Miles Teller’s Tragic Year Is Ending in a Much Better Place

Miles Teller’s Tragic Year Is Ending in a Much Better Place Miles Teller photographed by Yellowbelly in New York City on November 8, 2025 at The Langham, New York City.

Miles Teller photographed by Yellowbelly in New York City on November 8, 2025 at The Langham, New York City.

Photography by Yellowbelly for Collider

Miles Teller opens up about personal devastation, afterlife love triangles in ‘Eternity,’ and the surprising year that reshaped everything.

By Robert Brian Taylor Published 14 minutes ago Robert Brian Taylor is a Pittsburgh-based writer, editor, and critic. He is Collider's lead training editor and also contributes as a features editor. For the site, he's interviewed a number of actors and filmmakers, including Liam Neeson, J.K. Simmons, Shea Whigham, Kevin Smith, Alden Ehrenreich, Bruce Campbell, Robert Englund, and RaMell Ross. Throughout his career, his writing has appeared in an eclectic combination of newspapers, magazines, books, and websites. He’s written three 48 Hour Film Project shorts — “Hell of a Christmas” (2025), “Clockwork Curse” (2023), and “Uninvited Guests” (2019) — all of which screened theatrically at the local 48 Hour Film Fest. His fiction has been featured at Shotgun Honey, and his short-film script “Dig” was performed live after being named an official selection of the 2017 Carnegie Screenwriters Script and Screen Festival. Summary Generate a summary of this story follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap

To say it’s been a year of ups and downs for Miles Teller is a bit of an understatement. It started off in horrific fashion in January, when the Pacific Palisades home Teller shared with his wife, Keleigh Teller, was lost to the California wildfires. Having your home destroyed is not something you quickly bounce back from, but an actor’s job never ends — so it was less than a month later that Teller found himself fielding awkward questions about the tragedy while on the promotional trail for The Gorge, the Apple TV creature feature he stars in alongside Anya Taylor-Joy.

“People would ask me questions about it on the red carpet like three weeks after the house burned down,” Teller says now, before launching into his own impression of those interviews. “‘Miles, we’re so sorry about your house, da-da-da … but what about The Gorge? What’s up with the creatures?’” Clearly, juggling both work and the chaos that was consuming his day-to-day life wasn’t the actor’s preferred way to ease into 2025.

The good news is that things have improved. After all, anyone who knows about Teller’s personal history – the car wreck at age 20 that nearly killed him, the facial scars he still carries from the accident, having two close friends who died in separate crashes before he turned 21 – understands that this is a man who has made a life out of persevering. The Pacific Palisades fire is not something he’s moved fully past, but Teller now feels like he’s able to talk about it. In fact, it ended up being the emotional hook of his monologue during his recent Saturday Night Live hosting stint.

He’s back out on the promotional circuit again with his second film of the year, Eternity, a cosmic rom-com about death and the afterlife that’s a feel-good affair but isn’t afraid to make the audience – and perhaps the actors starring in it – consider their own time spent on this planet. “This movie’s got a lot of heart,” Teller says. “After the movie ends at all these different screenings, there’s just so many people who want to share a story about their grandparents — or it really makes you think about your own life, and I think that’s beautiful.”

So, yes, despite the roadblocks life appears to enjoy putting in his way, Miles Teller can still find plenty of beauty in this world and in his work. This year might not have started all that great for him, but things are looking up more and more every day.

‘Eternity’s Afterlife Love Triangle Let Teller Play With Time

When I catch up with Teller over Zoom in early November, he’s at The Langham in New York, kicking off a press weekend for Eternity — some necessary promotion that should be easier now, with the fire a bit more in the rearview mirror, than it was for The Gorge. He’s just come from doing a photoshoot for this very profile, so he’s cleaned up and dressed smartly. At 38 years old, Teller is certainly past the coming-of-age roles he played in films like Whiplash and The Spectacular Now, which defined the early part of his career. Those aforementioned facial scars have both faded and blended with age, resulting in … well, in the face of a movie star, chiseled and handsome.

This is not the face we see, however, when we first meet his character in Eternity, Larry Cutler. The film starts with Larry as an elderly man, played by a much older actor, who drops dead after choking on a pretzel. Upon death, he’s transported to stage one of the afterlife – a large waystation where the recently deceased work with a consultant to choose how they want to spend eternity. (Possible options: The beach! Or the mountains! Or 1930s Germany, but without the Nazis!) In the afterlife, everyone’s body is restored to the point in their life where they were happiest, so Teller steps into the role as Larry waits to be joined by his wife, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), just as soon as she dies from terminal cancer. After that, the happy couple can live out their afterlife together forever. There’s just one problem: Joan’s first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), a soldier who died in the Korean War, has been waiting more than six decades to reunite with her in his afterlife. When Joan dies only a handful of days later, she is suddenly faced with a tough choice, while Larry and Luke begin battling over who deserves Joan the most. It’s a love triangle with stakes that will stretch into infinity.

