Miles Teller's Stunning Transformation
Miles Teller has made a habit of choosing quality indie projects over blockbuster paychecks. It's that uncompromising attitude that has made him one of the most intriguing actors of his generation, but how did he get there?
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00:00Miles Teller has made a habit of choosing quality indie projects over blockbuster paychecks.
00:06It's that uncompromising attitude that has made him one of the most intriguing
00:10actors of his generation. But how did he get there?
00:14Miles Teller was born in Downingtown, Pennsylvania,
00:18a small town situated about halfway between Philadelphia and Lancaster.
00:23As a youngster, Teller gravitated towards sports, taking a particular interest in baseball.
00:28A lifelong fan of the Philadelphia Phillies,
00:31Teller's childhood dream was to someday play for his favorite team.
00:35I literally watch every game. If I can't watch it live, I'm, you know, I'm game-casting it."
00:40In an interview with People magazine, he explained,
00:43"[When I was a young kid, I wasn't sharing stories of philosophy and this and that.
00:48It was baseball. It seems like a simple game, but it's endless."
00:52As he hit adolescence, Teller continued to pursue a baseball career. Eventually,
00:57though, he was forced to confront reality, telling People that although he played in high
01:02school, he was pretty small. Speaking to Rolling Stone, he confessed,
01:06"[I hit a lawn gnome full of ecstasy in Project X with a baseball bat.
01:11So that was kind of the closest I think I'll get."
01:13But during that interview, Teller shared that he'd bought the rights to a book about baseball,
01:18in hopes of adapting it into a film, musing,
01:21"[That's a perfect world if I can get paid to pretend to be a baseball player.]
01:26In Teller's sophomore year at Locanto High School in Florida,
01:30he joined the drama program, largely because he had a crush on the teacher, Beth Betty.
01:35But when he was cast in the role of country bumpkin Willard in a production of Footloose,
01:39everything changed. He told the Tampa Bay Times,
01:42"[When I got on stage and got the first laugh, I was hooked.
01:46It absolutely felt like something had been missing from my life up to that point."
01:50Looking back, Teller credited Betty and the lessons he learned from her with his future
01:54success, admitting,
01:56"[Absolutely, without her I don't think I would've ended up where I'm at.]
02:00In a strange full-circle coincidence, several years after portraying Willard on stage,
02:05Teller was cast in the same role in the 2011 remake of Footloose.
02:10After high school, Teller set his sights on becoming a working actor. He showed enough
02:15promise that he was accepted into the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute within
02:21NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Students were taught Strasberg's version of what's
02:27known as method acting, which, as Teller shared in an interview with the Los Angeles Times,
02:32resulted in some offbeat classroom moments. He joked,
02:36"[At Strasberg, half the class was crying at any given time,
02:40trying to tap into an emotional memory."
02:42Humor aside, Strasberg's technique impacted Teller profoundly,
02:46and he took his studies seriously, telling Vulture,
02:49"'That's what I aspired to do. The whole idea of working on acting in a small room,
02:54doing memory exercises where you're sitting in a chair for four hours trying to really
02:59feel a coffee cup. That's the experience I wanted. I really consider acting a high art."
03:05"'I don't feel the weight of that. Is that a potato? Smell it. Deal with it. Absorb it.'"
03:11Teller has remained connected with his alma mater. As he explained to Vogue,
03:16Whenever he's back in New York and his schedule allows,
03:19he offers to share his experience through Q&A sessions with acting students.
03:23"'I loved that when I was there. Seeing someone who was working,
03:26asking them questions, it kind of lets you know that it's possible.'"
03:31Teller's love of The Grateful Dead nearly led to tragedy when he and some friends were driving
03:36home from a 2007 Deadhead festival. The vehicle skidded and flipped eight times. Teller recalled
03:43to The Guardian,
03:44"'The guy driving, he was fine. My buddy, he was sleeping in the back.
03:48I even had a bag of tomatoes that were fine. Everything was fine except for my face.'"
