When the Toronto International Film Festival tried to push Miller’s appearance in Mary Harron’s Dalíland under the rug during its roster announcement earlier this month, it only centered the conversation on the actor’s involvement. As Miller’s sole feature aside from Warner Bros. The Flash, their presence in Dalíland has become magnified, even though they only appear as the young surrealist Salvador Dalí in a few scenes.
With their casting unremovable, the question around Dalíland has become: “What was it like working with Ezra Miller?” To which most of their colleagues answer: Perfectly fine, even good. Harron and fellow cast members’ testimonies don’t paint the picture of an erratic, unstable person who would soon rack up several arrests and become a headline fixture, but a seasoned professional who showed up ready to do the job.
“They turned in a completely realized performance,” Harron says of Miller in a new interview with Vanity Fair. “They were very professional and nice to everybody. There was no trouble or a sign of trouble on set. So it was very upsetting and terrible to read what happened later. Reading this stuff was very sad—very sad for everybody involved. Hopefully they are getting help for what sounds like a very, very serious break.”
She adds, “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. 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.”
Oscar winner Ben Kingsley plays the older Dalí—the version we see the most of in the film. Kingsley and Miller share one scene—a “duet”— in which the latter speaks the words mouthed by the former. By Kingsley’s account, working with Miller went great.
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“Whenever I describe working with a fellow actor as a duet, it means it’s probably 10 out of 10,” Kingsley says of working with Miller.
Kingsley stars in Dalíland alongside Barbara Sukowa, Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves, and Suki Waterhouse. When it comes to Briney’s experience working with the actor, he describes Miller as “incredibly warm and very welcoming.”
“I did have some encounters with Ezra. And I can’t speak to the controversy and all that. I just don’t know what to say, and I don’t have a broad enough perspective on the situation. But they were there my first two days on set, and I will say they were really, incredibly warm to me and very welcoming,” Briney says. “On my very first day on any professional set, Ezra spent their entire lunch just chatting with me about acting and their start.
“Ezra was gracious and willing to talk to me,” Briney continues. “Again, I can’t speak to the broader picture of all the things going on, but they were wonderful to me.”
These testimonies paint the picture of someone who appears to have garishly lost their way, unfortunately harming others in their path. As the actor has apparently snapped back into reality, Miller undoubtedly has a long way to go when it comes to undoing the harm they’ve caused (not to mention several charges to face). With treatment on the horizon for Miller for their “complex mental health issues,” we can only hope things remain on the path to stability.