A brush with death that left him scarred for life, flame retardants in his blood, and a Hawaii trip from hell. Miles Teller may be an A-lister, but the road to fame left him bloodied and bruised.
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00:00A brush with death that left him scarred for life, flame retardants in his blood,
00:05and a Hawaii trip from hell, Miles Teller may be an A-lister,
00:08but the road to fame left him bloodied and bruised.
00:12Ever wonder where Teller got his scars? They came from a horrific car wreck when he was 20.
00:17He told W Magazine,
00:18"'My buddy' lost control of the car, jumped three lanes of traffic,
00:21and the car flipped eight times. Teller was thrown from the rolling car and badly wounded."
00:26He explained,
00:27"'Everyone was yelling, where's Miles?' I was covered in blood by the side of the road."
00:31"'One of those things where I woke up in a hospital and
00:33the doctor was like stitching up my face.'"
00:35The incident left Teller with scars on his face and neck,
00:38damage to his shoulder, and a broken wrist. Teller was a college student at the time and
00:42on the way home from a road trip to a music festival in Connecticut with a bunch of friends.
00:47Despite the extensive scarring, he told Esquire that he didn't hold a grudge against the driver.
00:52He insisted,
00:53"'I never blamed him. I got a lot of laser surgery on my face,
00:56like what they use for getting rid of tattoos, like very painful,
01:00but I never wanted him to feel bad.'"
01:02Eventually, though, Teller had to sue his friend's insurance to cover his medical bills,
01:06and his friend wasn't happy. He recalled,
01:09"'After that, I was like, man, f— you. Like, I've never made you feel bad for this.
01:13For you to make me feel guilty and make me feel like you're the victim here,
01:16that's really f—ed up.'"
01:18It took a long time for Teller to recover from the accident. In fact,
01:22the doctors decided to leave two pieces of gravel embedded in his face that are still there today.
01:27"'Oh God, I feel it. It's like gravel.'
01:28"'Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, it's like two, two pieces of gravel.'"
01:32A few years after his accident, Teller began going out on auditions,
01:35hoping to break into Hollywood. But because he had so many scars,
01:39casting directors wouldn't consider him for roles. He told The Guardian,
01:42"'When I was first auditioning for projects, they'd say,
01:45Miles is a good actor, but it doesn't make sense for his character to have scars.'"
01:49Director John Cameron Mitchell, on the other hand, felt that the scars worked for a character
01:53in the film Rabbit Hole. He cast Teller as a kid responsible for an accident that
01:57takes the life of a child, giving the actor his big break.
02:01"'John Cameron Mitchell was like, I love it. It tells a secret.'"
02:05Teller's car accident wasn't the only one that affected his life.
02:08The following February, he hung out with seven friends for his 21st birthday.
02:12Little did he know it would be one of the last times he saw some of them.
02:16Teller recalled to The Guardian,
02:17"'In June, one of those guys, Nick, passed away in a motorcycle accident.
02:21A car ran a stop sign and T-boned him. I was at the hospital. He was on life support.
02:26They pulled the plug the next day. Tragically,
02:28an accident took the life of another friend soon after that."
02:31He explained,
02:32"'A month after that, one of my closest friends, my buddy Beau, passed away,
02:36again a car accident, and I was actually sitting next to Beau at Nick's funeral.
02:40So at my 21st birthday, seven of my buddies are there. Five months later,
02:45two of them are gone.'"
02:46Teller's horrific experiences affected the role he played in Rabbit Hole.
02:50Speaking with Esquire, Teller explained that he used his real-life trauma to inform his
02:54fictional character in a way that made him uncomfortable. He said,
02:57"'I knew what it felt like to hug a mother the day she lost her son. I didn't want to do it,
03:01and I still think you shouldn't use acting as therapy. That was the closest I ever got to that.'"
03:06In May 2021, TMZ reported Teller had been attacked in Hawaii. The outlet claimed that
03:12Teller was punched in the face by a wedding planner who had worked on his 2019 wedding
03:16to Kelly Sperry, reportedly over an unpaid bill. They wrote,
03:20"'We're told the two got into it outside the bathroom,
03:22and Miles screamed that he was going to press charges.'"
03:25Teller took to X to confirm that he'd been assaulted,
03:28seemingly denying the fight was over wedding bills. He wrote,
03:31"'I got jumped by two guys in a bathroom. Never met them before in my life.'"
03:34Police released a statement to Entertainment Weekly,
03:37though they didn't go into much detail about what was responsible for the fight. They wrote,
03:41"'Police responded to a report of an assault that occurred at a West Maui restaurant
03:45involving a male victim and one responsible party. No further information is available at this time.'"
03:51Even though he'd been socked in the face, Teller was apparently fine after the attack,
03:55save for a black eye.
03:57While filming Top Gun Maverick, Teller and his co-stars had to perform dangerous stunts for
04:01hours at a time in real fighter planes. While appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers,
04:06Teller told an anecdote about feeling sick after performing an action sequence in his plane.
04:11"'I was really hot and I just started itching like crazy,
04:14so I get out of the jet and I'm just covered in hives, like head to toe.'"
04:18A visit to the doctor confirmed that his veins were laced with chemicals from the engine fumes.
04:22"'And my blood work comes back and I have flame retardant pesticides and jet fuel in my blood.'"
04:28He thankfully recovered, and when he returned to the Top Gun Maverick set,
04:31he told Tom Cruise about his unusual diagnosis.
04:35I was like, well, Tom, it turns out I have jet fuel in my blood.
04:40And without even skipping a beat, Tom just goes, yeah, I was born with a kid.