Ezra Miller, 18, plays a murderer who goes on a high school rampage in “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” Lynne Ramsay’s terrific movie based on Lionel Shriver’s best-selling book. The film is already the frontrunner for the Palme d’Or. Meet the first revelation of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Are you the devil, Ezra?
Well … no comment! ’Cause if I was, how could I tell you? If I’m really Satan incarnated and people read your story, it might get hard for me to get laid.
What kind of research goes into playing a teen murderer?
The only research you can do is inward. Humanity creates figures like Satan to have a visual or mythological representation of something that exists within our own psyche. We’re all good and evil at the same time. For me, it was about delving into myself and finding all the justified rage that Kevin has. And I really, really did feel that I could completely understand his mind-set, which is kind of scary.
It seems like the kind of part you’d kill for …
I would have killed! I pursued this role like a rabid animal. Once I read the script, it took two years before I got the part. I auditioned six times. The producers, they were really careful about who they chose because this part had pitfalls — it would have been really easy to portray Kevin as a sociopath or a monster, which he’s not.
Do you think the movie will stir controversy in America?
I pray for it! Because I think this movie deals with issues my countrymen need to deal with. We have to start talking about the way in which we are spreading horrors within our homes and relationships. We have to look past this facade of upper-middle class, capitalistic existence as representing happiness. Because what a child needs extends far beyond a big house or the superficial fixings of everyday life.
