Transcript: Actor Miles Teller on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #622

Those are horns, you idiot.”

MILES TELLER: Are we talking right now?

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah.

MILES TELLER: Is this real?

THEO VON: We can be. Or we can start over.

MILES TELLER: Okay. No, dude, I’m all. Yeah, I’m all good. I just had no idea.

THEO VON: But yeah, you’ll see, people just hang Mardi Gras beads and stuff on it. In Louisiana, people just don’t give a st.

MILES TELLER: Wow.

THEO VON: Wow. But yeah, I just saw Todd the other day, dude.

MILES TELLER: Where does he keep it?

THEO VON: And there’s a museum over there.

MILES TELLER: Oh, wow.

THEO VON: So it’s like a Louisiana museum. So the artifacts they keep in there are a little bit different. Like a beer bottle, you know, or st that’s just a little bit more Louisiana.

Growing Up in Florida

MILES TELLER: I mean, I grew up half my life in central Florida, so I imagine it would be similar kind of museums.

THEO VON: With Daniel Tosh down there. Was Tosh popping when you were growing up?

MILES TELLER: Well, yeah, but also, the Daily Show came to my county twice when I was growing up. One is because they have a cooter festival, which is a type of turtle. A cooter. It’s a type of turtle.

THEO VON: Bring up that cooter.

MILES TELLER: Bring up that. Yeah, flash up that cooter. And then the other one, it was Ed Helms came because the town next to mine banned the devil from coming into the town. And it was the town of Inglis, pretty backwoods. Citrus County is where I went to middle school, high school, bro.

THEO VON: That’s amazing that they. First of all, this is. Oh, it looks like Cooter-tober just happened.

MILES TELLER: Oh, yeah. They’re really kind of, I guess, branching out. You probably do it for every month. Anything that ends in an R, I think you’re good, dude.

THEO VON: Cooters over. Yeah, that sounds pretty wild. Cooter-tober is back, it says. Apparently it was discontinued for a bit.

MILES TELLER: A whole month of cooterific fun. Inverness, Florida. Let’s go. Shout out.

THEO VON: This year we’re returning with all your favorite events like the Cooter Carnival, Small Town Saturday Night, Cooter Comedy. Oh, that’s great.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: And that’s the cooter turtle.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, that. Yeah. They must not have discovered it for a while or they must not have given it. They must not have celebrated as much because I remember that they didn’t start cooter fest until I was. I don’t even know if I was still in high school. Might have been out of high school. So it took a while.

The Origin of the Cooter Name

THEO VON: I wonder how it even got that name because I’ve heard of people using kind of slang. Well, goats for bestiality. But if they were, if this would be the worst thing to try to invade a species, you know. Did some. Yeah. How did they get its name?

How did the cooter turtle get its name? The cooter turtle got its name from the African word “kuta,” which means turtle in the Bambara and Malinke languages. The word was brought to you. Yes, it was.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Originally was Kuda.

THEO VON: Kuda. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Kuda. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Kuda fish.

THEO VON: Hey, boy. Come on down. A cuda. I just saw a woman. They have a woman that has two kudas. Actually, I saw she’s on TikTok the other day. There’s a woman.

MILES TELLER: What now are you.

THEO VON: I’m talking about the anatomy. Now I’m changing it.

MILES TELLER: So you want to hear? Okay, no, go. Yeah, go.

THEO VON: There is a woman who has two vaginas that’s on TikTok.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: She sent a DM the other day to me.

MILES TELLER: How many DMs did she send? One of. Eat one for me, dude.

THEO VON: Dude, she sent replica DMs. That’s insane.

Double Barrel Cheryl

MILES TELLER: So can I tell you a story?

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: So I’m at my boy’s wedding and we’re. He’s from Ohio. We’re at the reception now, the after reception, all just hanging out in the hotel room. And the one dude’s like, “Yo, do you remember that girl went to high school with two vaginas?”

And he’s like, “Dude, you’re talking about Cheryl.” And then his other buddy’s like, “Yo, Double Barrel Cheryl.” And I just thought that was the funniest nickname I’ve ever heard in my life. Double Barrel Cheryl. I was like, that’s got to go in some American Pie type movie. Just Double Barrel Cheryl. So as soon as you started talking about that, I was like, oh, I have one.

THEO VON: Put her in a museum.

MILES TELLER: But she used to. Apparently she used to say, “This one’s for my boyfriend. I’m saving this one for my husband.” Oh, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Beautiful.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. Because I would just. I would. If I had both, I would. Dude, you’d blow them both. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Dude.

THEO VON: No, I’d be like, “I’m saving this one for after dinner or whatever,” but I would definitely.

MILES TELLER: Dude, this is the dessert.

THEO VON: This is.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: P.M. Yeah, that’s it. Dude.

MILES TELLER: Like the gas station. 24 hours. Yeah. Running all night.

THEO VON: Dude, this is my morning one and this is my evening. And one has tattoos around it and stuff. And the other one is a bit more like back.

MILES TELLER: Classy.

THEO VON: Classy.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: A little bit more.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Upscale. Upscale. Leave a Yelp review. This one’s closing in on five stars. This the other one. You know what that one is?

THEO VON: Yeah. And the other one, for some reason is 3.8 stars. You’re like, both.

MILES TELLER: Both viable options.

THEO VON: Pretty good. Look, I’ll pull up a chair.

MILES TELLER: Go back to that woman. Double Barrel’s a great thing.

MILES TELLER: Double Barrel Cheryl. Dude, wow.

THEO VON: We didn’t. We weren’t fortunate enough to get a woman like this in our area. Let’s see what she says here.

VIDEO CLIP: “I was born with two vaginas, two uteruses and two cervixes. There was no join from my mouth to my stomach and that. Instead, my food pipe was connected into my air pipe going into my lungs.”

MILES TELLER: Okay. The music is. That’s tough. I feel like our tone should have been a little different when we were talking about. Yeah, I’m sure it’s a horrible thing to deal with.

Two of Everything

THEO VON: Oh, I can’t even imagine. Even if I had two penises. Two penises.

MILES TELLER: I would. Yeah. I don’t know.

THEO VON: Oh, well, that would be very tough if you were. Especially when you’re in high school and stuff, and your body, you’re going through puberty and whatever and you’re getting erections. In high school, I would.

MILES TELLER: Erections, yeah. Unless they will operate different frequencies.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: You know, I’m saying.

THEO VON: Yeah. One’s. It’s like AM/FM.

MILES TELLER: That’s like an antenna.

THEO VON: That’s.

MILES TELLER: There’s no hive that you got. You got two ready, dude. Ready to rock, dude. But if you could time them out. Oh, you know, as soon as the one’s done, other boy.

THEO VON: Like a pentameter.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Drummer, like NASCAR. Your one’s just getting the tires warmed up.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: The other one’s doing a hot lap.

THEO VON: Yeah, dude, I think if you. Well, especially drummers. Yeah. It’d be like if they had a cool pentameter kind of toy.

MILES TELLER: Well, the Grateful Dead has two drummers. Do they? It’s the best.

THEO VON: You have their shirt on. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: You went to their. I saw. You went to their 60th.

The Grateful Dead and Community

MILES TELLER: I did the same Friends show. I. Yeah, I mean, I’ve seen him at the Sphere. I’ve seen kind of this iteration, Dead and Co, for I think pretty much since John started. But, yeah, they’re my John Mayer.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: John Mayer. But even before that, I was seeing some different versions of him and, you know, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, kind of independently. But, yeah, it’s the best, honestly.

When our house burned down, the thing that I was probably one of the things I was most upset about was all of these vintage Grateful Dead shirts. But that community is so awesome. I don’t have Instagram or anything, but they reached out to Kelly and were like, “Hey, you know, Deadheads.” They were like, “We feel so bad for you guys, and we know if our house burned down, we would really miss those shirts. Can we send you some from our own collection?”

So a bunch of people, shout out to you, just sent me shirts. It’s such a loving community. I feel like all those bands from that era, especially the Dead, who really kind of supported everybody. Their crowds were rainbow colored before anybody, you know, if that makes sense. So.

THEO VON: Wow. So people just sent you different ones, did they? Is that one of them?

MILES TELLER: No, this one? This one, I think I got up in San Francisco. Oh, that was the spread. That was just for three days. But I was like, I don’t know what pants I’m going to wear. You know what I mean? I got it.

THEO VON: You know what that one is?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s for. When you went to a show, San Francisco.

Dead & Company at the Sphere

MILES TELLER: There was three nights, so I just took them all out. It’s kind of the only stuff I post about. Even my bio quote, I mean, that’s a Jerry Garcia one.

THEO VON: That’s great, dude. My brother has a big Jerry Garcia tattoo on his chest.

MILES TELLER: Does he?

THEO VON: He loves them. Yeah, we got to go together, actually, and see them at the Sphere one time. Our producer, Zach went and saw them, I believe, for two nights in San Francisco. Yeah, Zach.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I was up there. I was at all three nights, actually. Yeah, I thought they’re all amazing. Sturgill, I thought Sturgill was exceptional. I mean, I just think overall, Saturday night was kind of the best night. It’s hard because you can look at the set list, but usually at least one of those weekend shows, they just catch lightning in a bottle.

And I think that’s the beauty of the band, is that you’re never going to hear the same song twice. But because it’s so improvisational and they’re on the ride with you. I mean, to play music at that level, and they are, there’s such, I mean, the skill set from all those guys is so high. But it’s just fun, dude. I dance my a off, too. People think it’s like you’re just high and just sitting there. It’s like, no, that music makes me boogie, dude. Yeah, I love it. I love it, dude.

