Miles Teller's Complete Transformation
With over 10 years of acting under his belt, Miles Teller is working hard and fast to achieve big dreams. The most audacious one, as he told The Times, is to be "talked about the way people talk about Hoffman and De Niro and Pacino." He wants to aim higher than the actors his own age and earn the high honor of being labeled the "actor of their generation." He has accumulated over 30 screen credits and has nearly as many nominations to show for it. But perhaps what reflects Teller's acting skills more accurately is his credibility.
"I can truly say that there's not a single director or actor who I've worked with who'd have a bad thing to say about me," Teller told Vulture. "I've never missed a day of work. I've never not known a line. So I feel good about where I am." This self-assured confidence has increasingly come to be associated with the "Whiplash" actor's public persona, which has been discussed just as much as his films have.
Teller's journey in films has been far from conventional. After a few setbacks, he made a rather intense debut on the big screen that incidentally mirrored parts of his own life, eventually going on to work with acting greats like Tom Cruise and J.K. Simmons. His transformation has been interesting, to say the least.
Miles Teller was quite the renegade in his younger days
When he was in high school, Miles Teller was the typical all-rounder who is good at everything and friends with everyone. Basically the popular lead of a classic Hollywood coming-of-age film, whose mischievous streak magically never undercuts his academics. Teller told Hero magazine in as many words: "I had my buddies, who I am still friends with now and we partied together. I graduated with a 4.0, I played drums in a rock band, I played baseball and I was president of my drama club." To top it off, he was also homecoming king. Teller defied the prediction of his primary school teacher who, considering Teller's rebellious attitude, was doubtful he would ever graduate.
After completing high school in Florida, Teller attended acting school where his freethinking tendencies found greater scope. "I was smoking multiple times a day every day — you're in theatre school in New York, do it," he told The Guardian. When his acting career kickstarted, however, Teller knew better than to rely on the high of things other than success and sobered up in time. That said, once he found his footing in Hollywood, Teller wasn't averse to (reasonably) embracing his wilder side once more. And the internet is more than familiar with it, thanks to some notorious golden footage that shows that Teller knows how to let loose. More on that later.
He was in a near-fatal accident that impacted his early career
The scars on Miles Teller's face are many years old but the story behind them is still terrifying enough to induce goosebumps. They are the result of a near-fatal accident in 2007, when Teller was 20 years old. It occurred while he was returning to Florida from a Grateful Dead festival he had attended with friends in Connecticut back in 2007. "My buddy lost control of the car, jumped three lanes of traffic, and the car flipped eight times. I went out the window before the car started to roll," Teller said, recounting the tragedy to W magazine. "I was covered in blood by the side of the road." The accident, which majorly impacted the left side of Teller's body, required him to undergo a number of medical interventions that didn't come cheap.
Bills aside, the consequences of the accident also extended to Teller's career when he began auditioning for films. The scars on his face — which several rounds of laser procedures had attempted to treat — were not entirely unnoticeable and stood in the way of Teller landing roles.
"When I was first auditioning for projects, they'd say, 'Miles is a good actor but it doesn't make sense for this character to have scars,'" he recalled to The Guardian. His luck changed when John Cameron Mitchell set about making "Rabbit Hole," a film that somewhat mirrored Teller's lived experience of a car accident. The 2010 drama marked Teller's Hollywood debut.
At 21 years old, he had to come to terms with the deaths of two close friends
Miles Teller was exposed to more than his fair share of grief at a young age. The actor was only just coming to terms with having survived a deadly car crash at the age of 20 when he was forced to confront the deaths of two close friends. Just months after his own ordeal, his pals Nick and Beau — both of whom he'd celebrated his 21st birthday with in 2008 — died in road accidents that same year. Nick was hit by a car that ran a stop sign and rammed into his motorcycle, Teller told The Guardian. "A month after that, one my closest friends, my buddy Beau, passed away, again a car accident," he revealed. "And I was actually sitting next to Beau at Nick's funeral."
These consecutive experiences of grief — severe injuries from an accident followed by the loss of two friends — had a traumatic impact on Teller. He was able to quantify them to some degree while working on his debut feature "Rabbit Hole," which explores themes of death and pain brought on by an accident. According to Teller, director John Cameron Mitchell asked him to tap into his own emotions about Beau to connect with his on-screen character. Teller explained, "Obviously if you went through it, you are closer to it than somebody who hasn't."
