The Untold Truth Of Miles Teller
Miles Teller had a pretty ordinary childhood. He was born in Pennsylvania to mom Merry Flowers and dad Mike Teller before they moved across the country to states like Georgia, Delaware, and New Jersey. Teller spent the rest of his childhood in Lecanto, Florida — a place he still considers to be his home despite the fact he's resided in Los Angeles since 2009.
As a naturally gifted student and athlete, acting wasn't really even on Teller's radar until he started high school. But, after a few memorable theater roles, he'd completely fall in love with it. Now, he's starred alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Tom Cruise, Chris Hemsworth, and Nicole Kidman, to name a few. As his career progressed, Teller scored memorable roles in movies like "Footloose," "Divergent" and "Whiplash." But it was his turn as Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw in "Top Gun: Maverick," which cemented his star status — and that shirtless beach scene certainly didn't hurt. Of course, Teller is continuing to look at ways to improve and evolve by setting goals for himself, such as playing Elvis Presley in the future.
From the outside, it might seem like Teller's had a pretty easy life, but there's a lot about the actor that even his superfans might not know. From the highs and lows of his career to the surprising career path he almost pursued and the fact that he was involved in a life-changing car accident before he turned 21, here's the untold truth of Miles Teller.
He wanted to be a baseball player
It's strange to think what "Footloose" would have been like without Miles Teller as Willard or if "Top Gun: Maverick" would have been quite as good without him. But that nearly almost was the case because acting wasn't his first career choice. Teller actually wanted to be a professional athlete. "I would have [gone] into baseball. If I was better at baseball, then that was like my first passion," the "Two Night Stand" alum admitted to the Associated Press. Teller sadly didn't make it very far in his baseball career, admitting to People that he was "pretty small" in high school, and so he felt that held him back. "I didn't hit my growth spurt till my senior year," he explained.
However, Teller's passion for baseball has persevered. He supports the Phillies, who were his grandmother's team, and can be regularly seen cheering them on from the sidelines. In 2023, The Athletic dubbed Teller "an unofficial member of the team" as he was seen on the field so much. He's regularly plastered across the jumbotron at games and, when there's not a game to watch, keeps himself busy by collecting baseball trading cards, which is something he first started doing with his dad. "My fandom for it, as far as collecting things associated with the game, has remained a part of it for me," he told People.
His acting career started in high school
Miles Teller's acting career officially began during his sophomore year of high school when he starred in his first play. Admittedly, Teller's interest in school theater was initially piqued because he was attracted to his drama teacher, Beth Bedee. But he quickly discovered that acting was his true calling. "When I got on stage and got the first laugh, I was hooked. It absolutely felt like something had been missing from my life up to that point," he told the Tampa Bay Times.
Despite being attracted to making an audience laugh, Teller had no interest in pursuing stand-up comedy, and the actor has veered toward more dramatic roles at every opportunity. It was his first role that set him up in this direction, though, and it became an indicator of his future success. "The first play I ever did was Footloose, and I played Willard," he explained to Entertainment Tonight. He would later play the same character in the 2011 movie.
Teller credits Bedee with kick-starting his career and admits to the Tampa Bay Times that he wouldn't have done so much at such a young age had she not come to his school. On reflection, he felt lucky to be in his classes, which he felt were operating at a college level. And he should know since he went on to attend New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before embarking on his big screen career.
Miles Teller nearly died in a car crash when he was 20
Miles Teller's professional acting career was almost over before it began. In 2007, the "Whiplash" star was involved in a serious car accident. Only 20 years old at the time, Teller recalled to ABC News: "My buddy lost control of my car going 80 mph. We flipped eight times. I got ejected out the window. The car landed, and I was just laying like 50 feet from the car, unconscious, covered in blood." Teller was such a mess from the crash that his friend thought he was dead. Fortunately, he survived and mostly recovered from his injuries. However, he does have scars on his face as a result. He also has two pieces of gravel still lodged beneath his skin.
Surprisingly, the scars, which he felt were holding him back, proved to be an asset when he auditioned for the 2010 drama "Rabbit Hole." "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.' But John Cameron Mitchell, the Rabbit Hole director, he loved it. He was like, 'It's your character's secret!'" Teller revealed The Guardian.
Filming the movie proved to be an emotional experience for Teller, though. His character Jason is behind the wheel and accidentally kills the son of a couple (played by Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart), but he knew their grief all too well as shortly before filming, two of his friends tragically died in separate motor accidents.