THEO VON: Definitely.

MILES TELLER: If you’re not sweating, you’re not trying either. I think maybe some of that’s the Florida thing, but it’s like I grew up with a thin layer of sweat all over my body all the time. It makes me feel alive, dude.

Growing Up in Florida

THEO VON: Oh, in Louisiana, you can’t even land a handshake with people. If it’s a humid day, you see people trying to land a handshake for f*ing 30 seconds, 40 seconds, they’ll just give up on the friendship. They’ll go their separate ways. It’s just, that’s the kind of place it is, man.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. I always say it’s like, yeah, you have a thought and you’re sweating. You know, I mean, but that air, too, when you get off the plane, because we would always fly into Tampa. You get off that plane, it’s just a huff. It’s just a thick air, dude.

THEO VON: Yeah, it feels like the air has a little bit of an infection, to be honest with you.

MILES TELLER: When I feel that air at night, it just makes me feel mischievous. Because when I was, all those teenage years, just, you know, at sunsets, you know, get on a bike, just figure out some sh*t to do in your neighborhood. That air just makes me kind of relapse, I guess.

THEO VON: It makes, dude, there is something about it. I even think about this, like, if you ever stay at a place that doesn’t have air conditioning, right?

MILES TELLER: Most of Europe, dude.

THEO VON: You’re like, this sucks. But then I feel like your dreams and everything is more acclimated to the actual climate of whatever’s going on. Right. And I always feel like I get more imaginative or creative dreams whenever I’m in a place that doesn’t have air conditioning for some reason. But, yeah, that south, dude, that sh*t hits you hard.

Dancing and Having a Good Time

THEO VON: Dude, you do dance, man. I noticed, I remember this now. I think, I don’t know if we’re, it could have been marshmallow maybe. It was one night. We were both in Las Vegas after a UFC fight.

MILES TELLER: Okay.

THEO VON: And maybe it’s Chain Smokers or something. It might have been that one when Ed Sheeran was there.

MILES TELLER: I don’t remember. I don’t know. I don’t know.

THEO VON: But you were like, you dance, dude. Even if you’re just by yourself, you are doing your own thing. It’s like some people would think, oh, Miles Teller, he’s just going to be this cool guy, and he just flew his jet in there. His f*ing Mach 70 jet southwest. Yeah, but I mean, he flew his Top Gun plane. He’s going to sit, you know, dude, I love it. You have your own time. That’s what it feels like.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: It’s like you decide that I’m going to have a good time for me. And it almost inspires like, God, I wish I could be that free.

MILES TELLER: Well, I think you’re pretty free. I think you’re pretty free. F*ing, dude. You know, just from…

THEO VON: I guess I wish I could dance better.

MILES TELLER: Okay. Yeah.

THEO VON: I mean, what.

MILES TELLER: I mean, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s somebody, I heard something a while back, and it’s not something I think about, but they were like, you know, if you’re having a party or you’re a group of people, you’re not sure everybody, they said the number one way to kind of try and have everybody, make everybody have a good time, it’s just start, just have a good time yourself.

And I think that, but also, I’ve just always rhythm. Yeah. Dance. And that’s something I’ve just always kind of got down with. That’s how I, I just, yeah, I love it. But, yeah, any coming that DJ music, but I like Bob Seger. Classic rock gets me, gets me going, dude. Let alone if there’s, you know, some rock piano. I love that sh*t. Yeah.

Blues in Nashville

THEO VON: Yeah, dude. Some good jazz. My mom came in town recently. We went and listened to some blues. She likes to do that.

MILES TELLER: Where’d you go somewhere for blues?

THEO VON: We went to this blues place in Nashville. It’s just in Printer’s Alley. It’s a, I think it’s kind of a, it’s a bit of a touristy spot kind of, but I think we’re just having trouble finding a spot. And so we went and we had a great time. It was actually a guy from New Orleans that was playing, and so we just sat there and had a nice time.

She likes to listen to it. It’s funny, as my mom gets older, she almost turns into a child a little bit. And there’s moments where it’s almost like it’s a kid there, you know? But just in an older body.

MILES TELLER: The fascination, the kind of, it feels new to her. The kind of…

THEO VON: That’s a good question. It’s like you can just see on her face she’s having a good time.

MILES TELLER: It almost feels like pure and some innocence to it.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it’s great.

THEO VON: It’s almost like old. Your mom, she’s 77.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah. So she’s an adult. She looks a little bit like Willie Nelson. Let’s see a picture of her. She’s not going to want to hear that part.

MILES TELLER: She looks a bit like Willie Nelson. Oh, hell yeah.

THEO VON: She’s awesome.

MILES TELLER: Dude.

THEO VON: I love that she listens to every episode of this.

MILES TELLER: Oh, great. So what’s her name?

THEO VON: Her name is Gina.

MILES TELLER: What’s up, Gina?

THEO VON: There you go. Mom, Miles is married. Mom, calm down. What’s your mom’s name?

Family Stories

MILES TELLER: Mary.

THEO VON: Mary?

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Like Christmas. M-E-R-R-Y. Oh, really? Yeah.

THEO VON: And they did that on purpose?

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Yeah. She was born December 15, but she gets like, it’s not Mary. And my mom’s best friend, my mom says she’s the only one who pronounces her name correctly. And it’s Merry.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Okay. And then some of the, I just remember some of the, they’re not your uncles, but these guys live in the neighborhood and they just all seem kind of pervy.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: You know.

THEO VON: Oh, guys that loiter or whatever.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, they were like family friends and sht. But just some based on the, I don’t know. I just feel like when I watch these old home videos, you’ll just hear some, you’re like, whoa, that was pervious sht, dude.

THEO VON: So they’ll say like, Mary.

MILES TELLER: Then they’ll go, all right, can’t do it.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s going to raise a few flags. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Wow. Merry Maverick. Yeah. That is nice. What does your mom do for work? Does she work?

MILES TELLER: She was, she did real estate for a while, but, yeah. No, not working. My dad actually retired. He just retired a couple years ago. He was born in ’54, so 71. I think he retired pretty close to 70.

THEO VON: And are they enjoying, has it gotten weird for them since they’re both retired? Have they, because, you know, some, it gets weird because they’re both at home and stuff.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I don’t, I mean, yeah. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know. I mean, I still have a good mouth, but I’m sure, yeah, I know. My dad likes doing outside work.

THEO VON: Oh. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: You know what I mean?

THEO VON: A lot of guys, the second they realize that they have to be in the, when the retirement happens, like, oh, God, there’s nowhere to go. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: You need some hobbies.

THEO VON: My stepdad built 40 bird houses in our, he did not want to be just the building. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Just never did he ever put them on.

THEO VON: I mean, he, some of them he did.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: He also…

MILES TELLER: He got the one, the helmet back to 14 year old in shop class. I guess that’s kind of…

THEO VON: He was building dog house. We didn’t even have a dog. I think he just wanted to be, he still needed some time alone.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: So I think there’s…

MILES TELLER: I mean, I don’t have kids yet, but I imagine, you know, yeah, because growing up my dad would, you know, he’d be working on the pool or something. Just be fiddling with stuff in the garage for hours. I don’t, I have no idea what he was doing.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s got to be cool dad stuff. I better be cool. Whenever you’re kind of tinkering.

MILES TELLER: I just want to tinker, you know, I mean, I could tinker for days.

Collecting Weird Things

THEO VON: Dude, let me get out here. Let me start collecting something weird too. My buddy’s dad collected all these toy trains and stuff. And whenever we go over there, he’d have to set it all up. Dude. It would take…

MILES TELLER: We just around the holidays, around Christmas or something.

THEO VON: I think it was anytime to lose his mind. He would just set that b*tch up in June, you know.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: And he’d have to set, he’d have to do the train. And it was just like, you want to support your friend’s parents, but it was just a lot. It was a lot. It’s a lot to watch somebody do the toy train. A lot.

MILES TELLER: I had this bus driver growing up. His nickname was Fingers because he was missing a couple of them. But he had to…

THEO VON: Thankfully. That’s the reason why I did. Because there’s a bus full of kids.

MILES TELLER: Fingers. Fingers. Yeah. He’d always point at you with the nub.

THEO VON: Oh yeah.

MILES TELLER: This belt buckle. Because we’re just talking about collecting weird or whatever, but he had this belt buckle that was, looked like he had hand glued on silver dollars. And so it’s just like 20 silver dollars. I thought it was cool as when I was a kid. Oh, dude.

THEO VON: The stuff you thought was cool when you were a kid was so great, dude.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Even like you said earlier, I remember I was talking about this the other day whenever, like the sun, like if you were playing in the street with your friends and it was like somebody was pitching the ball. You’re like, one more pitch. But the sun was setting. You’d be like, dude, just one more. Like you knew you were going to try to hit a home or like it just the game it did. It wasn’t even. It was just like just these moments when you were a kid, everything was so severe. And if you rode your bike at night, just anything like that, it was.

MILES TELLER: Just riding a bike like in jazz. I think the beauty, just riding bike in general, man, it just brings you back to that. I got, I knocked myself out once playing this game. I got a bunch of concussions when I was younger, but my sister just graduated, like sixth grade. I was probably in fourth grade. So I was trying to come up with a game. So we grabbed a basketball and like an aluminum bat and we’re like, I will play basketball.