Filming Whiplash was not an easy experience for Miles Teller
Miles Teller had already appeared in several films when he starred in Damien Chazelle's 2014 masterwork, "Whiplash." But it was his powerhouse performance as aspiring jazz drummer Andrew Neiman that made industry elites sit up and take notice of him. The psychological drama — which follows a complex, abusive relationship between a student and teacher — shook up the awards circuit that year, winning three Oscars and unanimous praise for leads J.K. Simmons and Teller. For Teller, whose role as Andrew was at the receiving end of Simmons' ruthless Fletcher, "Whiplash" was an especially challenging project. "This is the first movie where I shut myself off from the world. It was, by far, the hardest thing I've ever done," Teller told W magazine.
Teller's drumming in the film is all his own skill, picked up first during his youth and then with hours of training for the film. "I started drumming when I was 15 and I had played in rock bands, but I had never played jazz," he told IndieWire, recalling his moments of frustration while learning this genre of drumming. There was also quite a bit of blood in the film — and some of it was Teller's. "There's a lot of me in the movie ripping off band-aids, putting them on, putting blood on them and sweating," he said. The role made some grueling demands of Teller but also earned him the most nominations for any film in his career.
He has tried to grow a thick skin against the scrutiny that comes with fame
With great acting comes great scrutiny — and Miles Teller is no stranger to this truism. In fact, he was acquainted with it pretty early on in his career when, not long after the success of "Whiplash," Esquire magazine infamously (and rather brazenly) dubbed him as "kind of a d**k." The interview involved a free-flowing conversation with Teller regarding several aspects of his life — including his inclination to live authentically in the face of fame — but its preoccupation with his "d**kishness" is what stuck out. And not in the best way. The cheeky tone of the viral cover story evoked a response from Teller on social media: "I don't think there's anything cool or entertaining about being a d**k or an a**hole. Very misrepresenting."
Besides the Esquire profile, which he admitted affected him personally, Teller was also put under the microscope for letting loose at a Brett Dennen performancethat same year. A widely circulated video of Teller dancing with complete abandon at the event raised some eyebrows, but, as he told Vulture, there was only so much he could do to control the public narrative. "When I'm at a concert I'm looking to escape," he said. "I can't close myself off to doing what I want to do because of how it might get covered." Though he said that people's opinions did matter to him, his self-assuredness prevented others' perspectives from cutting too deep.
He knew he had found 'the one' after meeting Keleigh Teller
Miles Teller and Keleigh Sperry's love story is proof that Hollywood relationships can last. In 2013, the two were attending a party for rock duo The Black Keys when their paths first crossed. Teller recalled to Vogue, "Keleigh had caught my eye early in the night, and we talked." Though the "Spectacular Now" actor was able to get Sperry on her feet and dancing with him, he was initially unsure about the kind of impression he made on her. Unbeknownst to him then, it was a favorable one. "I adored him from the first moment we met," Sperry said.
It didn't take Teller very long to realize Sperry was "the one," as he dubbed her. He recalled telling his friend, "I think I'm going to be with this girl for a long time" (via People). Sure enough, one date turned into a serious relationship. Hand-in-hand, the actor pair took over red carpets, with Sperry enjoying a front-row view of her boyfriend's ever-growing Hollywood distinction. Teller, too, went above and beyond for his girlfriend when the time came to give her a proposal as dreamy as their fairytale romance in 2017. Amidst the surreal landscapes of South Africa, he popped the question to an unsuspecting Sperry, telling her, "This was the first day that I asked you to be my girlfriend, and today was the last day you woke up as my girlfriend." They got married in Maui two years later.
His initial association with La La Land was mired in controversy
Long before "La La Land" went on to sweep major awards and become one of the most successful Hollywood musicals of all time, people chattered about which actors would step into the shoes of leads Mia Dolan and Sebastian Wilder. It was widely reported in the media that Miles Teller — who led Damien Chazelle's award-winning 2014 feature "Whiplash" — would also be attached to the director's next big outing. In fact, as Teller told Esquire, he had been offered the part of Sebastian during the filming of "Whiplash" itself. Things, however, played out differently than expected and, as the world knows, Ryan Gosling ended up claiming this piece of the pie.
Teller recalled how his agent broke the news to him: "Hey, I just got a call from Lionsgate. Damien told them that he no longer thinks you're creatively right for the project." Outlets like Page Six meanwhile quoted insider sources saying that Teller and projected fellow lead Emma Watson were dropped from the musical for "being too demanding." While Teller refuted that speculation — which also alleged that he had asked for more than the $4 million he was offered — he did not divulge the actual conditions behind his departure from the project, only telling Vulture, "I'll go to my grave knowing that when push came to shove I expressed extreme loyalty to Damien and that movie. That's sorta all I can say."