He originally auditioned for the role of Ren in Footloose
After eight years, Miles Teller reprised the role of Willard Hewitt, but this time on the big screen. He starred in the 2011 adaptation of the musical drama alongside Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Ziah Colon, Dennis Quaid, and Andie McDowell. Playing the role of Willard again ended up being a happy coincidence for Teller, but he was originally seeking a different part. "I went in auditioning for Ren," he admitted to Entertainment Tonight. It was the casting director who turned his audition on its head. "She asked if I could do a southern accent and I said 'absolutely,' but inside I always wanted to be Willard. I was built for Willard," Teller explained.
"Footloose" ended up being very well cast, with the director Craig Brewer choosing to feature lead actors like Wormald and Hough, who have extensive dance experience. Funnily, a major plotline for Willard's character is his inability to dance, although this is not a problem Teller shared. The actor shows off his moves at the end of the movie to demonstrate Willard's dance lessons have been paying off. "It's my secret weapon," he said of dancing. Happily, Teller got the chance to show off his moves again later in his career. We are, of course, referring to that viral "Top Gun: Maverick" beach moment, which Teller actually improvised. He told ExtraTV the dance is something he does to relax, and he didn't even know the camera was on him. So, naturally, it ended up being a fan-favorite scene in the movie.
He's 'very close' with Shailene Woodley
Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley first met in 2012. Teller recalled to showbizjunkies.com that they had about an hour to get to know each other before they began filming the romantic drama "The Spectacular Now," which was released the following year. They connected immediately. Teller recalled: "We kind of found our relationship through production ... when you have somebody who's really listening to you, it's nice to work with that." This marked the start of a long-standing friendship and working relationship between Teller and Woodley. The pair shared the screen again when they both starred in the "Divergent" franchise.
Teller and Woodley definitely have chemistry on-screen, but in real life, their relationship is purely platonic. Over the years, Woodley has grown close with Teller's now-wife Keleigh Sperry. The trio were spotted hanging out while the first "Divergent" movie was filming in Chicago, along with fellow co-star Zoë Kravitz. Woodley was an honored guest at Teller and Sperry's wedding, and they've even gone on trips together. Sperry has shared pictures of them together in Paris in 2020, and again in Maui in 2021, along with Woodley's then-fiancé, Aaron Rodgers.
The pair continue to support each other, too, and when Teller starred in "Top Gun: Maverick," Woodley highlighted their close bond by sharing a picture of her posing in front of a poster for the movie. In the Instagram caption, she hyped up her friend and wrote, "Proud sister moment happening over here" (via People). Teller likewise gushed about their bond, telling People, "We are really good friends ... we've been very close for years."
Miles Teller has mixed feelings about the Divergent movies
Despite his close bond with Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller has mixed feelings about their movie franchise. The first movie, which had a budget of $85 million, made it one of the biggest productions Teller had been a part of to date. However, bigger isn't always better, or at least according to the actor who said the blockbuster left him pretty hollow. "I was dead inside," he told W Magazine (via The Hollywood Reporter). Teller continued: "I didn't have an interesting part [in Divergent], and I'd taken the film for business reasons: It was the first movie I'd done that was going to have an international audience. I called my agent and said, 'This sucks.'"
It seems like Teller made his feelings about the movie pretty clear. However, when his comments were turned into headlines by outlets like THR, he backtracked. He spoke out on X, formerly known as Twitter, proclaiming: "I've never done a movie for 'business' reasons. I'm proud to be a part of [the] Divergent franchise and love all of Peter's Princesses."
He then changed his stance once more, clarifying to the Los Angeles Times that "business reasons" were a part of his decision to take the role, but not the driving factor. Additionally, he addressed his "dead inside" remark, saying he was just exhausted from the four-month shoot. Teller's comments clearly didn't get him in trouble with producers, though, as he returned to the franchise for two sequels and later made it clear filming them had been a positive experience.
Whiplash was a serious change of pace after Divergent
The 2014 psychological drama "Whiplash" follows 19-year-old aspiring jazz drummer Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) as he's pushed to his limits by his emotionally manipulative instructor, Terry Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), at a fictitious music college in New York. The movie was a serious lane change for Miles Teller after "Divergent." For one thing, it had a much lower budget of $3.3 million, and it was shot in just 19 days, comparatively less than the four months it took to shoot the first installment of the dystopian franchise. But, for Teller, the biggest difference came from the emotional side of the movie. If "Divergent" made him "dead inside," then "Whiplash" brought him back to life. He was paid $8,000 for his resurrection — a meager salary compared to the $3.5 million he allegedly raked in for "Top Gun: Maverick" — but who can put a price on the three Academy Awards the movie claimed?