So she pitched it. I hit it the first time, it’s like, ding, ding. So my guy, I got to grip it tighter. Second time, fing metal bat with a rubber ball, dude. I fing swung it.

THEO VON: Ding.

MILES TELLER: Knocked myself out. My parents actually, they were saying that the teachers in my school were thinking that my parents were beating me because I would come in like once a week or two, just like shiner, like concussion, dude. And I had that little surfer cut, so I would try and just cover the. Oh, yeah, the f*ing tennis ball with that. Waves are intense.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Wow. Gnarly, gnarly swell today, boys.

Losing Their Home

THEO VON: Dude, I can’t believe. Yeah, you mentioned. I forgot that you guys lost your. You lost your home. Was that your.

MILES TELLER: You know, and I was filming a movie in London and our. We had a house in Studio City and that house got robbed while I was filming. And so I thought I was just going to like. I thought we’d go back after filming, kind of bump up security measures, re fortifying Kelly’s like, no, she’s like, they go through all of her stuff and it is. It’s a very violating feeling.

So then we bought that Palisades house. And honestly, I would say it was the first kind of neighborhood in LA where my wife felt really safe. And then would be excited to go back to LA whenever we’d be filming. I never heard her say that in like the 12 years we’d been dating.

And yeah, we like worked with some designers. My wife really designed so much of it. And I had this feeling last night because we’re in this rental. You know, obviously we’ve been in rentals. And I was just laying in bed, I was like, man, this. You know, we’re in a. The place we’re in is, it’s a nice place. We don’t have to worry about the water, the air, the. You know, it’s really well done.

But at the same time, it just. It fs with your mind when you can’t look around at any point and see anything that reminds you of your life. You know, everything is just. There’s no attachment to anything. Oh, that’s literally my fing house.

THEO VON: I don’t know why we brought that up.

MILES TELLER: That’s my Bronco, though. That was my ’75 f*ing Bronco. So beautiful. Dude, I had that thing for like eight years.

THEO VON: Why would we bring this?

The Palisades Community

MILES TELLER: No, honestly, it’s. It’s. But to be fair, the first picture I saw, Kelly and I saw from our f*ing house, to know that it was actually burnt down was from TMZ. Like, they sent a drone in there. And also they just. Because they started. The first homes they’re talking about are like celebrity homes.

And that’s not fair because the community of the Palisades, all of our neighbors and that community, honestly, were people that had lived there for like 30, 40 years. It was, you know, it’s people that had like, you know, raise their kids there were having their grandkids there. And a lot of those people, you know, their home burns down at like 70 years old. It’s like, we don’t have time to rebuild.

But, you know, there’s like a little elementary school across the street, and they had these dudes on bikes with, you know, like wooden boxes behind them. They would, you know, ride the kids home from school. It really was like, like that movie Pleasantville. I don’t know. It was just such a well done community.

THEO VON: It’s a nice place. Yeah, I’ve gone to a lot of like. Yeah, yeah, we used to get a lot of recovery meetings up there. And it was just like, it’d be the most nicest thing on Saturday. We’d pull up and people would walk.

MILES TELLER: Would you go to the church on Via de la Paz? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the road I lived on. I lived down. I lived like two blocks, maybe even one block from that church, because my buddy said he used to have meetings over there.

THEO VON: Dude. Yeah, they had some of the best meetings in the world were there, really. And it was just such a special energy over there. If you go walk and go over to that. That smoothie shop that’s over there, and they got those acai bowls.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And then they got the little restaurant right across the street from it. Yeah, that’s right near that Starbucks in that big pink, like that whole building.

MILES TELLER: Are you talking like the Village and stuff?

THEO VON: Yeah, no, it’s like there’s that Starbucks.

MILES TELLER: Okay.

THEO VON: And this is that little place that has breakfast and like, right around the corner.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: But, yeah, we go park at the Gelson’s and sit there and people would talk before they a meetings, and then we’d walk over to the meeting together.

MILES TELLER: Oh, good.

THEO VON: But it was just a nice. It was like, yeah, man, that place is. It’s a great place. I’m sorry that that happened, man. Were you guys able to go in and get stuff out or what was that like?

The Fire

MILES TELLER: No, I mean, so like when the fire. When the fire started, like we could see it start from. Because in that area, Via Del Paz, you kind of. You have a good vantage point. You got some altitude to you. So we could see like where the fire started. And I would say it was probably about three and a half, four miles maybe at our 12 o’clock.

And the winds really weren’t that bad at that point. It was scary because we were seeing the fire, you know, start to encroach on some homes. And so you’re watching a home, you know, with this fire going towards the home, you’re just feeling for that family or whoever’s there, and then turn on the news and because there’s one road out, I mean, it was already kind of like. It got serious very fast, and, you know, people were like abandoning their vehicles. You know, it’s like women running with babies.

And this was it within like an hour of this fire kind of starting. And so I was taking care of my grandma at the time because my grandpa had just passed away like around Christmas. I was in the process moving her out with me. And so, you know, she’s got some meds and she’s slow moving. So I was like, hey, grandma, you know, maybe, no, no rush, but, you know, start getting your meds together.

And yeah, I mean, we grabbed, grabbed a couple T-shirts. I got like two Grateful Dead shirts. We thought we’d be in a hotel for like, you know, couple nights and. But no. I remember at one point my brother-in-law calling my wife and he’s like, you know, make sure Miles grabs that, you know, Kobe jersey or that Eagles.

And I was like, what I couldn’t come to terms with. I just couldn’t face the reality. I did not think our neighbor was going to burn down. There’s like no brush. It would have to jump six lanes, which it didn’t. But I just remember thinking like, where do you, you know, it’s like, where do you stop? You know, if I take this off the wall, then there’s just too much. I think it’s kind of. I think it’s kind of overwhelming.

But we. It’s funny because I always told Kelly, like, if a natural disaster happens, something like that, you’re going to drive the truck, load everything in the back, I’m going to take my Bronco. But when stuff, when it’s actually happening, you’re like, no, obviously I have, you know, make sure my wife and, you know, my grandma and, you know, and our dog and stuff.

So. No, we really didn’t, we really didn’t grab. I’m saying, even little s*. Like when you’re at home, I imagine you have like a favorite coffee mug if you drink coffee or just something that you have, has some history to it. It’s like just none of that stuff, truly. It’s like everything I’ve acquired in life gone. Yeah, it’s wild.

THEO VON: Was there feelings after that? Like, because that’s like. I mean, that’s such a. You know, it’s traumatic. It’s. Is there anything, in a weird way, and I don’t mean this. Is there anything cathartic in some weird way about it? Does that sound crazy or is that not a real thing?

MILES TELLER: No, I think.

THEO VON: And maybe that’s.

The Fire and Finding Meaning

MILES TELLER: No, because there’s some people that have lost, I don’t know if it was their main home. There are certainly people that have talked about that kind of baptism of it. But I told Kelly this was like a couple days after. I said, look, I know at some point, especially when we have kids, if we’re fortunate enough to have kids and we’re giving them life lessons, that’s what it’s all about. Parent, you’ve been through the thing they’re going through, more or less.

And I said, the fact that we’ll be able to sit down with our kids and say, when your mother and I were your age or this age, we lost everything and we figured it out. And I know that as a couple, that really is going to just make us stronger. We didn’t have any cracks before, but certainly when you go through something like this, it bonds you in such a way.

And then she told me, stop bright siding me. I said, what the f* is bright siding? She goes, it’s this term I’m learning on Instagram or TikTok. She’s like, bright siding is when you’re telling somebody this thing, no matter what it is, something traumatic, and they’re like, well, look on the bright side. You have your health. And it kind of invalidates the thing they’re going through.

But I know what you’re talking. I know for me, I guess I feel that more when I move, if I ever move, and you go through everything you own, you’re like, oh my God.

THEO VON: That’s what I’m thinking.

MILES TELLER: I don’t care about half this shit.

THEO VON: That’s what I’m thinking. It’s like spring cleaning. I’m like, dude, that’s a horrible comparison.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, no, but it’s valid. I had this director I worked with. His house burned down, and he felt like it was. And we know, right, you shouldn’t have attachment to things.

THEO VON: Right.

MILES TELLER: That doesn’t really fill you up as much as relationships do and this and that. But the things I’m talking about, they weren’t, even though they’re considered material, it was home.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s true.

MILES TELLER: That’s the other field. Just not having a, whatever home means to you. A place where you go back, it’s yours. We’ve been getting kicked out of rentals. They tell you, we have it for three months. They’re like, I know somebody else coming in.

THEO VON: So that.

MILES TELLER: That just kind of thing. But yeah, it’s all good.

Discussing Eternity

THEO VON: Well, thanks for entertaining some of those questions. And maybe you’ve talked about that ad nauseam, man. And I’m sorry if you have. I just didn’t. And I didn’t really think about that. I watched your movie, dude.

MILES TELLER: Yeah? What’d you think?

THEO VON: I watched it last night, man. I thought it was really great. I thought it was one of the things you talked about a few minutes ago. Made me kind of even think about it. It was when you look around your rental place that you’re at now, that there’s not even things that are your, there’s not pieces of you that are spaces or memories or you can walk past something and think, oh, Kelly and I were there. That’s one of our first vacations, or that’s where we got a do, or different things. Right.

And it kind of reminded me of just some of the archives that, because the movie’s called Eternity, and it’s basically, can you just give me a brief summation of what it’s like? Because you’ll do a better job.

