old Massachusetts child, including offering to pay for a horse. After that, he offered to pay for the child’s design school, according to an exposé Business Insider published in early August.
“I kept wondering why Ezra was here. Like, don’t you have Hollywood stuff to do? Don’t you have movies coming out?” the child’s mother said about the frequent visits.
A visiting neighbor said he also came armed.
“[Miller] was wearing a bulletproof vest — and I had no idea until later that they were armed,” the neighbor said.
During the visit, the neighbor described a bizarre incident in which Miller exploded after being challenged on an assertion that the game Parcheesi was Rastafarian in origin.
“At this point, Ezra explodes and started screaming directly into my face,” the neighbor said. “They said, ‘You don’t even know what the f*** you’re talking about. What did you say to me? What did you just say to me?!’”
According to Business Insider, Miller told the mother that her child was “a mystical being” who was more powerful than the mother. Thus, they “would be lucky to have Ezra to guide and protect them.”
The parents eventually sought and received an order banning Miller from contact with their boy.
In another case, parents Sara Jumping Eagle and Chase Iron Eyes alleged that their daughter, 18-year-old Tokata, had been groomed by Miller for six years with a relationship that culminated in physical and verbal abuse. The family originally met Miller while the actor was protesting the Dakota Access pipeline, which was planned to run close to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.
The inappropriate behavior allegedly began in 2017, when Miller flew Tokata and others he met during the Standing Rock protests to London to visit the set of one of his movies. On the trip, he reportedly wanted to sleep in the same bed as the 14-year-old girl.
Things intensified to the point where Tokata was spending large chunks of time at Miller’s Vermont compound.
“On January 29, Miller and their house guests called Tokata’s parents to tell them Tokata was incapacitated after having taken LSD four days prior,” Business Insider reported. “Iron Eyes and Jumping Eagle flew to Vermont the next day. When they arrived, they said, Tokata was ‘out of it’ and ‘incoherent,’ screaming so relentlessly that she lost her voice for several days. She had bruises on her arms and left cheek, they said, and she didn’t have her phone or ID.”
A member of the household also said they saw Miller having sex with Tokata, something both parties denied.
The parents received a protective order barring Miller from contacting their daughter in June, although the Los Angeles Times reported the court was unable to locate Miller to serve him with the order.
And then there’s the various arrests and charges against him, allegations he set up what amounted to a cult in Iceland But, hey — he gets to keep his role in not only “Dalíland” but — more importantly — “The Flash.”
Miller already played the iconic DC Comics character in the 2017 film “Justice League” and the 2021 re-edit, “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” Miller’s “The Flash,” which is set to open next summer, is supposed to represent a key component in the DC Comics universe.
On Aug. 11, The Hollywood Reporter said insiders with the studio said there were three possible options regarding what to do with the film.
“First, Warners has received indications that the 29-year-old Miller, whose mother has accompanied the actor in recent days, will seek professional help after returning home to their farm in Vermont after being away,” THR reported. “If that happens, Miller, who goes by they/them pronouns, could give an interview at some point explaining their erratic behavior over the past few years. The actor could then do limited press for The Flash, and the movie would open in cinemas as planned.
“The second scenario: Even if Miller doesn’t reach out for help, Warners could still release the film. But don’t expect Miller to play a prominent role in terms of marketing and publicity. Nor would Miller be the Flash going forward, as the role would be recast in future projects.
“The third: The situation with Miller deteriorates further,” THR’s report continued. (Emphasis mine.) “This would see Warners killing the movie outright, as it could not be reshot with a different actor. Miller plays multiple characters and is in almost every scene. Scrapping a $200 million film would be an unprecedented move.”
The emphasis is there for this reason: How much further do things need to deteriorate before Miller gets fired? In “The Flash,” their star is alleged to be a child-grooming, cult-leading, house-burglarizing, drug-using degenerate. Their response? “Golly, if his behavior gets worse, we’re going to have to do something about this.”
Scrapping a massive film like this may be unprecedented, but this represents an unprecedented situation of unusual depravity. In the case of “Dalíland,” the budget is nowhere near that high. In both cases, the fact Miller gets to stay in the picture represents an abdication of moral responsibility that can only be described as egregious.
Sadly, in Hollywood, that isn’t unprecedented.
