The Frisky and Crushable.com have both released “Facts you Didn’t Know about Ezra Miller” lists.

5 Facts About We Need To Talk About Kevin Star Ezra Miller

There’s a bunch of different reasons why you’re hearing about 19-year-old actor Ezra Miller. Maybe you chanced up on his recent performances as a student reporter or a private-school kid with a penchant for porn in Beware the Gonzo or Afterschool, respectively. Perhaps it was his penchant for a certain recreational drug or his brief relationship with co-star Zoe Kravitz.

Or it could be his horrifying starring role in We Need to Talk About Kevin, the new drama where he plays a high school student who enacts a Columbine-kind of massacre on his classmates.

We’ll be seeing Kevin this Friday, but we already know it’s going to be fantastic from reading the book and from Ezra’s hypnotic performances. Here’s your chance to learn more about this quirky, talented young star.

1. As a child he suffered from a stutter, but an attentive teacher introduced him to opera around the age of 6, which helped to steady his voice. He went on to sing with the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus from the ages of 9 to 11, but once his voice cracked, he was out.

2. The actor is a pot aficionado, and this past June got busted for possession of marijuana after police stopped his friend’s car for a traffic violation. However, as Ezra told Details, his parents weren’t surprised when the cops called them: “My parents had been gritting their teeth for that phone call for a long, long time.” But how about disappointed? “No, it’s water off a duck’s back, as they say. We all know what weed is.”

3. I feel like most young actors we profile are in bands; Ezra is no exception, providing drums and vocals for Sons of an Illustrious Father. Here’s a video of the band performing “Go Down Moses” in 2009:

4. He’s actually got a personality. Unlike some actors who may seem bland when they’re not in-character, Ezra’s various film festival appearances prove that he’s got his own style: Think velvet blazers, red skinny jeans, and a playing card slipped into his hat.

5. It took him two years and six auditions to land the role of Kevin Khatchadourian. On-camera mother/object of Kevin’s wrath Tilda Swinton told the Guardian that her first impression of Ezra was that of a professional beyond his years.

This could be the role that stick with him for a good long time, since not only is he the perfect embodiment of Lionel Shriver‘s young villain, but he also relates to his character beyond the skin-deep stuff. “To my horror, I do feel a little connected to Kevin,” he confessed. “Always did. Always will.”

You’ve seen the trailer over and over again, but here’s a clip from the movie. Beware that it does have spoilers for one of the movie’s plot points. If you’ve already read the book, then you’ll recognize this chilling moment immediately. {Crushable.com}

10 Things To Know About Ezra Miller, Star Of “We Need To Talk About Kevin”

Last night, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a screener of “We Need To Talk About Kevin,” the film that was the talk of Cannes, based on the book by Lionel Shriver. The book/movie is told from the perspective of a mother — played by Tilda Swinton — as she struggles to rebuild her life shortly after her teenage son, Kevin, kills a bunch of his fellows students and teachers in an orchestrated massacre. Kevin has always been a bad seed, exhibiting sociopathic behavior since he was in diapers and the film (and, I imagine, the book) puts a certain damper on any baby fever you might have. It’s the ultimate psychological horror story — are some people just born evil?

Ezra Miller spent over two years trying to land the role before finally getting the green light — and damn, did he blow me away. The thing about many sociopaths is their ability to switch seamlessly between being charming and cruel, and Miller pulls this off brilliantly. He exudes an emotional intelligence beyond his age, a quality that is essential for such a complex and disturbing character. I — and, oh, everyone else — am convinced he is the next big thing. Click onward to check out a bunch of photos and facts about this hot young talent.

#1. He Is Only 19.

He was born in April 1993, which makes my raging crush on him vaguely inappropriate

#2. He can actually relate to sociopathic Kevin.

It took producers a long time to find an actor that was suitable for the role of Kevin, but Ezra tapped into the role right away. “To my horror, I do feel a little connected to Kevin,” he confessed. “Always did. Always will.” When Lionel Shriver, the author of We Need To Talk About Kevin, met Ezra at the movie’s premiere, she said it was “eerily like having a conversation with Kevin himself.”

#3. Unlike Kevin, Ezra Loves His Parents

In an interview with Interview magazine, Ezra describes his parents were a certain reverence, saying:

My mother is an artist through and through. She’s a modern dancer. And I think the way she raised her children was with a playful, curious inquiry into the world. I remember going on hikes and she’d nominate a child as “leaf leader,” and that person would be in charge of pointing out to the rest of the group all of the beautiful and amazing and interesting and strange things happening in the world on our hike. … it might be that the most important thing is actually, yeah, raising up children with a true and lasting burning sense of curiosity. I don’t even know how they did it, or how they do it. Good parents are a marvel.

#4. Ezra went from stuttering to singing.

Ezra had a severe stutter from an early age and a teacher got him into singing opera as a way to help break him of his speech impediment. When he was six years old, he performed in the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass’s contemporary opera White Raven.He was so good at it, in fact, that he sang with the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus from the ages of 9 to 11. But then puberty arrived, his voice cracked, and his Placido Domingo-esque potential went out the window.