MILES TELLER: So when you die, you get put with somebody, and then you take a train, and then you get kind of deposited in this Grand Central Station meets World’s Fair kind of place. You get an afterlife coordinator. And then the rules are you get to live eternally. You pick an eternity, but once you pick, you’re in that forever.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: And so the eternities have different themes. There’s capitalism world or smoking world.

THEO VON: Yeah. Marilyn Manson world.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Marilyn, yeah. Manson world. Chocolate world. Yeah. You can get down with whatever. Somebody was like, I want an eternity where it’s Miami beach spaghetti and cocaine. I was like, well, that’s Miami.

THEO VON: That’s like.

MILES TELLER: I think you just, you can actually go there now.

THEO VON: That’s a night at Carbone.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Carbone is so good.

THEO VON: Carbone is.

MILES TELLER: Oh, my God.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Beautiful. Yeah. I thought it was just beautifully shot. I just thought it was really, just a really original script.

THEO VON: It’s so original, and it makes you think about if I do pass away, it gives me. It gave me, well, you will pass away. Oh, yeah.

MILES TELLER: Biohacking is crazy right now. Haters.

THEO VON: Yeah, a lot of haters.

MILES TELLER: If I do pass away. Well, yeah. Debatable. Yeah.

THEO VON: But it was great because your character’s wife, all.

MILES TELLER: Elizabeth Olsen.

THEO VON: Elizabeth Olsen, right. She passes away, and then she has to choose between her first love.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. This dude who’s been waiting, he passed away in the Korean War. He’s been waiting 60 something years for her.

THEO VON: Right. And you who are at kind of at the Grand Central Station now. You guys are both kind of waiting for her in a way.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, well, I didn’t know he was. I didn’t know he was still waiting.

THEO VON: Right.

MILES TELLER: For her.

THEO VON: Are we giving away too much of Eternity?

MILES TELLER: No, that’s in, I think that’s in the trailer.

THEO VON: Yeah. It’s all in the first 10 minutes.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: But it’s kind of fascinating because then she shows up and now you two are kind of vying for her affections, and then who does she stay with? Does she stay with this first love that she lost and didn’t get to have a life with, or does she stay with this love that she already got to have a life with? Yeah, and it’s just. And there are.

MILES TELLER: There’s some people were telling me, that’s my nightmare. People that have been widowed and moved on. This and that. But it does. It really makes you think about your own life and what’s beyond and family and.

Love and Consciousness

THEO VON: Well, and how long love lives. Yeah, I think that was part of it. I remember when I’ve done this, a little bit of a weird side bar, but when I’ve done DMT, it’s the only feeling that you’re left with is that the only important feeling as it feels like you’re leaving the existence, is that love was the most important thing and that everything else was just a complete fool’s error.

MILES TELLER: And also that because what you’re talking about, but you get this feeling that your consciousness, which is who we are, is really, this really is just kind of this vessel, this physical form is. But who you are exists when you ever. You’ve been in a situation where you feel like you’ve left your body, but you still think like yourself, you still feel like yourself and that kind of remains intact.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s a good. And we’re not saying that, but we’re just saying that, yes, the consciousness of who we are still exists outside of our vessels. That’s what certain experiences have made me feel like. And that that consciousness is still able to experience, to evaluate that love is so important. Yeah, that’s one thing that I thought.

MILES TELLER: No, but also I thought about that too. I think the most important thing in life for me really is relationships. To me, that’s the thing. When I’m, I imagine when I’m sitting there on my deathbed, if I’m lucky enough to.

THEO VON: If you die?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, if I die.

THEO VON: Because we have a new package for you.

MILES TELLER: Right? Sure. I can’t wait. Give me that longevity, whatever it is. We got a new peptide for you. Perfect, dude. Kelly will show me one thing. Somebody talk about some product. I’m like, yeah, sure. Sounds good. Was it bee pollen? Sperm? Yeah, I can put it in the smoothie, baby.

But no, but it’s relationships. To me, that’s something I’m not going to be thinking about how this, that Bronco or that movie or that. I’d be thinking about my wife, my buddies, my family, my relationship with whatever higher being I have. And I think that’s kind of the. And that’s what I get the most. The return from what you put into relationships. That’s what you’re going to get back. I just think that’s always kind of led me on a good path in life.

Taking Time for What Matters

THEO VON: Yeah. It’s, I know sometimes I feel like I’ve almost spent too much time working. One of the nice things, I recently kind of have gotten to take a break from touring because I’d been kind of touring pretty heavily for four or five years and maybe really for probably 15 years. And so I’ve been able to go to football games and maybe try to plan a date and go on a date, not be trying to pick up the pieces all the time and stuff like that. And just things like that. To be able to see a friend a couple weeks in a row, or know that you’re going to be able to keep the relationship going. Stuff like that is. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: And when it’s not just sandwiched in between, it’s like, okay, I have one and a half days. I have this thing on Friday, this thing on Monday. Whatever. Yeah, that’s never enjoyable.

THEO VON: It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like you need to.

MILES TELLER: Take some time to yourself. And even with filming, man, I’ve kind of always been pretty good. Obviously, if it’s, I have no problem going back to back to back if it’s the right thing. But other than that, it’s, for me, it’s got to be really special. Because you just, you take time. I enjoy my Miles life. I enjoy my life with my friends and my family and Kelly and this and that. So to have the time to nourish those relationships is so important.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: And just figure out who, I don’t know, get back to what you like.

THEO VON: Yeah, man. Yeah. I thought it was interesting how in the movie. Oh, who is the. So you get to the Grand Central Station, right? This sort of this purgatory type of place.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And they connect you with an afterlife coordinator.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And then the funny thing is. Yeah. There’s, it’s almost like this mall of afterlife. So trying to sell you or shop to you. It’s like, oh, here’s one. It’s just a Bed, Bath and Beyond forever. You’re just in a place. You’re in a candle and lotion shop forever. Or here’s one. It’s at the beach or at the beach forever or skiing forever. Yeah. And it’s all the. It’s, you know, Willie Nelson world. And it’s just everybody there looks like Willie Nelson and that’s all they do.

MILES TELLER: So people that love the same, right?

THEO VON: So you can. Yeah. And you get to go there and you’re going to meet other people that love Willie Nelson and it’s going to be Willie Nelson forever, right?

MILES TELLER: Hell yeah.

THEO VON: But they give you this afterlife coordinator. And those characters were great in yours, man. Thank God.

MILES TELLER: Divine Joy Randolph, who won the supporting actress Oscar for the Holdovers. And then John Early, who is a. I’m sure some people watch this, know who John is.

THEO VON: He’s.

MILES TELLER: He’s got some really incredible stand up specials.

THEO VON: Bring him up.

MILES TELLER: I wasn’t.

THEO VON: I don’t know if I was familiar with him or a couple shows, too. John’s. He’s impressive, man.

MILES TELLER: Bro, they were killing me, dude. Some of the looks he was giving.

THEO VON: Yeah, I know. He’s pretty sassy in this movie, which I love.

MILES TELLER: That shit was hilarious. I got a touch base with this guy.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: I got to watch more of his stuff. But yeah, dude, that was great. And then how. Yeah, it was just like, man, she’d had this love that had died in the war, and it was like, oh, and she’d waited and then she’d met you and. Yeah, it was just like.

And then like there was this moment where you realized that, yeah, I don’t want to give any. I don’t want to give any more away? But it was also harrowing to think of, like, how many, how many widows were. How many women were widowed by war, you know?

MILES TELLER: Oh, yeah, right. Like, how often did that happen?

THEO VON: Pull that up. Actually, can you see how many women were widowed by. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: I mean, I forget what they said the average lifespan was for Norton. They stormed Normandy, but it was. They’re getting mowed down.

The Impact of War on Widows

THEO VON: Wow. It says For World War I alone, approximately 3 to 4 million women were widowed due to the roughly 9.7 million military deaths. Wow. Wow. Other conflicts show varied figures. Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Because also women were married pretty young. Do you like torn?

THEO VON: Yeah. You almost get addicted to it though, in some ways. Yeah. Because it’s a great time. It’s fun. People you want to go see, people that want to pay attention, you know?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: And I like, I would start going to smaller markets. Like we did like 250 something markets over the past four years with this tour and it was. Yeah, it’s great. But then you start. It does like, it starts to become a lot. It just was a lot.

MILES TELLER: Imagine you’re like, yeah, of course you want to, you know, that’s.

THEO VON: You want to see everybody, you want to make everybody happy.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And that’s.

MILES TELLER: It’s like whenever I go somewhere and you know, if there’s some event, you know, an event, and you can tell, okay, these are actually fans. These aren’t just, you know, scalpers or dudes trying to sell your autograph. It’s like, yeah, of course I make movies for people to, to like to see them. And so the fans are a product of that.

It’s like, yeah, I love, I love doing that stuff. You just feel like, yeah, of course we’re in the entertainment industry.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: You know what I mean? It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Like, you want to bring a smile to somebody’s face. Especially those smaller markets that don’t get the kind of the axe that, you know, the other spots do.

THEO VON: Yeah, we’ve had so much fun. I mean, from places like Cass for Wyoming to Beaumont to Toledo, I mean, we’ve done like so many markets and we’re like, oh, well, these other places we can go to. And then we’ll do like a lot of just meet and greets after the show. We’ll just go pop out and meet people.