Eternity could be told in a mournful, serious manner, or it could be played completely for laughs. But director/co-writer David Freyne keeps things roughly in the center of those two tonal points with a movie that could comfortably sit in between Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait and Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life. It turns out that blend is exactly what drew Teller to the project.

I think romantic comedies, when they’re done well, give the audience everything. They make you laugh. They make you maybe cry.

“I always tend to gravitate towards projects that really kind of pull me in emotionally,” Teller says. “I felt immensely for Larry and this couple when I was reading this script. It had been a minute since I had done some comedy … This one, it was very character-driven. And I think romantic comedies, when they’re done well, give the audience everything. They make you laugh. They make you maybe cry. This is not a movie compiled from a bunch of one-liners. There’s the funniest version of this movie – but I don’t think we were interested in that.”

Eternity also allows Teller the opportunity to perform some incredible visual comedy, mimicking an old man’s gait and walk in the afterlife before realizing his muscles and joints work like they should again. Teller reveals that he and his co-star, Olsen, actually ended up taking different approaches to their “suddenly young again” characters. “If you were to go from 90 [years old] to 35, just like that, how would you want to play that? For me, it was more figuring out that physical transition and also thinking about how much energy you would get from waking up tomorrow with no aches and pains. You’d still be moving in that limited fashion, because that’s how your body has been kind of conditioned.”

Teller believes aging is something that affects the body more than the spirit, but he also drew from a very personal source for his initial performance as Larry. “I don’t think people really age from the inside. My sense of humor has been the same forever. What moves me, what I’m curious about, my consciousness has been fully formed for quite a while … My grandparents were actually staying with me in California right before I shot this, and my grandma said, ‘You know, Miles, when I look at myself in the mirror, I still feel like I’m 32, and I just wonder who this old person [is] looking back at me. So that’s kind of how I approached [the role].”

Teller’s Career Catapulted With ‘Whiplash,’ but It Didn’t Happen Overnight

Photography by Yellowbelly for Collider

By his own admission, Teller is lucky to be alive at all. It’s an oft-told story that, when he was 20, he was a passenger in a car that flipped eight times after his friend, who was driving, lost control of the vehicle. Teller was ejected through a window and wound up with those scars on his face and neck. He’s had various procedures over the years to help them fade, but early on, they were an obstacle the young actor had to overcome as he attempted to launch a movie career. He finally caught a break when director John Cameron Mitchell cast him in his 2010 film Rabbit Hole, which would serve as Teller’s debut.

“If you look at some of my early work, the scars on my face were really bad,” Teller admits. “I would audition, and almost every casting director would tell my agent, ‘Miles is a really good actor, but it doesn’t make sense for this character to have scars.’ Because there was no way they could make scars go away. And then John Cameron Mitchell, the lovely artist he is, said, ‘I love your scars. It’s a mystery, and we don’t have to explain it.’ It’s a very vain business, as we all know. And, if anything, I just feel really fortunate to have walked away from that car – well, I didn’t walk away, they put me in an ambulance – but two days later, to have been able to walk away, fairly unscathed, as far as anything being permanently debilitating.”

If you look at some of my early work, the scars on my face were really bad. I would audition, and almost every casting director would tell my agent, ‘Miles is a really good actor, but it doesn’t make sense for this character to have scars.’

Now, Teller confesses that having intense life experiences at such a young age likely informed the parts he pursued. He actively sought out characters that had a little more emotional weight behind them, and, before long, those roles started coming in — most notably in 2014’s Whiplash, writer/director Damien Chazelle’s award-winning tale of a young, impressionable jazz drummer, played by Teller, and his overbearing, abusive music instructor, played by J.K. Simmons, who landed an Oscar for his performance.

When I ask about the impact that movie had on his career, Teller is quick to point out that it didn’t happen overnight. “People forget that Whiplash was the second-lowest-grossing movie of all time to be nominated for Best Picture. It really got a second life and third life.” Teller wasn’t the only one who benefited from the slow groundswell of critical acclaim. “What was really great about that movie is it put Damien Chazelle very much on the map, too, and we know the filmmaker that he’s gone on to become. That was one of those scripts where, even though I was 24 or 25 when I did it, there was a lot there. It was a really juicy part. When I was in college, and I was thinking about projects I wanted to do, it was stuff like The Spectacular Now. It was stuff like Whiplash. And it was stuff like Rabbit Hole.”

