ERYKAH BADU: Ezra, how are you?

EZRA MILLER: I’m delighted. I’m honored. I’m intimidated. It’s a rainy night here in London. How are you?

BADU: I’m exquisite. I think you’re so interesting, and I have so many questions for you.

MILLER: I’ll have attempts at answers for you.

BADU: I’ve seen you perform with your band, Sons of an Illustrious Father.

MILLER: I didn’t know your presence was among us.

BADU: When I watch you perform, I’m actually watching you communicate. And the way you communicate is the way I communicate. When I’m singing, it feels like I become one living, breathing organism with everything around me. So I’m really interested in this voice of yours, in this frequency that you are feeding into the universe. Tell me six adjectives that describe how you feel right now.

MILLER: Hmm, well, my legs are a little wet because they’re poking out under the awning, and it’s delightful.

BADU: Delightful, that’s one.

MILLER: This water that’s falling on my legs reminds me of the beauty of healing, and how the Flash will sometimes slow down the frequency of his molecules in order to pass through a solid structure. It feels good.

BADU: Good. Give me four more.

MILLER: Delicious. Rapturous.

BADU: Delicious. Rapturous.

MILLER: Engaged.

BADU: Engaged.

MILLER: I feel wonderfully insignificant. I feel like one of those little bugs that hops across the water in this rain.

BADU: I love the humility. We’re in an industry that thrives on power and enthusiasm and outgoingness. How do you find the silence underneath it all?

MILLER: It’s such a dangerous thing, isn’t it? To endeavor to be a reflective surface. I think that artists don’t make art—the art makes itself through us. I’m not the doer, you know? I’m just along for the ride. Acting really reminds me of that because I don’t write the words; I don’t make the decisions. That’s the director. Narcissism is a tragic condition. It must be so miserable to live trapped in a reflection that only includes the smallest version of our identities. Our true identities should have no bounds and no limits. I heard that for a disorder to be listed in DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders], a small enough population must have it, and that narcissism in the United States has actually fallen off the list because so many people at this point fit that analysis.

BADU: It sounds like you’ve come to the understanding that you don’t really need anything in order to be or to construct or to perform. It sounds like what you are describing is simply love. What is love to you?

MILLER: Miss Erykah Badu, if only I had the words. I think there are a million ways to say it. But if I had to try to sum up love, I’d describe it as connective tissue, as the blood of the universe or the water that runs through all of the cosmos. The Flash’s symbol is a lightning bolt over the heart. If there’s any sort of superpower we desperately need right now, it’s this transcendental force that reminds us of union and connection. I know it sounds a little cheesy and cliché, but I think that superhero stories come from somewhere. We make these aspirational images—whether it be wizards or superheroes— to remind us that we actually have this capacity in ourselves already. I think that electricity can run through disconnected wires, no matter how broken and mangled they are. Superheroes, every single one of them, come from the world of imagination and they’re played by humans, they’re written by humans, and it’s in the belief that we invest in these characters that they come to life.