Fantastic Beasts star Ezra Miller revealed to EW that he landed the role of the craziest member of the Walkin Dudes army. That’s right Miller landed the role of the Trashcan Man in the upcoming reimagining of Stephen King’s The Stand.
The Stand is about a global pandemic where a super flu named Captain Trips, which kills more than 99 percent of the population. The 1 percent of immune are left to battle for the soul of the future world. Ezra Miller‘s character, Trash, is a pyromaniac with less than stable mental capacity. He is recruited to join those in “New Vegas” who are led by the evil Randall Flagg (Alexander Skarsgard).
The casting details for Trash were kept quiet until now, but fans of the book and the original series have been wondering who could take on this role. Now we know that Ezra Miller has taken up the matches. EW even gave us a first look at Miller’s character in all his pyro glory.
“It’s so different from any way that anyone has seen Erza (Miller) before, and he’s so committed to it,” says The Stand showrunner Benjamin Cavell. “He’s a huge fan of the book and had fallen in love with this character and wanted to play it for a long time. On our first call, he described Trash as ‘the embodiment of pyromania.’ The only thing this guy was capable of, and the only area in life he was comfortable, were with the explosives and instruments of fire and destruction.”
“He wears basically no clothes except for his extensive tactical gear,” Cavell adds. “So he just kind of in underwear and combat boots … the character has to be right on the edge of over-the-top. But no matter how strangely he’s behaving there’s always this Ezra Miller soul as a twinkle coming through. I can’t say enough about how brilliant he is in it.”
“What excites me is the deception of behavior and appearances,” Miller wrote in an email from the Fantastic Beasts 3 set where he’s reprising his role as Credence Barebone. “Trash is the underestimated and misinterpreted amongst us.”
“‘Fireproof underwear’ were two of the first words out of my mouth in the first conceptual meeting,” Ezra Miller wrote to EW. “I was very interested in working directly with the wardrobe department in creating a look based entirely on the practical demands of the characters pyromania. Trash wears nothing but what is necessary to craft incendiaries, ignite them, and get as close to the flames as possible — in order to revel in the fire.”
The rest of the survivors land in Boulder and are led by Mother Abagail (Whoopi Goldberg) and James Marsden as Stu Redman, Odessa Young as Frannie Goldsmith, Jovan Adepo as Larry Underwood, Amber Heard as Nadine Cross, and Owen Teague as Harold Lauder.
Also cast are Henry Zaga as Nick Andros, Brad William Henke as Tom Cullen, Irene Bedard as Ray Bretner, Nat Wolff as Lloyd Henreid, Eion Bailey as Weizak, Heather Graham as Rita Blakemoor, Katherine McNamara as Julie Lawry, Fiona Dourif as Rat Woman, Natalie Martinez as Dayna Jurgens, Hamish Linklater as Dr. Jim Ellis, Daniel Sunjata as Cobb, and Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman.
You can check out Ezra Miller and the rest of the cast in latest trailer for The Stand below and the limited series premieres on CBS All Access on Thursday, Dec. 17. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for more of all thing horror.