#5. He’s In A Band.

Ezra plays drums and does some singing in a band called Sons of an Illustrious Father. I gotta say, they are not terrible. They’re no Dead Man’s Bones, but they aren’t Dogstar either.

#6. He has a record!

This summer, Ezra was busted for marijuana possession in his native New Jersey after he was caught lighting up a doobie when his friend was pulled over for a traffic violation.

#7. He Has Some Interesting Thoughts About Motherhood

Also in the Interview piece, Ezra has this to say about one of the film’s primary themes:

[It's] an entire meditation on what can really go wrong, and the way in which parenting, especially mothering, is a primordial wound. I mean, really. When you birth a child, it’s like a bloody giving of self to the creation of a life. And basically, Kevin explores a mother who held within herself a deep resentment of the child. We see Kevin over the course of his life become more and more of a monster. And her resentment grows stronger until there’s this explosion of rage and they’re at war. That performance was entirely about finding all of the anger and the resentment inherent to mother and child. It’s just a scary truth. And it’s a very old story that’s entirely under-told. It’s too dark. Too dirty.

I wonder what Ezra’s own mom thinks of the movie?

#8. He dated Zoe Kravitz.

Ezra and Lenny’s offspring both star in “Beware of the Gonzo” and apparently got close enough on set to warrant a public makeout session. As Zoe is now dating that turd from “Gossip Girl” — downgrade! — Ezra is apparently a free agent again. I want him to date Intern Rachel, since I am apparently too old for him. Sigh.

#9. You will probably never see him in a movie opposite Ashley Tisdale.

Oh his role in the upcoming “Beware the Gonzo,” about a rebel high school journalist, Ezra said this about the script:

There was something really, very exciting, considering a lot of the scripts we read as young actors. When you read a script where teenage characters feel real and don’t feel like this other, Disney-fied mythology of the modern, bubble-gum teenager, it’s immediately undeniably exciting.

So, no “High School Musical 4: The New Class” in his future, I guess.

#10. Catch Him Next In…

…”The Perks Of Being A Wallflower,” alongside Paul Rudd and Emma Watson.
{thefrisky.com}

Ezra Miller is one to look out for. One of the youngest up-and-coming actors working today, this year alone he was in two of my favorite films on the festival circuit: Another Happy Day and We Need to Talk about Kevin. In the former, out in theaters today, Miller plays Elliot, the troubled middle son of main character Lynn (Ellen Barkin). And as the title character in Lynne Ramsay’s Kevin—a teenager who goes on a high-school killing spree—Miller delivered one of the most talked-about performances out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. In both films, Miller not only holds his own against established actors like Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly—he often steals scenes from them. I spoke with Miller about the two films; the differences between working with Another Happy Day‘s Sam Levinson, a first-time director, and Ramsay; and how, when meeting with a director, “you always want to trick [them] into thinking you’re the character.”

Andy Young (MM): How did you first get involved in Another Happy Day?
Ezra Miller (EM): I was contacted by [writer/director] Sam [Levinson], and I had a meeting with him at the French Roast coffee shop. We had a long conversation about the goals of the film, and we shared various doom outlooks that I put forth into my character, Elliot. You always want to trick the director into thinking you’re the character, at least a little. After that lunch we really found we understood and trusted each other, and I knew I wanted to do that film, and they offered it to me without reading something or doing a scene for them.

MM: What was it like working with Levinson?
EM: It was his first time directing, which can sometimes be a nightmare situation of someone not knowing the technical aspects, but that wasn’t the case at all. He had been developing his voice in his head for years; he had such an awareness of his own vision, and [he] knew how to accomplish it. He already had a plan to realize his vision, and at the same time he had this openness and spontaneous ability to receive what was happening in a given moment on set. There was no video village: He didn’t want to have a monitor, and for me as an actor it was great to not have to look over at your sit-in audience watching monitors.

MM: On the flip side of that, what was it like working with someone who has had years of experience, like Lynne Ramsay on We Need to Talk About Kevin?
EM: Lynne is someone who, stylistically, maintains instinct as her formal approach. She has this impulse that tells her what she needs to tell her story. She doesn’t even have to work through words in her script or on set; she can find other channels for her notions and directions that come in an abstract sense [and] are very specific. She can look you in the eye and know what has to change in a scene.

MM: How did you prepare for Kevin? Did you do any research for the part?
EM: I did, I always do. There’s always a natural path of investigation where similar stories exist in the world of facts; in this case, sensationalized media stories.

MM: Any directors you’d like to work with in the future?
EM: Yeah, far too many to make one proclamation. The world is teeming with artists, and I want to work with so many of them that I can’t pick just one.

MM: Any advice for other actors?
EM: Make your own stuff. I love the technological capacity of young artists right now to realize their work on such a grand scale. Also, and this is really cheesy, but the only measurement for success as an artist is the level of your belief in yourself. The more you clarify and validate yourself as an artist and the more you can make that commitment, the more joyful the act of creation can be.

Another Happy Day (anotherhappydaymovie.com) hits select theaters in New York and Los Angeles today; We Need to Talk About Kevin is scheduled for release on January 27, 2012.