He read Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in college, long before he directed the film version.
"If you had told me when I was 20 that at the age of 35, I'd be directing it, I wouldn't have believed you," he says.
As an English concentrator, Miller also read the work of Peter DeVries, who wrote the novel upon which Reuben, Reuben was based.
His involvement with the Harvard Dramatic Club, he says, "helped me understand the literature of the theater, if not the screen," though he was an "avid moviegoer" during his Harvard days as well.
Miller's time at Harvard had an influence which was more than professional, however. "I'm happily married to a girl I met in Cambridge," he says.
Miller plans to continue his directing career, shooting a mystery called Swelter, Murder in the Desert, this summer, and then beginning work on a futuristic film which will probably be shot in Brazil.
"I'm busy, and I'm happy," Miller says.