03:53"'My mom said, you're an actor, so use this opportunity to, like,
03:56make stuff up. Say you were cage diving with great white sharks.'"
04:00While Teller downplayed his injuries, they were severe,
04:04including a broken wrist and 20 staples in his shoulder. As for his face, he required
04:10numerous surgical procedures that left scars, and he still has two pieces of
04:15gravel embedded beneath the skin. At the time, Teller was just launching his acting career.
04:21"'You know, I'd go meet a casting director, and they would tell my agent, you know,
04:23Miles is a good actor, but it doesn't make sense for the character to have scars.'"
04:26While Teller's scars have become less noticeable over the years,
04:30they were still quite apparent when he auditioned for the 2010 film
04:34Rabbit Hole. According to Teller, his scars struck a chord with the film's director,
04:39sharing,
04:39"'And then Rabbit Hole director John Cameron Mitchell was like, I love it, it tells a secret.'"
04:45Being cast in Rabbit Hole was a game-changer for Teller. He played a teenager who accidentally
04:51kills the young son of a suburban couple, played by Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart,
04:57then winds up forming an unexpected bond with the dead child's mother,
05:01and his performance got plenty of attention. Up to that point, Teller's screen credits consisted
05:07of a few student films and a guest spot on a TV cop show. To suddenly be sharing
05:12scenes with Kidman and Eckhart was a heady experience for the young actor.
05:16As he shared with Movieline,
05:18"'You have to act like it's no big deal. It's very unnerving.'"
05:22After his big-screen debut in Rabbit Hole, Teller appeared in more movies,
05:26including Project X, The Spectacular Now, and, of course, the Footloose remake.
05:31Then there was Whiplash. In the low-budget indie, shot in just 19 days,
05:36Teller plays an aspiring jazz drummer attending music school,
05:40pushed to the breaking point by a demanding professor played by J.K. Simmons.
05:45Teller was tasked with learning to play the drums convincingly on-screen.
05:49He wasn't a complete neophyte. He'd taught himself to play drums at 15
05:53and played in some teenage rock bands, but jazz drumming was a whole new level.
05:58"'Played piano and saxophone in our school, but as I started getting older, I was like,
06:01oh man, the drummers, you know, the coolest guys, Quest knows."
06:04Speaking with IndieWire, he explained,
06:06"'It's a very high form of percussion.'"
06:08Even so, nearly all of the drumming in the film came from him. Whiplash was nominated for five
06:14Academy Awards and won three, including a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Simmons.
06:20The critical acclaim from Whiplash presented Miles Teller with some big opportunities.
06:26Chief among these was the chance to join the Marvel Universe as Reed
06:30Mr. Fantastic Richards in 2015's Fantastic Four. But Teller's experience with the superhero genre
06:37wound up being a downer when the film was savaged by critics and tanked at the box office.
06:43Teller placed the blame squarely on the screenplay. In an appearance on the Happy
06:47Sad Confused podcast, he pulled no punches, saying,
06:51"'I think it was Clooney who said,
06:53you can make a bad movie out of a good script. You can't make a good movie out of a bad script.'"
06:58And that's very true.
07:00"'You gotta work that much harder when the script's not quite there. You can only get
07:03away with so many, like, bombs.'"
07:06In 2013, Teller was attending a Grammys afterparty when he met Kelly Sperry. He later told Vogue,
07:13"'After we met, I knew she was the one.'"
07:15Teller and Sperry began dating, and in 2017, he popped the question while the two were on
07:20safari in South Africa. Sperry told Vogue she spotted an out-of-place rose on a tree.
07:26When she inspected it, she realized it had a note attached.
07:30Written there was the date they'd started dating. She recalled,
07:33"'I turned around and he read it and said,
07:35that was the first day you became my girlfriend, and today is the last,
07:39and he got down on one knee. It was really romantic.'"
07:43In 2019, the couple tied the knot in a destination wedding on Maui.
