The Tragic True-Life Story Of Miles Teller
A tragic car accident, a public assault, and losing his friends — Thanks to Top Gun: Maverick, Miles Teller is finally a household name, but his journey to stardom has been anything but easy.
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00:00A tragic car accident, a public assault, and losing his friends, thanks to Top Gun maverick,
00:05Miles Teller is finally a household name, but his journey to stardom has been anything
00:09but easy.
00:11Tragedy struck Miles Teller's life well before he embarked on his acting career.
00:15In 2007, Teller was in his junior year in college at New York University, and he went
00:19with some friends to a music festival.
00:21Teller was a passenger on the way back from the festival when the car he was riding in
00:25flipped going 80 miles per hour.
00:28He was tossed 30 feet from the vehicle, and the accident left him with scars all along
00:32his face, neck, and chin.
00:34If you've never noticed the scars before, that's because Teller underwent a ton of treatment
00:39to have them lightened.
00:40He once told Esquire,
00:41"...I got a lot of laser surgery on my face.
00:44Like what they use for getting rid of tattoos?
00:46Like very painful."
00:47The laser treatment went on for two years, and even though now it seems inevitable that
00:51the scars wouldn't get in the way of Teller's career, at the time, it wasn't so obvious.
00:55When I first started auditioning, people straight up were like, yeah, Miles is a good actor.
00:59It doesn't make sense for this character to have scars."
01:01The reactions Teller got were demoralizing, but eventually he landed in front of John
01:05Cameron Mitchell, who saw a way to incorporate the scars into Teller's character.
01:10The director gave Teller his first feature-length role in 2010's Rabbit Hole.
01:14I'm sorry.
01:16Oh, I know."
01:20The facial scars weren't the only effect Teller felt from that accident.
01:23The incident also ended up costing him most of the friends that he'd made through his
01:27college years.
01:28In an interview with Esquire, Teller explained that he didn't blame his roommate, who was
01:32the driver, for the accident, but it pushed the two of them into a bigger confrontation.
01:37He told the publication,
01:38"...I was racking up all these medical bills, so we had to sue his insurance because he
01:42was driving.
01:43It's not like we're suing him, we're suing his insurance."
01:46Teller's roommate didn't see things the same way, and he told Teller that they couldn't
01:49be friends anymore.
01:51Teller said he felt as though he were being blamed for an accident he had nothing to do
01:55with.
01:56Their falling out rippled into the rest of their friend group.
01:58Most of Teller's friends, the actor said, took his roommate's side and moved in with
02:02him shortly after the incident.
02:04Luckily, Teller was still close with his high school friend group, so he didn't become completely
02:08isolated after the accident.
02:10Less than a year after Teller's accident, a motorcycle crash killed his childhood friend
02:15Nick.
02:16A car blew through an intersection and hit Teller's friend, who ended up at the hospital
02:20in critical condition.
02:21Teller told Esquire,
02:22"...I was in the hospital when they pulled the plug on my one friend.
02:25I knew what it felt like to hug a mother the day she lost her son."
02:28A month later, yet another car accident killed Teller's friend Bo.
02:32In a space of just a year, Teller nearly died, turned 21, and then lost two of his closest
02:37friends.
02:38All of that happened before Teller had really begun acting professionally.
02:41But that emotional energy is something that has stuck with him all these years later.
02:45He told The Guardian,
02:46"...It'll definitely impact on me for the rest of my life, for sure."
02:50Teller had a fantastic run of movies after making his feature-length acting debut in
02:54Rabbit Hole.
02:55He went from that movie to high-profile films like Footloose, Project X, and Whiplash, before
03:01landing an ongoing role in the Divergent franchise.
03:04Divergent might have seemed like a big opportunity for Teller, but there are some signs that
03:07he didn't enjoy working on the film.
03:09In an interview with W Magazine, Teller said,
03:11"...I didn't have an interesting part, and I'd taken the film for business reasons."
03:15"...Do you ever stop talking?"
03:16"...I just want to know how she does it.
03:20What's her trick?"
03:21He later walked back that statement on X, then Twitter, and clarified to the Los Angeles
03:25Times that by business reasons, he meant a chance to play a villain in an international
03:29movie alongside Shailene Woodley.
03:32After course-correcting his comments, Teller went on to star in the Divergent sequel, Insurgent,
03:37and from there, the series started running into its own trouble.
03:40Insurgent debuted to terrible reviews, and a year later its sequel, Allegiant, did the
03:44same.
03:45The series was supposed to culminate in a fourth movie called Ascendant, but Lionsgate
03:49decided to shift the finale away from a theatrical release.
03:52The actors weren't thrilled with the new plan, and eventually the series fell apart before
03:56ever reaching the finish line.
03:58Starring in a young adult series didn't work out for Teller, and neither did diving into
04:02a comic book universe.
04:04The year after Teller appeared in Divergent, he made his debut as Reed Richards, one of
04:08Marvel Universe's greatest heroes.
04:10Directed by Josh Trank, 2015's Fantastic Four isn't part of the MCU, and it tried to tell
04:15a grittier story about Marvel's First Family than the 2005 adaptation did.
04:20By most metrics, Trank's take on the Fantastic Four utterly failed.
04:24The movie barely managed to break even on its $120 million budget, and on Rotten Tomatoes,
04:29it has a stunning 9% approval rating.
04:32I am smarter than you.
04:34Fantastic Four was the beginning and end of Teller's foray into being a superhero.
04:38The movie's reception would be enough to sour any actor on the genre, but Teller reportedly
04:42had a rough time while working on the film.
04:44He and Trank constantly butted heads, and a rumor spread that the two of them nearly
04:49got into a physical altercation while on set.