While Teller's training for "Divergent" consisted of working out, getting in shape for "Whiplash" meant locking himself away and re-learning how to play the drums in Andrew's jazz style. This pushed him out of his comfort zone but was no hardship, really, as Teller had been dabbling with drums since he was 15. "This movie for me was by far the closest I've come to life imitating art," Teller admitted to IndieWire.
He gained a controversial media reputation after a bad interview
In August 2015, Miles Teller was featured on the cover of Esquire. He was fresh off the buzz of "Whiplash," which was a critical smash and had cleaned up during awards season. Being profiled by the magazine was another major career achievement for the young actor, but it didn't have the desired outcome of further extending his fame. Instead, Esquire branded him in a negative light, writing, "he's kind of a d***," after which the actor sort of fell from grace. The negative press continued, and Teller ended up with a bad reputation, which followed him around for years. This wasn't aided by his public intoxication arrest in 2017. However, he told The Guardian that Esquire's depiction of him wasn't an accurate representation of who he was.
For the most part, Miles Teller kept his head down and continued to work hard, but he did speak out about the profile again. In 2017, Teller defended himself to Vulture. "If how that story made me look was how I really was, I'd think I was the biggest douchebag too ... I know who I am, and it's not who I was in that story," he said.
He struggled when the Fantastic Four reboot flopped
In the same month his Esquire cover profile was released, Miles Teller made his superhero debut in the rebooted "Fantastic Four" movie. However, what was a highly anticipated movie ended up being a critical flop. The movie, which sees Teller take on the role of Reed Richards alongside Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, and Jamie Bell and Ben Grimm, holds a measly critical score of 9% on Rotten Tomatoes which is complemented by its poor audience rating.
Following the film's release, there was a lot of critical analysis discussing why the film failed, with many seemingly pointing to a lack of focus and unity behind the screen. Even screenwriter Jeremy Slater felt that he and director Josh Trank did not have the same vision.
The movie's poor reception was a devastating blow for Teller. "People think that when you make something like a Fantastic Four that doesn't do well, people think 'oh, you phoned it in' and it couldn't be more untrue. You work harder on the bad films, or the films that turn out maybe not the way you intended, because something's not working," he explained during an interview on "Happy Sad Confused." Teller continued: "I thought it was kind of unjustly critiqued that way ... I think it's unfortunate that a movie like that becomes a, kind of a, scarlet letter on a resume when so many talented people worked really hard."
His career bounced back with Bleed for This, but he underwent a serious transformation
"Bleed For This" is the true story of world champion boxer Vinny "The Pazmanian Devil" Pazienza (Miles Teller) and how he fought his way back into the ring after a near-fatal crash left him with a broken neck and unable to walk. It's also the story of how Teller started to claw back his reputation.
Teller was initially shocked to learn he'd booked the role of Vinny, but thanks to director Ben Younger taking a chance on him, it ended up going his way. However, it required a serious physical transformation. Teller was in good shape from filming "Insurgent," the second movie in the "Divergent," but it wasn't enough. As soon as he booked the role, he started working with a nutritionist and personal trainer, Darrell Foster. They started by making sure he was getting all the vitamins he needed. Then Teller started training, working day in and day out for five months. "Once I was boxing, day-to-day was four hours boxing, two hours of weights, maybe another hour of cardio," Teller told M&F.
At the end of it, Teller weighed no more than 168 pounds, and he had dropped 6% fat. Plus, he really knew how to box as Foster honed in on his technique. "I didn't want to see anything that looked like 'play fighting' on that set," the trainer told Men's Journal.
Miles Teller married the woman of his dreams in 2019
Miles Teller met model Keleigh Sperry at The Black Keys' Grammy Awards afterparty in 2013, and the rest, as they say, was history. They started dating shortly after and during the early days of their relationship Sperry traveled around the globe with Teller so he could continue filming movies. They traveled for leisure, too, and an epic adventure, which included a trip to the Seychelles before they embarked on an African safari, turned out to be the perfect place for Teller to pop the question. Two years later, the pair had a destination wedding in Maui. They picked the location because Sperry and her family regularly vacationed there, and Teller had begun joining them when they got together.