So, you know, you’ll be sitting out there just hugging people and like checking in on folks and like getting a temperature of humanity and stuff. Like that and it feels good. It almost feels in a little way like you live everywhere kind of in some ways because you realize that there’s just so many great people, you know, who all, like a lot, like, are all kind of searching for some of the same things, you know.

I think with our, with this podcast, it’s sometimes it’s a bit more than just kind of like jokes and information sounds. It’s like just like kind of creating a connection, you know? Yeah. Show me that chart again, man. Thank you for asking though, man.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Of course. The Civil War had 620,000 to 750,000 military deaths. High widowhood. Let me see. World War I estimated around 325,000 widows. World War II, around 405,000 widows. Korean War. And that was the war that your co actor died in in this movie. Yes, around 36,000 widows.

But yeah, when you just think of all those women. And there was a moment where she said she went and sat at the boat docks and was waiting for his. For the boat he was on to come in.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Yeah.

Discussing “Eternity”

THEO VON: Oh. So I think that was one thing that was neat about eternity to me was like, there’s this fun, like, thing going on where you guys are like, you know, figuring out these different world, like the afterlife. And it’s super entertaining. But then there’s also like, there was this sort of like emotional, like kind of pretty emotional stuff going on with like, yeah, how do we look at love?

And like, if you’ve already gotten to live one love, if you got to go back, would you choose a different one? And yeah, it was just.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. I mean, what I enjoyed about reading the script and kind of when we performed it was that it does. It never loses its kind of grounding and the stakes and the sincerity of it. There’s some really funny moments and there’s some kind of, you know, but nothing ever becomes like slaps.

It’s not a movie. We’re just trying to get in as many one liners as we can. I think it’s. It always kind of. It’s just a delicate balance between having that sincerity and the love. And also I think I do think it’s really funny. Yeah, it’s like, it’s just.

And we had, after the, we did the premiere in Toronto, man, we just said like at the after party you could just tell people were kind of coupling off and just talking. It just makes you think. I think it’s a beautiful, a beautiful film.

THEO VON: One of my favorite parts too is just Right in the beginning when they’re driving in that car together. Dude. I could have watched those two people in that car.

MILES TELLER: That’s the northeast, dude. But also, it’s just couples that have been around for that long just this natural, just kind of, you’re not going to offend me. You know, just bullshit, banter, bickering, complaining.

THEO VON: And they’re both. Neither one of them is saying everything they’re doing is just kind of like making the other one like whatever they’re saying. Problem?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think my wife and I secretly enjoy to like kind of annoy each other, you know what I mean?

THEO VON: Yeah. That’s probably part of love. Probably.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Olsen and Her Famous Sisters

THEO VON: Like a little bit of annoyance, a little bickering. I didn’t realize that the Elizabeth Olsen. Yeah, I didn’t realize that she was related to Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Yeah, yeah. I had no idea.

MILES TELLER: I know. A pretty dynamic family. Yeah. Yeah.

THEO VON: That’s wild. Did you get to meet them? Did they come by the set?

MILES TELLER: They did not. No, they did not.

THEO VON: It’s so crazy because they had a childhood starter line that had to be so odd.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I know. It tends to. I mean. And they’ve become very successful, you know, in the design side of it. Yes, absolutely. I think it’s tough.

THEO VON: Oh, it’d be a nightmare.

MILES TELLER: Do you feel like I was at.

THEO VON: What did you feel like you started to become popular at a pretty young age? Do you feel like you were kind of baked into you already or do you feel like if it had been earlier, like, do you have any thoughts about that?

Miles on Fame and Timing

MILES TELLER: Like, I think for me, things happened kind of at the pace that, that lined up with my own kind of maturity or life experiences. Because, you know, it’s like I went to, went to college for four years and trained there and so, yeah, I was like 22 when I did my first movie. Maybe like 20. Maybe I was like 24, 25 when Footloose came out and the Project X and that kind of thing.

But now I was doing some college comedy type stuff, so that was all good, I think. Had I gotten, you know, really famous when I was like 17? I mean, I was raised real well. I, you know, I never had to worry about my parents or somebody taking money from me, you know, which happens a lot. It’s really unfortunate. That’s really a shame to lose trust.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. That young from loved one.

MILES TELLER: I think that’s going to f* you up for the rest of your life, truly.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s a Good point.

MILES TELLER: But yeah, for me it was pretty. It was like, honestly, pretty, pretty organic. I never. I felt like I was able to handle. And also I moved. When I moved out to LA, a bunch of my boys from high school all moved out. So I didn’t. I didn’t like need anything from LA.

THEO VON: I was.

MILES TELLER: I didn’t come to LA to like find myself. I’m like, no, I know who I am. And me, you know, me and my buddies get a house or whatever in the Valley and yeah, I always had like familiar faces around me.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s so nice.

MILES TELLER: Even my agent, I met her on my first movie. She’s been the same ever since. Like that to me, hasn’t. Hasn’t changed. Yeah, you know, I think I was lucky in that sense that a bunch of my boys were like, yeah, we’ll go.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s dope, dude. Were they acting too?

MILES TELLER: The one, the one moved out. We played in a band together in high school. I think he was trying to do something maybe music wise, but no.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s a tough getting. LA is hectic. What was y’all’s band name in high school?

The Mutes and High School Memories

MILES TELLER: We were. We were the Mutes because we played the. We all started because we played like the homecoming parade. And then the electric. The power went out for our generator, so the amps, there was no sound. So that’s enough of a reason to, you know. That’s a band name right there. I think we actually were playing for SWAT. Like on the SWAT float, which was.

THEO VON: Really like this, like SWAT team.

MILES TELLER: No, like students working against tobacco. Yeah. You don’t remember SWAT? It was like DARE and like SWAT. No, dude, we.

THEO VON: Bro. We had a DARE officer. Mr. Bob and Rip. He passed away. Everybody knew he was. Was, but he would like pull up and he was. He was a humongous man. And this is back when if a man was very busy.

MILES TELLER: What does DARE stand for again?

THEO VON: Drug abuse Resistance Education.

MILES TELLER: Because I can only just. I instantly just think of whatever the. The ones that people would make up their own.

THEO VON: Oh, the meme ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are some of the meme dead ones?

MILES TELLER: I don’t.

THEO VON: I don’t even know if I know any of them.

MILES TELLER: No, I remember in high school people would say drugs are really expensive.

THEO VON: Yeah. Well, especially in Florida if you got some good drugs. But dude, SWAT.

MILES TELLER: So what happened with the officer?

THEO VON: It was students working against tobacco.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: What do you mean working against tobacco?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, there it is. Dude. SWAT was big spot was big time surprise. We’re like, sketch on the right, zoom in.

THEO VON: Sketch on the right.

MILES TELLER: Dude.

THEO VON: What the f* is he doing there?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, see? Inventors laboratory. Big tobacco. Like, big tobacco’s going down and let’s go. I don’t even know what the. Because, Yeah, I mean, they would have meetings, bro.

THEO VON: That is sketch. I can’t even believe you guys. He was locked in with that.

MILES TELLER: Well, that’s not my high school, so. He was. Yeah, but our float probably looks. You just needed some. Some dude with a flatbed and he just throws some streamers on it, bro.

THEO VON: I never heard that in my life. I do.

MILES TELLER: Funny.

THEO VON: I’ve never heard of it.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, okay.

THEO VON: I do remember.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

Officer Bob and D.A.R.E. Programs

THEO VON: Try it on Perplexity. See what they got. Pull up some of the dairy.

MILES TELLER: So what did Officer Bob, what was his big moment? Yeah, see, drugs are really exciting.

THEO VON: Don’t actually recover ever.

MILES TELLER: Jesus. Drop everything and run.

THEO VON: Yeah, but it was a lot of people screaming, “I won’t do drugs,” or whatever. But Officer Bob was huge, dude. And one year he pulled up and he could not get it. He couldn’t even get out of his car right. So he had to do the talk from a megaphone from his vehicle. And people were like, what? And it just sounded so garbled and stuff. And then they would hide a sack of weed in some kid’s bag or whatever in the audience, and a dog would just go.

MILES TELLER: A real bag of weed?

THEO VON: Yes. Or something that the dog could smell.

MILES TELLER: So I’m guessing it was, so just okay.

THEO VON: Because it was like, yeah, we put weed on one of the kids. All the kids would be like, you know, and then they just sick a f*ing German shepherd on the kid.

MILES TELLER: Easiest, dude.

THEO VON: Dude. Yeah. Pretty awesome.

Florida High School Stories

MILES TELLER: Dude, there was some weird stuff in my Florida. And every teacher’s coach. Every teacher in our high school was coach because they used to coach a basketball team or they could. I remember one dude, he coached the, it was like the debate team or something. And you still, he was still coach.

THEO VON: Oh, dude. Yeah. They would just pick whoever the lesbian teacher was at our school was also had to be the drama teacher for some reason.

MILES TELLER: That was ours for a minute. Our softball coach. Lesbian ended up a couple years after I graduated, she was having a relationship with a sophomore.

THEO VON: It’s unfortunate. And that’s Florida.

MILES TELLER: That’s, well, a lot of the time it is Florida. That’s Florida. And that’s softball. Yeah.

THEO VON: I don’t know if it is or not, but I mean, there’s a lot of inner.

Key West

MILES TELLER: Have you ever been down to Key West, though? Key West, like my happy place.

THEO VON: Is it?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, just killer live. Some of the best, I think, best live music countries like there. Austin, obviously. Nashville. Yeah. Austin or Key West, man, just killer music. Either you’re walking around the whole time, or, you know, if you, we go in a big group, everyone’s just on these little scooters. Every bar looks like it just went through a hurricane.

