He's Ezra-ordinary

Ezra Miller is a natural at interviews. Funny, quirky and charming, the 24-year-old tells great stories with a disarming frankness.

He couldn't be further from the abused and painfully shy character he plays in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, which is currently showing here.

In the new movie written by J.K. Rowling, which is an extension of her beloved Potterverse, Miller plays Credence Barebone, the adopted son of the founder of the New Salem Philanthropic Society, an anti-magic organisation out to destroy the wizarding world.

Fantastic Beasts revolves around bumbling magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), whose magical creatures are accidentally let loose in 1920s New York City, a time where the magical community is forced to hide from non-wizarding people.

At the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown New York, Miller is dressed in a sort of harem pants, a jacket and T-shirt. His tousled hair sits on top of a seriously good-looking face.

Miller, who burst into the limelight with 2011's We Need To Talk About Kevin, is gearing up for the big time.

Following Fantastic Beasts, Miller will be in the highly-anticipated ensemble superhero flick Justice League, where he plays The Flash, who is also known as Barry Allen. A standalone The Flash film is scheduled for release in 2018.

Were you a fan of the Harry Potter books?

My dad read me The Sorcerer's Stone when I was seven, and I fell into the story immediately. I then read all the books, and would listen to the Jim Dale audio books rather obsessively.

My routine was that when I returned home from school, I'd put on the audio books, and eat instant noodles and toast with cheddar cheese on it every day (laughs).

I was 17 when the series ended. So I started a little younger than Harry and the gang, but ended at the same age.

J.K. Rowling created a vehicle, and in that vehicle, I was able to carry some of the things that we have as our natural gifts in childhood - imagination, sense of wonder, sense of what is fair, and what is an innate sense of morality.

CHARMING: Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone, an abused and painfully shy adopted son, in Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them.

What was it like to meet J.K. Rowling?

Certainly nervous. She's such a big influence in my life. I think she's used to people being a little nervous when they meet her. She's such a caring, compassionate and intelligent person to the nth degree.

What did you say to her?

I think I sloppily tried to express how much this all means to me, and how grateful I am.

You share a lot of scenes with Colin Farrell in Fantastic Beasts. What was it like working with him?

The thing about Colin that I feel compelled to talk about is his intelligence because it's really, really staggering.

It is not only his emotional intelligence as an actor, but his knowledge base, his knowledge of literature, and his way with words.

I'm deeply impressed by that man's brain. When we do interviews together, I usually stay quiet and try to look pretty (laughs).

Do you get recognised on the street?

Sometimes, someone will recognise me, and people usually would want to take a picture. That's the proof that they have met you and the acknowledgment of the moment you shared.

So my decision has been to try to make every picture somewhat bizarre and special (laughs). I like to make people climb things with me if there's a tree or a telephone pole that we can try to scale, or if there's some sort of costume we can both get into quickly. That's actually been my policy for selfies, which I hope to continue, although it is time-consuming. We'll see how long I can keep it up.

You started out singing opera. Do you still sing?

Yes, I do still sing. I'm in a band working on music of my own. I'm not singing opera for the most part because I never went back into the training. One day, perhaps.

Why opera?

I fell in love with opera as a child. In my child brain, it was something about the magnitude of it, something about the emotional weight, and the grandeur of the expression. It pulled me in. Fortunately, I had the type of parents who - instead of saying, that is ridiculous, you are a weirdo - said, that's wonderful.

Tell us a little more about your band.

My band is called Sons Of An Illustrious Father. It comes from the worst translation of Plato's Republic (laughs). It's a name that encompasses a lot, both literal and ironic implications.

I started the band with my bandmates when we were in middle school together. I was around 16, so we have been doing it for eight years. When my voice changed and I could no longer be in the opera, it was a little hard for me.

The raw and immediate expressive power of rock music or folk music was the salve to that hurt where I could still participate in music actively. We play a lot of different sorts of stuff. We like to call ourselves genre queer or genre bending.

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J.K. Rowling created a vehicle, and in that vehicle, I was able to carry some of the things that we have as our natural gifts in childhood - imagination, sense of wonder, sense of what is fair, and what is an innate sense of morality.

- Ezra Miller on the Harry Potter universe