Miles Teller

Miles Teller (born February 20, 1987) is an American actor. He made his feature film debut with the independent drama Rabbit Hole (2010), and gained wider recognition for his roles in the coming-of-age film The Spectacular Now (2013) and the Divergent film trilogy (2014–2016). His breakthrough role came in the drama Whiplash (2014), which earned him critical acclaim.

Teller went on to star in the superhero film Fantastic Four (2015) as Mister Fantastic and in the biographical film War Dogs (2016). He garnered a mainstream resurgence for his starring role in the action film Top Gun: Maverick (2022). In television, he has starred in the Amazon Prime Video crime drama Too Old to Die Young (2019) and the Paramount+ miniseries The Offer (2022).

Teller was born in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. His mother, Merry, is a real estate agent, and his father, Michael, is a nuclear power plant engineer. He has two older sisters, Erin and Dana. His paternal grandfather was of Russian Jewish descent, and his ancestry also includes English, Irish and African-American forebears.

Teller spent his early years in Pennsylvania and Delaware before his family moved to Citrus County, Florida, when he was 12. Growing up, he was involved with acting, was president of his high school's drama club, and played alto saxophone, drums, piano and guitar. He also played baseball competitively and had dreams of turning professional. He graduated from Lecanto High School in Lecanto, Florida. Subsequently, he attended the New York University Tisch School of the Arts; there, he studied method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and screen acting with Stonestreet Studios. He earned a BFA in drama in 2009.

In 2007, Teller was a passenger in a car that lost control at 80 mph (130 km/h) and flipped eight times. He has multiple scars on his face from the crash.

Teller appeared in many short films between 2004 and 2010. After graduating from Tisch School of the Arts in 2009, he made his major film debut in Rabbit Hole (2010), after Nicole Kidman handpicked him for the role. Teller starred in the stage musical Footloose in high school, and later appeared in the 2011 remake film of the same name. In 2013, he starred in 21 & Over and The Spectacular Now, opposite Shailene Woodley.

In Damien Chazelle's second film Whiplash (2014), Teller played a drummer who tries to impress his abusive jazz teacher (J. K. Simmons), which earned him nominations for the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Actor, the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture and the BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Teller received further recognition for playing Peter Hayes in Divergent (2014), and the film's sequels, Insurgent (2015) and Allegiant (2016). He has also played Mister Fantastic in the reboot film Fantastic Four (2015) and arms dealer David Packouz in War Dogs (2016). He trained for 5 months to get in shape for the role of biopic boxer Vinny Paz in film Bleed for This (2016).