THEO VON: Yeah. I got to go down there.

MILES TELLER: So fun, dude.

THEO VON: I always hear Nick Swardson loves it down there, though.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, he lived down there for, he was just supposed to go for a couple weeks or something. Stay at this hotel for something for months.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: He spent almost a st ton of money, I think.

THEO VON: Almost just under a million.

MILES TELLER: That’s hard in Key West, dude, because you will get the mojitos still for a quarter during happy hour. Oh, dude, I don’t know how you f*ing spent a million bucks, actually. He needs to run a book.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Million bucks in Key West. Oh, my God, dude.

THEO VON: He’s a John Daly of Key West. Yeah. What was I going to talk about?

MILES TELLER: Oh, dude.

SWAT Program

THEO VON: Oh, it was the, oh, I feel like somebody’s been blowing.

MILES TELLER: Weed smoking here daily, baby.

THEO VON: But SWAT this.

MILES TELLER: Students working against tobacco things.

THEO VON: Yes.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. And because if they’re not doing it.

THEO VON: That’s true.

MILES TELLER: Tobacco’s just running rampant.

THEO VON: It’s like Agatha Christie.

MILES TELLER: They’re still rocking and rolling.

THEO VON: SWAT is Florida’s statewide youth organization working to mobilize, educate, and equip.

MILES TELLER: It’s specifically a Florida thing to revolt.

THEO VON: Against and deglamorize tobacco. Yep. Wow.

MILES TELLER: Wow, dude. Well, that makes, I thought it was a national program.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: But I guess we never did go on field trips.

THEO VON: Yeah. This is it. No, you, this was a, this was an experimental program down there in the south, dude. There’s 400.

MILES TELLER: There’s 43 high schoolers vape now. Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. There’s 4,300 active youth, though, in the SWAT. SWAT youth in the state of Florida. And so shout out to them.

The Tree Float Story

THEO VON: We had this thing, so we had to build a float one time was for the homecoming parade. And my buddy Patrick, we had to make this tree. Ours was like the tree of life or something or whatever, or keep growing or something like that. And my buddy Patrick, he was going to, we’re like, dude, Patrick, you stay in the tree. Stay in the middle, light up a blunt in there and just blow smoke out of the, if you blow enough smoke, some of it’ll just keep a hole in the top of the tree. Some of it will leak out.

So we’re pushing this down the street, and everybody will, and nobody will know, but they’ll be just, you’ll be in there, the super high.

MILES TELLER: And it’s all, you’re saying, okay. So I was thinking you cut a hole out of the trunk, so it’s like his face roasting blunts or something. But you’re saying just a little hole just so he could breathe. But he was hotboxing this tree.

THEO VON: Well, we forgot about a breathing hole. We just thought, put him in the tree, in the trunk of the tree. The trunk is fully built around him. It’s like this whole paper mache and wire setup that’s going to be on a float. And then there’s this big kind of bulb on top of him. Almost like a very small water tower would be kind of look. And that is all adorned with green paper mache everything. That’s a big tree.

And they’ll put a hole on top of that. So, Patrick, you just stand in there, keep smoking blunts, and some of the smoke will leak out the top. It’ll be awesome. We’ll love it.

MILES TELLER: And you’ll be very high, dude.

THEO VON: He was so high, dude. It’s like an hour parade.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And you couldn’t see any of the smoke coming out. It was just him smoking countless black and mild blunts in this tree. And then we got him there, dude.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, he didn’t, he couldn’t go to school for one whole week. He couldn’t go to school for one whole week, dude. His mom had to stay home with him. He was, it was the most high person that we’d ever seen in our area. It was fun.

MILES TELLER: Dude couldn’t go to school for a week.

THEO VON: And he hasn’t been the same since. He hasn’t. Yeah, he hasn’t been the same. What was something, how long did you guys, how long did you guys.

MILES TELLER: Patrick, it’ll be awesome, dude. He’s going to sit there, smoke as much weed as you want, you know? And sometimes you would.

THEO VON: For the first two blocks, you could hear him yell, “Can y’all see the smoke?” But after that, there was no sound coming out of there. It was almost like, he’s probably dead.

MILES TELLER: Probably died for a second.

THEO VON: Well, he was almost like when those kids got trapped in that mine. You know, after the second day, they couldn’t hear anything.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Film Production Schedule

MILES TELLER: When you’re shooting a movie like that, at this point, when you go into a film, are there things you want to have on set that make your day easier? And then what’s that shoot schedule like on a day to day basis for somebody kind of at your level? Do you still have to shoot every single scene? Do they shoot around some stuff? What is it? What’s the reality of that?

Working on Film Sets

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve been fortunate enough to work on some great projects with some great actors for the most part. Some really incredible directors that wanted to be the first one there, last one to leave. I just think it’s important that right off the bat people understand it’s like, I’ll be here for anything you need.

Because a lot of the time, if you got a maybe for the shot or whatever, the eye line’s tight, they want you to work with just an X on the thing. And some people are really good working that way. For me, I have to feel the connection with whoever I’m working with.

And so for a bigger budget movie, sure there’s certain things that you can kind of build into your contract to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible. But at the end of the day, I don’t really give a sh, man. I’m pretty low maintenance. It’s just like whatever we need to do to make the best movie possible, I’m fully in. Anything you need from me, I’m here.

And also I think I approach film or just acting in general, I mean, I grew up loving sports and every sport was like team sports always and playing music and that kind of just being a link in the chain. Like to me that’s how it has to happen. So I enjoy that camaraderie, I enjoy that teamwork.

As I’ve moved up in my career, I take it upon myself to really lead from the front. If I’m number one on the call sheet, and if I’m producing the thing, it’s important to me to know everybody’s name and just to feel like we’re all kind of in this thing together. I think when you’re making a movie and you just kind of come out for your stuff, go back to your trailer, it’s fine. And everybody works differently but just for me, I need to really feel that kind of camaraderie.

THEO VON: Part of the squad.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, part of the squad, man.

THEO VON: It is so much fun, even being on a set because the fact that something gets created really out of nothing, right. Words get created and put onto a page and then you want to make sure there’s enough time.

The Writing Process

MILES TELLER: I think writing is probably the hardest out of all of the disciplines. I can’t imagine just staring at a blank page, page one, scene one.

THEO VON: You don’t start thinking about, you don’t do that stuff?

MILES TELLER: What, right.

THEO VON: Will you write a script or?

MILES TELLER: No, no, I think I’m better at when writers already have an idea or I can make. I feel like I’m good at kind of collaborating within the scene work and framework of the script and I’ll certainly kind of help shape things 100%. I think most actors, through improvisation or through talking with the writer, absolutely inform the material to a good amount. Some scripts you don’t really need to touch at all.

But I think I’m better at coming in. I don’t have the first idea, but I’m good at, okay, that’s great, and now this. But also I truly believe in best idea wins. And so when you work with a director who’s really collaborative and whose ego isn’t so precious to where they can take inspiration from the people around them, I think that’s really beautiful.

I think you have to feel collaborative. I think the only time I get upset when I’m filming is when I feel like I’m working with a dictator and that I don’t feel comfortable to kind of speak up about. I don’t like closed minded people. To me, that’s when I, I guess I don’t. I really don’t like authority figures.

And I thought getting in the arts, that’s kind of the, that’s a great path for me because we’re all, it’s collaborative medium in nature. But yeah, I just, I don’t like when people lead with an iron fist too much.

Discussing the Film’s Afterlife Concept

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. It’s kind of crazy. Dude. What did I see? I’m trying to think of something else. Oh, one part of the movie that was interesting to me was there was a moment where they were kind of where she had chosen an eternity. So she chooses one of the men. But then you can go look at archives. You can kind of go back into a museum of your life.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, that’s a really interesting part of it.

THEO VON: Yeah. It was just neat to see how that. It’s just nice to see that if that happened, if we pass away, which you are a believer of, that we get to go through almost this zoo where there’s different exhibits of scenes from your life.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Your memory. Yeah. Your memories. Yeah. I think people like that term, core memories now is something that’s kind of become in vogue.

The Louvre Heist

THEO VON: Yeah, that was kind of fantastical, but that was one thing that I thought was pretty dope about it. Oh, what about a heist movie? Dude, I just saw this heist.

MILES TELLER: How about that Loot the Louvre.

THEO VON: That’s—

MILES TELLER: I mean that wasn’t a movie. That’s the friggin’ news, dude. But that is wild. I mean, how the Louvre jewelry heist.

THEO VON: Unfolded on the south side. The heist took a matter of minutes.

MILES TELLER: Bridge crazy.

THEO VON: Here’s how it happened. At 9:30 on Sunday, four individuals arrived on scooters in a truck that had a mechanical ladder attached to the back of it. Two of them ascended to the balcony and used power tools to carve into the outside window.

MILES TELLER: None of that. I mean, I have alarms on my windows.

THEO VON: Inside the Apollo gallery that houses all of the Louvre’s special royal jewels and use their saws to break into two of those cases. In the meantime, we’ve been told that the security guards really quickly brought people out of that room. This very wing of the Louvre also contains a Mona Lisa. So it’s the most sort of precious things in France are there.

But only 75% of the rooms have security cameras in them. Four minutes later, they emerge with eight precious items, including tiara necklaces, a beautiful brooch and a crown. How’d they get away, Nick? They escaped out the window and they took off on scooters that they had planted. Dude, that seems like almost it would be.