His intense film roles starkly contrast his real laidback character
A lot has been said in the media about the kind of person Miles Teller is. Beyond his supposed "d**kishness," deductions have also been made on the basis of the intense film roles he has come to be associated with in the past decade. But who really is Miles Teller? By his own admission, he is a "pretty chill" guy — contrary to what his on-screen personas might suggest. Acknowledging the reasons behind this polarity, he told PTI, "So, these movies and certain performances, give me an opportunity to kind of go to the extreme that you're not able to go to in life" (via The Print). He added, "I love when the stakes are high, I really enjoy movies that aren't afraid to kind of push the envelope a little bit."
Teller's adventurous undertakings also contrast his simple middle-class background, about which he has often spoken rather matter-of-factly. "I have all my same friends from high school. I'm close with my family. I'm dating a normal girl. So I want to feel people think I'm a man of the people. Because I feel that way," he told The Guardian in 2016. Notwithstanding his typically laid-back, detached demeanor, the "War Dogs" star is given to moments of pompous confidence. As he once told The New York Times, which made note of his "somewhat ridiculous and somehow sincere swagger," about his growing prominence: "I'm pretty hot now."
He seems to have a shared love for music with his family
Miles Teller is a family man through and through — so much so that he wouldn't even mind attending a music festival with his grandparents. "My grandma does not shy away from a cold brewski," he told Vulture when it was suggested that the Teller family likes to party. But it's not just carousing that binds the "Footloose" star's kin together. Music has seemingly been a strong glue for them ever since Teller was young.
"Growing up, you'd come to my house on any given day, and my sister's playing piano, my other sister's singing, my mom's playing a tambourine, and I'm drumming," he told Vanity Fair. Teller tried his hand at a slew of other instruments during his youth — from the saxophone to the piano and the guitar. Thanks to his mother's classic CDs collection, he cultivated a refined musical taste, growing up to indulge in convention-bending acts like the Grateful Dead, as he revealed to NME.
Teller also expressed a desire for mining his musical inclinations for the big screen, wanting to step into the shoes of Elvis Presley in particular. It was a goal of his, he told W magazine in 2014, back when Hollywood wasn't yet saturated with the Austin Butlers and Jacob Elordis of the world mimicking the king of rock 'n' roll. Teller explained passionately, "I think he and I look alike and do a lot of similar things well: sing, dance, and I think he played sports."
He found himself in a strange controversy involving anti-vaxxers and Taylor Swift fans
Miles Teller may be married to one of Taylor Swift's closest friends, but it's an advantage that granted the actor zero immunity from being remonstrated by the pop sensation's loyal fanbase when the occasion calls for it. In 2021, when COVID-19 concerns were at an all-time high, the Daily Mail reported that Teller had allegedly refused to take the vaccine, contracted the disease, and consequently caused a shutdown of the production of the Paramount+ series "The Offer." A source said, "He wouldn't even get the test. Now he's brought the virus to the set and the whole set had to shut down." Teller's rep dismissed the claims, but the rebuttal did little to clear the air around the actor's vaccination status that was put under wide public speculation — and quite reproachfully so.
The scrutiny only surged when Teller appeared in Swift's music video for "I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor's Version)" later that year — especially considering that the video expressed gratitude for a COVID-19 safety team. The social media interrogation was predominantly led by Swift's legion of devoted Swifties, whose massive influence on pop culture is no secret. Teller got a taste of it first hand and, amid burgeoning pressure, was compelled to clarify on X, formerly Twitter. "Hey guys, I don't usually feel the need to address rumors on here but I am vaccinated and have been for a while. The only thing I'm anti is hate" (via Vanity Fair).
He has had long conversations with Tom Cruise on the phone
Imagine being call buddies with Tom Cruise! Unlike the rest of us, Miles Teller can do more than just daydream about having a direct line to one of the world's highest-grossing film stars. He can pick up the phone and actually dial his "Top Gun: Maverick" co-star at will, and, as he told Daily Pop, it's a privilege he has enjoyed on more than one occasion. "When we first started getting going and as we developed a personal relationship outside of this filming, Tom told me, he said, 'Miles, call me if you need anything,' and he meant it," Teller said, revealing that he periodically turns to Cruise for advice.
However, this proximity to a film giant who has seen the ins and outs of cinema for over four decades comes with a caveat that could make the socially anxious recoil in fear. According to Teller, Cruise can go on for hours on the phone about movies, and, while the average film nut would hardly find this something worth complaining about, there is only so much knowledge one can absorb at a time. Apparently, even Teller has often felt compelled to cut Cruise short: "It's like an hour and a half, two hours, I'm like, 'Tom, I love you man. I gotta go.'" That said, it's not all chitchat. Teller told ET Online that their conversations have also included talk of another "Top Gun" film in the future.