Miles Teller says he is wary of being interviewed for magazines after an article about him went viral for all the wrong reasons more than a decade ago.
Esquire’s 2015 profile on Teller began with the journalist “trying to figure out if he’s a d***” during their conversation before determining a few paragraphs later that, despite his charm, he was “kind of a d***.” At the time, the actor — who was quickly rising to fame after the success of Whiplash and Divergent — issued a statement in response to the profile saying: “I don’t think there’s anything cool or entertaining about being a d*** or an asshole.”
Over 10 years later, the 39-year-old actor told IndieWire at the Cannes Film Festival that the story led him to step away from written press because he felt it did not accurately represent him.
“That was so mishandled,” Teller told the outlet. “The reason why I have not done profiles is because I said, ‘Wow, if I’m not doing this interview on camera, this person can misquote things or put things out of order or say things that didn’t happen.’ It felt like such a violation of what actually transpired.”
He said that there was a disconnect between how he was portrayed in the story and how he behaved in real life.
“I told my team, ‘Guys, I don’t think I’m doing this again, because I’m reading this and this doesn’t sound like me to me,’” he said. “This is not life, so why would I ever want to be a part of something where they can just put that in??
Teller continued: “It’s unfortunate that being a good person, that doesn’t sell. People want to click on the negativity. If you go to bed and put your head on your pillow and how you treat people truly, that’s what matters. That [2015] interview was like 12 years ago.”
He concluded by saying that his colleagues know his true character, adding: “You can’t hide who you are when you’re on set.”
Following the bad press that the profile might have brought, Teller starred in Fantastic Four months later, which went on to be critically panned.
However, he landed himself another blockbuster in 2022 that did considerably better: Top Gun: Maverick. Teller is expected to reprise his role alongside Tom Cruise in the highly anticipated third installment of the Top Gun franchise.
Recently, Teller played Michael Jackson’s attorney John Branca in the record-breaking biopic Michael, and starred in a love triangle with Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner in Eternity last fall. At Cannes, he is promoting James Gray’s drama Paper Tiger alongside his co-star Adam Driver.
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