The couple seem to be blissfully happy together and can be regularly seen packing on the PDA at red carpet events. Teller even gushes about his wife online. To celebrate their second anniversary, he took to X and said: "2 years ago today, I married the woman of my dreams. There isn't a day that goes by where I'm not reminded of how much I truly love and adore you. Thank you for your kindness and unconditional support, Keleigh. I would be lost without you." Sperry regularly shares equally touching tributes to her beau on Instagram, and in one post commemorating their Super Bowl commercial collaboration with Bud Light, she mentioned their future kids, so the duo might be welcoming a new addition sooner rather than later.
He was at the center of some COVID-19 controversy
As Miles Teller finally emerged from underneath the gray cloud that was his 2015 Esquire profile, he found himself in the middle of a different drama. He contracted Covid-19 in July 2021 when the Paramount+ series "The Offer," a miniseries about the making of "The Godfather," was scheduled to begin. After that, Teller was plagued by rumors that he'd be an anti-vaxxer, which upset Taylor Swift fans as she had cast him and his wife in her music video for "I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor's Version)."
Ultimately, everything worked out as production resumed on "The Offer" when everyone was healthy, and Swift's music video was released in November. However, the actor felt the need to defend himself in a now-deleted tweet. Teller wrote: "Hey guys, I don't usually feel the need to address rumors here, but I am vaccinated and have been for a while. The only thing I'm anti is hate" (via Billboard).
Miles Teller has gotten close with Tom Cruise since making Top Gun: Maverick
2022 was a banner year for Miles Teller. In the space of a few months, "The Offer," "Top Gun: Maverick," and "Spiderhead" were released. "Top Gun: Maverick" was life-changing. He beat out his co-star Glen Powell and "X-Men" alum Nicholas Hoult for the role of Rooster and got to share major screen time with Tom Cruise.
Interestingly, Rooster and Cruise's character Maverick have a fraught relationship for most of the film, but Teller and Cruise definitely kept all the drama on-screen as they bonded instantly in real life. Cruise mentored Teller and some of his co-stars on set, which helped break the ice, but their relationship has continued well beyond filming the movie. Along with staying in touch to discuss a possible threequel for the "Top Gun" franchise, Teller also calls Cruise to ask for advice. He revealed to E!: "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. And there's been many times just in my life or career that I've called Tom for advice, and he answers every time."
This is the reason he doesn't have an Instagram account
Celebrities have a love-hate relationship with social media — as we all do most of the time. There are some who prefer to live their life completely offline, while others find that having a social media platform helps them to connect with their fans. Miles Teller falls into the offline camp, at least when it comes to Instagram, for a very specific reason, and it's not just because "people are on their phones too much," as he previously noted to Playboy (via Bustle). Teller explained: "I've been told that having an Instagram account will help me book more roles, get more endorsement deals. It makes you more of a brand. But I'm not interested. I want to build my fan base through movies and movies alone."
Teller made this statement in 2016 but has been on X since 2011, so he still has a limited social media presence and a way to connect with fans online. In lieu of his own Instagram account, his wife Keleigh Sperry often posts on his behalf, though. When clips of Rooster's shirtless beach scene were doing the rounds on Instagram and TikTok, she shared a message from him to his fans. "Loving the Rooster love! Miles says thank you to everyone who has seen the film and he shares in this moment with you," she wrote.
He owns a business that has nothing to do with the entertainment industry
Many actors diversify their careers. While some go into production or directing, others put their time and energy into projects that have nothing to do with the entertainment industry. They are often about promoting certain lifestyles, such as The Honest Company, which Jessica Alba runs with her husband, or Jennifer Aniston's signature hair care line, LolaVie. However, Miles Teller got into the alcohol business simply because he fell in love with a product.
He discovered the Finnish-inspired brand Long Drink at a liquor store in New York. While they weren't well known in the U.S. at the time, Teller quickly became a fan and started ordering products directly from the company. But, when he was introduced to one of the co-founders through a mutual friend, he decided to talk business. "I just wanted to figure out a way to get involved with it, because I am a champion for it," Teller told Forbes. "To come in from the ground floor, right when they started taking off, that was perfect for me," he added.
His role as a co-owner is simple. "For me, this is just a matter of showing how Long Drink fits in with my lifestyle, in an organic way. I really believe in it — extending the reach of it — because I think it's a great alternative to a lot of alcoholic beverages out there," Teller explained.