by Ethan Anderton
September 24, 2014
Source: THR
After wowing audiences at Sundance, the indie sensation Whiplash is hitting theaters October 10th, and the film couldn't have come at a better time for Miles Teller. The actor has been on the rise with performances in films like The Spectacular Now, 21 & Over and That Awkward Moment, and while he can also be seen in Divergent , apparently that film, in which he has a small part, just wasn't doing the trick for him, and Whiplash really picked him back up. As Teller revealed to THR, "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."
First of all, if you haven't watched the trailer for Whiplash yet, you need to do that now:
The drumming is all Teller, and before landing the part, he worked with an instructor three times a week, practicing for four hours a day, and watching drumming icons do what they do best. Since Dane DeHaan turned down the role, director Damien Chazelle picked up Teller for the part. In addition to the drumming, the director also had some surprising instructions for him, "Damien Chazelle, the director of Whiplash, told me, ‘Stop working out! Don’t go outside!’ He wanted me pale and doughy. This is the first movie where I shut myself off from the world. It was, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever done."
So now that he's mastered drumming, has a musical coming up that will reteam him with Damien Chazelle and put him alongside Harry Potter franchise star Emma Watson, and will enter the comic book world with the reboot of Fantastic Four at Fox, what does Teller want to do that he hasn't done yet? He wants to play Elvis Presley. The actor says, "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. I want to play Young Elvis. 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." We'd definitely be on board with seeing a film like that. How about you?
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