In Hollywood, biting the hand that feeds that can have consequences, but that doesn’t seem to matter to rising star Miles Teller. The actor, whose role in this fall’s awards season contender "Whiplash" is creating a lot of buzz, is best known as Peter in "Divergent" a $288 million worldwide hit. But despite that tentpole film making his name familiar in every corner of the globe, Teller is honest about his experiences as such not being the most artistically satisfying endeavor.
“When I first read ‘Whiplash,’ I was feeling dead inside,” the actor told W Magazine. “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.’ He told me about ‘Whiplash.’ ”
So perhaps his role in "Whiplash" was a reward for slogging through a project he wasn’t so taken with? Maybe. While Teller’s candor is refreshing, his words are not the sort studio marketing departments likes to hear, particularly in light of the actor shooting "Insurgent" soon for release next spring. We’re sure that Camp Teller will issue a statement about how much he loves the franchise soon enough, but until then, the actor has a project he really wants to make.
"… my main dream is to play Elvis. That’s my goal. I think he and I look alike and do a lot of similar things well: sing, dance, and I think he played sports,” he says. And he has a specific era of Elvis he wants to tackle, and it’s not the latter, flabby years of the King.
“I want to play Young Elvis,” Teller explained. “They’ve never gotten that right. It’s easy to do wrecked, bloated, and drug-addicted. I want to play characters who have the fever and win. It’s harder.”
And yep, we want to see that too. But Teller may have to learn that paycheck gigs sometimes allow those non-blockbuster movies to get made. [via THR]
Update: That was fast…Miles Teller tweets regarding his comments about "Divergent"
I’ve never done a movie for "business" reasons. I’m proud to be a part of Divergent franchise and love all of Peter’s Princesses
— Miles Teller (@Miles_Teller) September 24, 2014