Teller’s Road to ‘Top Gun’s Rooster Started With the Roles You Missed

Image via Paramount Pictures; Everett Collection

After putting in some time in the YA mines with the Divergent franchise, Teller began transitioning into more fully adult roles. As far as which of his movies he thinks are the most underrated and would like to get more eyes on, he’s quick to recommend two from the same year. In the first, Only the Brave, he plays a professional wildland firefighter whose unit battles an overwhelming blaze. “I got to know that world and that community and the guys we portrayed really well,” Teller says. “First responders and people who are risking their lives for people they’ve never met.”

The other is Thank You for Your Service, where Teller steps into the shoes of a soldier home from Iraq and suffering from extreme PTSD. “Veterans came out and said that's really the first time they've ever seen the VA honestly portrayed and what that is like – the reintegration process for soldiers,” he adds, a note of pride in his voice. “I have a lot of empathy for them and that struggle.”

Teller would go on to play another military man a few years later — this time, in a movie that many, many people have seen. Thanks to the pandemic, it took a while for Top Gun: Maverick to finally hit the big screen in 2022, but once it did, it was a worldwide sensation that proved movie theaters were still a viable business venture. As Lieutenant Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Anthony Edwards’ Goose from the original film, Teller was more than happy to be along for the ride — and to finally star in a film that went supernova at the box office.

“I had my chance at a superhero franchise, which didn’t go well,” he says, chuckling, a reference to 2015’s ill-fated Fantastic Four reboot without explicitly naming it. “So it was nice to be brought into [the Top Gun] world. For Tom [Cruise] to give me that opportunity, I'm very appreciative of it. They had been asking him to make a sequel to Top Gun for 30-something years, and Tom didn't just say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s just ride a success.’ For Tom, it always had to be the right script, and so, playing Goose’s son and being the integral storyline of the piece, I felt really grateful for that opportunity — and that fanbase, they were very appreciative of it, as well. I love that. When it makes $1.5 billion, man, you really found a fanbase. There’s guys walking around who had original Top Gun tattoos, and now they’re taking their kids to the sequel.”

How Teller Turned His Recent Tragedy Into Comedy on ‘SNL’

Photography by Yellowbelly for Collider

“I’m so happy to be here with all of you,” Teller, whose family moved around a lot when he was a kid, cheerfully told the crowd at the end of his SNL monologue earlier this month. “A lot has happened since the last time that I hosted. A few months ago, my wife and I lost our house in the Palisades fire. But don’t worry. We’re doing great … That experience has made me incredibly grateful to have so many places that I can call home. But based on what happened to the last place that I called home, I just want to say, there’s fire exits located there, there, there. We’ve got two in the back!”

That “fire exit” bit drew big laughs, and Teller tells me now that he’s the one who came up with it. However, it was the SNL writers who first approached him about the idea, something he was originally reluctant to do by way of a comedy monologue.

I’m not an overly jokey person to begin with. I always feel like sincerity and honesty is a good place to start from in any performance, or just your outlook on life.

“I didn’t necessarily want to talk about it,” he admits. “I’m not a stand-up comedian. Some of that audience doesn’t know, necessarily, who you are, and they always want something sincere to hang jokes off of, which I agree with. I’m not an overly jokey person to begin with. I always feel like sincerity and honesty is a good place to start from in any performance, or just your outlook on life.”

Despite not being a comic, Teller calls himself an “SNL lifer,” and says he was far more relaxed hosting the show this time than he was during his debut in 2022. He’s always enjoyed performing live, whether it was at the start of his acting journey in live theater or playing in rock bands during his youth. Hosting SNL, however, is a completely different spotlight. “I kept waiting for Lorne [Michaels], my first time, to pull me aside and say, ‘Hey, kid, you gotta pick this up.’ But then you realize that's just how it goes. You go into the live show really only having done a sketch – even read it – maybe two or three times. This time, I was really able to enjoy it. I was very calm the whole time. At one point, I was like, ‘Where are the butterflies? Where are the nerves?’ Ultimately, Teller’s glad the SNL crew talked him into tackling one of the most devastating events of this year head-on: “If I can laugh about it, then I think it shows the audience, ‘He’s okay.’”

Teller Is Still Working Through the Grief

Photography by Yellowbelly for Collider

Teller does seem to be doing okay, despite admitting that there are times when it feels like he’s still picking up the pieces — including the day of our conversation. “It's grieving,” he says simply. “I went through it with the loss of my buddies and some family members … and it’s very similar in that it comes in waves. Literally this morning, before I came here, my wife was really upset. And I said, ‘What's the matter?’ She's like, ‘It's just been a tough year.’