04:52Trank is trying to downplay those rumors in interviews, but Teller has been more coy while
04:56talking about his experience on the movie.
04:58He told Newsweek,
04:59If something happens on set, I think you should be professional about it.
05:02I don't think you need to talk too much about it.
05:04Teller was still early in his career when Damien Chazelle's whiplash put him in the
05:08spotlight in a way he'd never been before.
05:11The movie, which won three Oscars, gave Teller a huge platform.
05:14Show me your rudiments.
05:16Yes, sir.
05:20It seemed only natural that he'd want to work with Chazelle again on the director's next
05:24project, La La Land.
05:25For a while, Teller was supposed to play the lead alongside Emma Stone.
05:29When he lost out on the role, a report claimed that he'd been passed over because he demanded
05:33a $6 million paycheck after being offered $4 million.
05:37Teller later claimed that the story was completely false and that he'd been fully on board for
05:41the movie until getting a surprise text from his agent saying that Chazelle wanted to go
05:45with someone else.
05:46All right, I remember you.
05:49Losing out on a massive role is bad enough, but having the rumor hit his reputation made
05:53the situation so much worse for Teller.
05:55Years later, he told Vulture,
05:56I can 1,000 percent assure you that if there was a part I wanted to play, I would not turn
06:01down $4 million to do it.
06:04In interviews, Teller often tries to put his best foot forward and present himself as a
06:08hard-working actor who focuses most of his attention on his craft.
06:11There's absolutely truth in that characterization, but the world has also gotten to witness another
06:16side of Teller.
06:17In June 2017, Teller was arrested by San Diego law enforcement after appearing to be drunk
06:22in public.
06:23The news framed Teller as a bit of a party animal, and that might be why he took to social
06:26media to try and soften the story.
06:29He tweeted,
06:30Went down to SD to see my buddy before he deployed.
06:32I wasn't arrested, I was detained because there was no evidence to charge me with a
06:36crime.
06:37Let's quickly line up with the story that the police told, however.
06:40According to Variety, the police said Teller had the choice of going to a detox center
06:44to sober up but became argumentative and uncooperative, leading to his arrest.
06:48In 2021, Teller found himself back in the news after being assaulted while on a trip
06:53to Maui with his wife and their friends Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers.
06:58Teller and his wife were reportedly eating dinner when Teller went to the bathroom and
07:01was confronted by two men.
07:03He was punched in the face, and the story began to get even stranger.
07:06Not long after Teller was assaulted, TMZ reported that the assailant was a wedding
07:10planner Teller and his wife had hired to plan their 2019 ceremony.
07:15According to that story, the wedding planner was upset because he believed Teller owed
07:18him $60,000.
07:20That story was quickly refuted by Teller's wife, who posted on her Instagram story that
07:24Teller had been assaulted by two strangers.
07:26She wrote,
07:27It seems these same men have done this to many people and we appreciate your support,
07:31Maui.
07:32This is now a criminal investigation.
07:34Later on his own social media, Teller confirmed that he'd been attacked by two men and that
07:38he didn't know either of them.
07:39Later reporting indicated that though Teller might not have known the men, one of them
07:42was apparently married to the wedding planner who'd worked with Teller in 2019.
07:46The man who allegedly punched Teller was eventually charged with assault, and this entire strange
07:51incident slowly slid out of public view.
07:54Top Gun Maverick was one of the biggest and most widely successful films of Miles Teller's
07:59career.
08:00Filming it was also one of the biggest challenges that Teller faced as an actor.
08:03Teller and his co-stars really took to the skies for various shots throughout the movie,
08:07and while they were in the air, they had to operate their own cameras, hold their attention
08:10on the scene itself, and keep their lunch down while flying through the air.
08:14It was a unique experience, but Teller was less than enthused, telling TechRadar,
08:18I like when other people are doing their job and I only have to worry about acting.
08:22This is a taxiway, not a runway.
08:25The technicality of filming Top Gun was actually the least Teller had to worry about while
08:29working on the movie.
08:30His bigger challenge was dealing with a horrible allergic reaction that immediately sent him
08:35to the doctor.
08:36Coming back from a flight, Teller realized that his entire body was covered in hives.
08:40He got blood drawn and discovered that the reaction came from pesticides and jet fuel
08:44that had worked their way into his body.
08:46Teller said on Late Night with Seth Meyers that the next day on set, Tom Cruise asked
08:50him what the doctors found out, and he told Cruise he had jet fuel in his blood.
08:54And without even skipping a beat, Tom just goes, yeah, I was born with it, kid.
08:58All the way back in 2015, just as Miles Teller's career was really beginning to take off, the
09:03actor sat down for an interview with Esquire.
09:06That piece offered some interesting insights into Teller's approach to acting and some
09:09heart-wrenching details of his personal life.
09:11It also presented the actor in a fairly negative light.
09:14Teller later described his personal reaction to the piece in an interview with The Guardian,
09:18saying,
09:19Oh, I felt frickin' helpless.
09:20I felt extremely misrepresented.
09:22I felt a little angry.
09:23He went on to say that the piece caused him to think more carefully when speaking to reporters
09:28and that he'd sometimes purposefully try to present himself as being boring so there'd
09:32be less to say about him.
09:33That piece colored Teller's reputation for years, and it's something he's reflected on
09:37over and over again.
09:38He once told Vulture,
09:39Maybe some people have been turned off of me because I take what I'm doing pretty seriously
09:43and I don't feel the need to charm everybody.
09:45The piece didn't hold back Teller's career by any means, but it still left a mark on
09:49him.
09:50He went on,
09:51I absolutely do care what people think about me.