MILES TELLER: You just think more security.

THEO VON: It’s like what you and I would.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: Guys would decide, hey, let’s go get the Louvre.

MILES TELLER: Let’s steal that friggin’ crown.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. Oh, my wife is upset. She doesn’t have a crown or whatever.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And then you’re like, all right, let me see how I can figure it out.

MILES TELLER: Give us nine minutes. But also it’s like, so what then they sell this? Do they take it apart and sell it on the black market? Do they just need to hold on to it until, after generation, and then try and—

THEO VON: And then say, get rid of it up somewhere. Yeah. I don’t know. How do you get rid of something like that? Oh, it’s almost pretty magical that they were able to do it.

MILES TELLER: But I mean, no, I think it’s, yeah. I mean, it certainly gives truth to these heist movies and stuff. You’re like, ah, no way. It’s like, well, you can do with just a little saw.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Actually, and a scooter. You don’t even need switching identities. And it’s like, no, but that’s what I was running when the dude’s in there banging. It’s just carving through this glass. Nobody’s, because obviously it was full of people.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: No, that’s incredible to me. Hey, quiet.

THEO VON: Quiet down. I can’t hear the guided tour over here. That’s crazy, bro. And the Mona Lisa, dude. Mona Lisa looks more like a dude, I think.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: But, yeah, that was stolen.

MILES TELLER: It was stolen at one point. Not in this, but I think back in the 70s or something, Mona Lisa was stolen.

The Mona Lisa Theft

THEO VON: I wonder if it was really stolen or somebody faked having. See, this is what I think happens sometimes. These museums fake having stuff stolen to get people to come to the museum or to add texture and story to their place. Yes, the Mona Lisa.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. 1911.

THEO VON: Yes, the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911.

MILES TELLER: From the Louvre. The Louvre needs the button up, dude. The Louvre is like, what are you guys doing? No wonder you keep getting robbed. It’s obviously not that hard, dude.

THEO VON: It’s a f*ing halfway house for art, dude. They got to figure this sh out, dude.

MILES TELLER: He disguised a ring camera, what are you doing?

THEO VON: He disguised himself. He disguised himself as a museum employee, hid overnight inside the museum. That’s the move. And took the painting the next morning by removing it from its frame and concealing it under his smock. The theft was not discovered until the following day. And the painting was hidden in Perugia’s apartment in Paris during that time. Dude, when I was, when I was growing up, you can’t—

MILES TELLER: Tell anybody about it.

THEO VON: Right?

MILES TELLER: You know what I mean?

THEO VON: Yeah. You can’t even get—

MILES TELLER: You can’t put it on display. I have no idea. I really don’t know how you move this stuff.

THEO VON: And you get high and definitely tell somebody.

MILES TELLER: Oh, for sure, for sure. That’s how, I mean, that’s kind of usually how they end up catching criminals on that Most Wanted list. They slip up, they tell somebody something.

THEO VON: Bro, I’m so high right now. Don’t tell anybody.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: But I murdered a couple people. Oh, yeah.

MILES TELLER: Great. Yo, wild.

THEO VON: Yeah. Remember that?

MILES TELLER: I told you last night, I was just, man, we were up.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: You said you murdered someone. I said I did. Yeah, we were both. Yeah, that was a goof.

Working with Tom Cruise

THEO VON: You’ve had so many interesting experiences. You got to work with Tom Cruise. Was that pretty fascinating? Did you get to meet him before you got to work with him? And sorry if some of this seems a little bit petty, but I don’t know anybody that ever met him.

Working with Tom Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick

MILES TELLER: Oh yeah, no, Tom. I mean, yeah, Tom’s great. I flew. It was this. I had worked with that director before. I had done two movies with him, I think, at that point. No, I had done one movie with him at that point. But yeah, I mean, I flew. I had to audition for it. I think there was, they were down to a couple guys flew and did an audition with Tom.

He’s very disarming. I mean, but for some reason, I didn’t feel like I was going to be nervous around him. I have an immense amount of respect for the guy, but he’s such a consummate professional, and he is one of our great, great actors and his filmography. I think if you attach commercial and critical, I think this run that he’s went on multiple times through his career is going to be very hard to touch.

But yeah, he really cares about the work and he labors over the script. I mean, we would meet, we would have a meeting or filming. He’s like, all right, we’re going to meet. We’re going to talk about this scene that exists on page 50 or something. But you always start page one, scene one. And you start from the very beginning.

And then three hours later, when we’ve had all these side conversations about just different parts of the script, by the time you get to the scene you were there to meet about, it’s like, ah, well, it’s time to go. We’ll meet tomorrow. But nobody works harder. He knows everybody’s name. He’s first one in, last one to leave.

But that movie, I mean, that movie took a long time to make. Everybody was so committed. And also, you have to work in part and parcel and in concert with the Navy. I mean, Navy doesn’t stop being the Navy. So if we’re filming on a carrier, we’re filming in Top Gun or we’re filming all these places. These guys are actively training non-stop. So yeah, it was a lot to kind of work out.

THEO VON: So you’re having to work in between certain days while they’re doing stuff or at night while they’re…

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I remember when we were on the carrier, we maybe had a two-hour window for something to be up on the top deck. But yeah, we’re on the carrier for two weeks. I remember I walked by this one sailor. It’s one of my first few days being there.

And even though you’re on this giant carrier, you feel like you’re on a submarine because the hallways are very cramped, everything is metal. There’s nothing for company comfort. There’s nothing extraneous. That is an active carrier, it’s a wartime carrier, but it’s a weapon. I mean, we’re launching aircraft from it.

But when you’re walking around, I mean, all of the hallway, everything is so tight, even though it’s this massive vessel. And I walked by this one sailor and I was like, hey, yeah. I was like living the dream, huh? He just turns to me and he goes, “Nightmares are also dreams.” And he said it so cold. I was like, that is. We’re on the Theodore Roosevelt.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: But no, I just, I don’t know. I have so much. Nightmares are also dreams. Yeah. Because I mean, that’s a good, depending on what your job is on that carrier. I mean, your job placement, you might be seven or eight decks below and just the nature of operations. Sometimes, that’s kind of your territory. Oh yeah, absolutely. Man, do you show so much respect for.

Supporting Veterans and Mental Health

THEO VON: Oh yeah. When you think military is best, what people go through. We’re trying to maybe have Gary Sinise come on. I know he’s…

MILES TELLER: He is. There’s nobody that’s done more.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: That guy is truly been his life’s mission. Yeah, he’s fantastic.

THEO VON: To support veterans.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, absolutely. Because it’s not like the VA, because I did this movie about guys coming home from war is called Thank You for Your Service and it was based on this book, real guys. And that’s kind of what you learn. It’s like the VA is not broken. It’s just overwhelmed.

And so for guys to kind of unpack, and our writer director was telling me, he’s like, yo, Miles. We’ve known how to send guys to war, men and women to war, for centuries. Since the beginning of time, we’ve known how to create a soldier, but we still don’t really know how to bring them back. And it is really complicated. Those programs that are working for nonprofit, they can only take so many people. Funding is really important. And the abuse of people.

THEO VON: Sorry, go on.

MILES TELLER: No, I was just saying it’s really tough. And also, just with mental health in general, the amount of training that it takes for somebody to be able to appropriately deal with someone with, if it’s PTSD, if it’s bipolar, if it’s schizophrenia, whatever it is, it really takes a long time to train somebody and to be able to get them to sit with the person and be able to potentially change their meds a little bit.

Somebody that they trust, somebody who has those skills to deal with it. It’s very tough. And yeah, that’s actually something I’m, yeah, I have a lot of advocacy for, I think. And also when you talk to people, I think most, I think a lot of people have somebody in their family or with friends that are dealt with that, and it’s just, yeah, it’s really tough. I think I have just immense amount of empathy. And that stuff’s always, it’s more or less, it always kind of, that some traumatic event happened at some age and that leads to these mental health issues.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s such a great statement. We don’t know how to bring these people home. And then how much, even at a governmental level, how much value should there be just as much of a training and untraining program as much as you’re training people for military and for combat, should there be just as much of an untraining?

MILES TELLER: And also these guys, the guys that they go to war with, those are the guys that understand more than anybody what they went through. But then they go from being in battalion and being those guys, and then they come home and everybody kind of disperses. And it’s tough.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s…

MILES TELLER: It’s tough.

THEO VON: Well, it’s like you were saying earlier, just like being able to be part of a group and have that, and then suddenly it’s different. Or suddenly, even if you shared life experiences, you’re put on leave or something because you’re a mental condition, then that’s got to be even scarier because now are you maybe struggling, but also you’re away from your group. Right.

MILES TELLER: And also each, depending on what job you’re going for in the military, infantry, different branches, you need, it’s a numbers game. We need numbers at all times. And so some of these boot camps are X amount of weeks, and it’s like, here you go. Here’s your gun.

And when you get more kind of, I guess, Tier one Senior. Yeah. Well, I’m just saying, our special forces guys, I mean, those guys have been through a lot of training, and they’re, you’re usually not in those groups until you’re, you’re certainly not 18. As a Navy SEAL, it takes a couple of years.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s been. It was. I was. I went to this football game last year, going to the Vanderbilt football game, and there were two…

MILES TELLER: Did you go to Vandy?

THEO VON: I didn’t, but they just happened to be in Nashville, and I became buddies with their quarterback.