“It just breaks your heart, because you know it's gonna take years, and I'm not just talking about the stability. We're in a good enough situation where we know we have money to pay rent. But, at the same time, it's gonna take a long while to just feel like you have that sense of home again. Home is not just four walls. It's really someplace where you acquire memories. And people say, ‘Oh, it's just stuff.’ But it's not – those are memories. I'm not talking about my freaking car, although I loved my vintage Bronco. No, I'm talking about this thing from my grandma, or this thing from that movie I did, or this thing from when I was a kid. All that shit's gone. So I don't know. I think you just realize that it's going to take a while. There's going to be really hard days, and then there will be days where the sun is shining a little more.”

The New York City premiere of Eternity, held in mid-November, fell into that latter category. Teller brought his grandma and walked her down the red carpet, drawing thrilled reactions from those in attendance and thousands of heart emojis on social media. Teller may not spend much time thinking about his own mortality, but he does call himself “spiritual” and has always tried to enjoy a life that he admits he’s lucky to have. Now, he’s looking to the older generation for inspiration, hence his red-carpet date and his satisfaction with how Eternity turned out. “I've always had a great appreciation for that eldest generation,” he adds. “I just love this [movie’s] concept of the afterlife, where everybody reverts to whenever they felt best about themselves.”

As far as the biggest difference between 38-year-old Miles Teller and the kid from Rabbit Hole, he answers immediately, with a laugh: “Diet!” When he was younger, he admits, he would overcommit to his character’s look in auditions, showing up looking the part of a pothead or a street kid. “When I came up, all the leading men were just the most ripped, and I felt like, ‘Well, they're compensating for something,” he continues. “And then, obviously, you mature, and you realize, ‘Oh, if you can add physicality to a performance, that's wonderful.’”

Teller at the Edge of 40, Looking Backward and Forward All at Once

Photography by Yellowbelly for Collider

Teller doesn’t put the same kind of pressure on himself now as he did when he was starting. If a script excites him, that’s great; if nothing comes in that gets his gears going, he’s happy to take six or seven months off from acting. “I don't feel like I constantly have to be doing it,” he explains. “Imagination-based work is really hard when you're not buying what you're selling.”

When he does land a role he is excited about, he’s just as compelled as always to make a good first impression and just as worried that he’ll screw it up. “On that first day, if I haven’t worked with that director before or those producers … you want to show them: I can do this whole movie. I’m so prepared. And I have to remind myself, you just have to play the truth of this one scene. You don’t need to try and show all the different colors. But the first couple of days on any movie, I feel like I’m going to fuck up — or, not that I’m going to fuck up, but did I prepare as much as I could have? That feeling never goes away.”

He’s also taking more control over the films he chooses to do. Teller notched an executive producer credit for both Eternity and The Gorge, and is actively involved in helping to put together several of the whopping eight projects currently listed in the “upcoming” section of his IMDb page.

If you give 100 actors the same scene from the same script, they’re going to do it 100 different ways because your perspective comes from experience.

“I’m at a point now where I’ll get on things early, and, as a producer, I can develop things,” he admits. “Now, whether or not I end up shooting all of those things, who knows? But I really enjoy the development process … and, yeah, there are some projects that maybe they’re not a studio project, and they really need that kind of push early on. If I’m working on something, I’m passionate about it. So if I can help get the pieces together, if I can help try to find some financing for us, then that’s great. There will be at least one or two projects coming up where I’ll be a capital ‘P’ producer, and those are the ones I’m really looking forward to. I love championing projects and filmmakers. It’s great to be in that position.”

Teller is also looking forward to the roles that could be coming his way now that he’s closing in on his 40s. He’s always tried to play characters with real responsibilities and complex emotional layers, even when he was younger, but he admits that he could tackle those parts more easily as middle age approaches. “For male actors, they tended to get those juicy roles in their late 30s, 40s. With Paul Newman, 50s. A lot of great actors, you look at their performances in their 50s, and, yeah, there's wonderful opportunity out there.”

Still, Teller has always felt that his own life experiences – good and bad – have forged him into the actor he is now, and readied him to play characters in a way that only he can. “If you give 100 actors the same scene from the same script, they’re going to do it 100 different ways because your perspective comes from experience.

“Being in a car accident where they gave me a .01 chance of survival, losing two of my best friends in car accidents five weeks from each other – you’re not supposed to be carrying your buddy’s casket, you’re not supposed to be eulogizing your friend at 21 years old,” Teller muses. “I had experienced things that maybe a normal 20 or 21-year-old hadn’t experienced. So, I always felt like I had something to say.”

Photography: Yellowbelly | Location: The Langham New York | Groomer: Kristin Heitkotter | Stylist: Wendi & Nicole

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Eternity

Like Follow Followed PG-13 Romance Comedy Release Date November 26, 2025 Runtime 112 minutes Director David Freyne Writers David Freyne, Pat Cunnane Producers Elizabeth Olsen, Michael Williams, Miles Teller, Tim White