07:48The same year Teller got married, he entered into a new business venture that had nothing to do
07:53with Hollywood — the Finnish Long Drink, a gin-based alcoholic beverage sold in cans
07:58that's become popular in its native Finland. Teller told Forbes he sampled it at a liquor
08:04store, and before long he'd made a sizable investment in the brand. He explained,
08:08"'I drink it all the time just because it's so refreshing.'"
08:12Fellow investors include Norwegian EDM star DJ Kygo and pro golfer Ricky Fowler. Together,
08:19the team raised $25 million to put toward strengthening American distribution.
08:24That push yielded big results when sales grew by more than 100 percent in a single year,
08:30propelling the Finnish Long Drink to become America's fourth-largest ready-to-drink booze brand.
08:36In November 2021, global music superstar Taylor Swift unveiled her music video
08:43for I Bet You Think About Me, which featured Teller and his wife.
08:46Swift took to Instagram to thank them for appearing in the video, writing,
08:50"'So grateful to Miles for being the greatest dance partner and friend to me,
08:55and Kelly Teller who is the coolest living human on planet Earth.'"
08:58As it turned out, the Tellers had been friends with Swift for years,
09:02with Swift sending flowers and a sweet note to the couple on the occasion of their wedding.
09:07Their friendship continued, and in December 2023, they accompanied Swift in New York City
09:13while she celebrated her 34th birthday with Blake Lively and Selena Gomez, among others.
09:19The following month, Swift brought Kelly as her plus one to the Golden Globe Awards.
09:24The Tellers even joined Swift to watch her boyfriend,
09:27Travis Kelce, win the Super Bowl in February 2024.
09:31When he was interviewed by Australia's The Project, Teller jokingly admitted he was fearful
09:36of Swift's notoriously loyal fans and had no intention of ever doing anything that
09:42would rile up the Swifties.
09:43"'They'll find you at like a Starbucks or something.'"
09:46Over the course of his career, Teller has appeared in small indie films and big-budget blockbusters.
09:52But the biggest project he's been involved in to date is Top Gun Maverick,
09:57the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 Tom Cruise classic.
10:01"'I can go as low as you, sir, and that's saying something.'"
10:04Teller portrayed Bradley Rooster Bradshaw,
10:07a fighter pilot whose late father Goose was the best friend of Cruise's character Maverick.
10:12But accepting the role came with some trepidation.
10:16In an interview with Men's Health, Teller admitted,
10:18"'I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but there was a part of me that didn't
10:22know if I wanted to be a part of something that could bring that much attention and success to me.
10:27Everybody views success differently.
10:29For me, it didn't necessarily mean being a part of the biggest movie.'"
10:33As predicted, the film was a huge success,
10:36and plans were soon underway for a third Top Gun movie, with both Teller and Cruise set to return.
10:42However, work on the sequel has progressed slowly.
10:45In May 2024, producer Jerry Bruckheimer told GamesRadar,
10:50"'We're not there yet. There's a ways to go.'"
10:52"'It's not the plane, sir. It's the pilot.'"
10:55A long delay is perfectly fine with Teller,
10:58who doesn't feel driven to make multiple movies per year. As he told Men's Health,
11:02"'I'm not one of those people who worry about if people don't see me every six months.
11:07I don't feel like my career is dying.'"
11:09In early 2024, Deadline reported that Teller had joined the cast of Michael,
11:14a big-budget biopic about Michael Jackson, to be directed by Antoine Fuqua.
11:20Teller was set to play attorney John Branca, one of the film's producers,
11:24who was Jackson's manager at the time of his death in 2009 and is co-executor of Jackson's estate.
11:31The announcement, however, generated controversy after reports emerged that the screenplay would
11:37sidestep the lingering allegations of child sexual abuse that cast a pall over Jackson's
11:43final years. When asked by Variety about the controversy, Teller insisted that he considers
11:49all aspects about every project he takes on, and that was certainly the case with this one.
11:54He explained,
11:56"'Before I choose any role, I consider everything about it. Regardless of what you know or what
12:01your opinion may be, Michael is one of the greatest to ever do it, if not the greatest.
12:07He deserves a movie, and I'm excited to be a part of it."