MILES TELLER: That quarterback’s a real deal. Yeah, bro.

THEO VON: He’s such a great guy. You would love him, dude. Yeah, he’s come. We went to a UFC fight together. Actually, you weren’t…

UFC and Combat Sports

MILES TELLER: Which one? I’ve been out of the mix for a little bit just because of the house stuff, but…

THEO VON: Seven months ago, maybe. I don’t remember which one it was. I can’t…

MILES TELLER: How great are those? It’s the best. Well, dude, if, you know, at the end of the…

THEO VON: Day, they’re going to fight.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. And there’s just…

THEO VON: And the time in between is great. You just hang for a little chat and then it’s just when that music comes on, forever’s coming in just the crowd. I think Madison Square Garden especially good, or I imagine you were at some of those Connor fights during his heyday.

THEO VON: I got to go to one with him and Dustin that. But when he came out, it was just…

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I think I saw you. Yeah, I saw you at that one.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I know. Dustin’s your guys. It’s a shame when that kind of generation. You’re on out to the next group of fighters. But yeah, Dustin is the man.

THEO VON: They have so many great guys, but also being at those events is so much fun. And you also realize that you are nothing like because there’s some badasses coming out thing. It’s like no matter if you think you’re cool or not, you were sitting there looking in awe at some warriors. Absolutely. That when it comes down to it, they’re the people. Yes.

MILES TELLER: One on one. Oh, you know what I mean?

THEO VON: And it’s just such a test of will and man or woman and what do you, it makes you ask yourself a lot of things. It’s, yeah. I find that whole world is pretty fast.

MILES TELLER: I remember in high school, man, I’d be, I played baseball and…

THEO VON: Were you pretty good in high school?

MILES TELLER: I was, yeah. No, I pitched up until, I said, it took me a minute to hit my growth spurt. But yeah, I was, you know, studio, kind of early years. And then I was saying, even with the football players, the wrestlers. When you looked at the wrestlers condition compared to the football players, you couldn’t even compare. A lot of my buddies are wrestlers. They’re cutting 10, 12 pounds in high school.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: To have that discipline at 15, to be like, now I’m skipping lunch, I got to sweat, I got to do a sauna suit or just…

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: Discipline for those driving down the…

THEO VON: I remember driving through my neighborhood and…

MILES TELLER: My buddy Paul would literally be running.

THEO VON: And this is when we didn’t know we had a wrestling team at our school. Right. I think it was the first year they started. He’d be running down the street in a bunch of trash bags and s*, oh my God, he did something bad at home or whatever. We just didn’t know what it was.

MILES TELLER: A punishment. Yeah, it’s. I mean it was crazy. Yeah.

Career Planning and Future Projects

THEO VON: But yeah, dude. Do you start to think, okay, so now you have kind of a filmography of your own work. I don’t know if that’s the right term, but that’s the right. Do you start to think, okay, this is a genre I would like to do or I loved that so much. I’d like to find a more unique way to do that.

Is that something that an actor starts to think about? How do you start to think about? Do you start to think about a little bit of how many movies you want to do or what kind of things come into your mind at your kind of juncture in your career as far as the work goes?

Early Career and Finding Balance Between Comedy and Drama

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I think when I first started out, I guess when I was in college and be doing different scenes and stuff in class, I always wanted to, I enjoyed drama as much as I enjoyed comedy. I actually kind of started out when I was in high school. Everybody kind of knew me as the class clown, and I would play the comedic relief in plays and stuff.

And then I remember doing this very serious monologue and the whole class just started laughing like they couldn’t take me seriously. And I remember that pissed me off because I was like, oh, I’ve lost my audience. They just—

THEO VON: Oh, they’re locked into that. I’m a clown.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. And so I was like, oh, okay. Now I need to kind of work on this other stuff. I was like, nobody. I didn’t want to not be taken seriously for something. But so I knew starting out, I always had an appetite. I think that’s really what it comes down to. It’s like, what are your interests?

So I’ve done movies with music. I grew up playing a bunch of instruments. I haven’t done a sports movie yet. Love sports, military, my family, my friends. I’ve done some that stuff. I’ve done a good amount of blue collar stuff. I like that. But I think as far as the genre goes, every once in a while, yeah, you’ll watch a film, or maybe it’s a certain director who works in a certain genre. You’re like, yeah, I would love to do that.

But I think, yeah, it really just comes down to taste and interest. I think I have a pretty wide range of interests, and I don’t really necessarily care what the genre is as long as it just feels authentic to me. You can make a bad version of any genre.

THEO VON: Yeah, I guess you can just feel that when you read the script, you’re like, I can f*ing see this. I can figure this out.

Choosing Roles and Career Development

MILES TELLER: I think I’ve been fortunate enough to now in the beginning of most careers, right? People are like, oh, why’d you do that? And it’s like, yo, you thought I had multiple options? Like, what are you talking about? Dude, you’re just trying to work professionally. If you can pay your bills and it’s tough, man.

You know, how many, you’re starting out. It kind of, I think in your 20s, there’s a lot of actors, kind of we can all play teenagers, this, that, whatever. Then when you get older, it’s like your audience wants to grow with you. You got to kind of mature with them. It’s like, I imagine a lot of my fans now have kids and stuff, and that’s great.

And so I just try to, I don’t know, I think your best asset would be, I guess, when you read a script, if I think it’s good, is it. And for the most part, I’ve kind of just went with my instincts and gut. But for the most part, a lot of my career has been, a director’s got to take a chance on you. Like, I played this boxer, Vinny Pazienza.

THEO VON: My buddy just sent me a link to it. I haven’t watched it yet.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, Bleed for This. That’s how I met Dana White. Because Vinny’s Dana’s favorite boxer all time, and he loved the movie. That’s how I got plugged in with UFC early on.

THEO VON: My buddy just—

MILES TELLER: He just got in the boxing hall of fame. Vinny. Shout out Vinny.

THEO VON: Oh, he did.

MILES TELLER: But he’s a, yeah, he’s just Vinny Pazienza, the Pazmanian Devil.

THEO VON: But he. Oh, look at him. That’s him.

Playing Vinny Pazienza

MILES TELLER: So he broke his, so he was, he had won some titles early, and then he was kind of, the promoters kind of thought he was on the way out.

THEO VON: You played him?

MILES TELLER: Yeah, so I had, yeah. So there’s footage of him with that halo on. Now, meanwhile, if you mess up more or less with that halo on, you’re going to be paralyzed for life. And there’s video of him doing some pretty sick rope work with that halo on, just working out like a madman.

I don’t want to give it away, but yeah, it’s considered one of sports all time great comebacks. The only movie I had come out right before that, I was in fat or not fat, but pudgy friend shape. I was like, I don’t need a six pack. That’s just BS, man. You need a six pack if you can’t hold their attention with your acting. I mean, just all bullshit. I was sick when I was 25, and I used to, not like, I was like, dude’s ripped. He can’t act.

THEO VON: Dang, dude. Yeah. There’s so many great actors out there. It’s so, it’s just fascinating to watch somebody just be able to create. To be able to carry a story, right, and just be like an instrument. Just to be like a word on a page.

Understanding the Human Condition

MILES TELLER: Well, it’s, we’re shining a mirror up to society really. You’re just kind of, the great actors, right? You watch them and you obviously believe what they’re doing, but then it makes you feel about your own life. And so it’s beautiful. They just really understand kind of the human condition, human experience.

I think because a lot of young actors will ask, what do you think’s so important? I said I think obviously start from the inside, work from the inside out. And I think just two abilities or curiosities that will really age you is empathy. If you’re somebody who just sees so many different way of life and you can feel for somebody other than yourself and then your curiosity.

I think that’s what’s lent me to a lot of projects I’ve ended up doing just because I think I’ve always had a just high level of curiosity and empathy for other people.

THEO VON: Where do you think that comes from for you?

MILES TELLER: I think just, yeah, I don’t know. I guess the way I was raised. We moved around a lot. Well, there was my family, on my mom’s side, there was a lot of trouble. My grandma, she buried all of her kids but one and a lot of them died very young. And I think I come from a certain kind of stock that.

And then my uncle, he was a quadriplegic from the time he was like 17. So my entire life spending a lot of time in nursing homes and those kind of environments that can be fairly traumatizing for a young kid to just hearing beeps and people wandering around with dementia and Alzheimer’s and it can be. And they’re usually not the most well lit places. But we were constantly kind of in those environments, feeding him at meals and I don’t know, just different things like that.

THEO VON: I think you said wanting to take care of your grandmother whenever you were, when you guys house went through that trauma and stuff like that. Yeah, I could see that, I guess.

MILES TELLER: And I moved around a lot. Like I lived in five states by the time I was 12.

THEO VON: Oh, God.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: So you have to be willing to open yourself up to people because you got to be liked. You got to be accepted. You got to fit in. You got to find a way.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, but as a kid.

THEO VON: That’s harder for a kid.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, I think it was easier. Well, yeah, well, certainly kind of. It’s all a part of the, I think, how our personalities develop. Certain things happen in childhood.

THEO VON: Right. That’s, yeah.

MILES TELLER: You can dig deep to figure out. Oh, that’s why I am, that’s why I—

THEO VON: But it is, though, I think for a kid to move to a new place, that’s a lot.

Childhood Rebellion and Memories

MILES TELLER: Yeah. I told my parents when we first were moved to Florida from South Jersey, I was like, because I really loved South Jersey, and I was just like, I’m going to paint my walls black. I’m going to be a goth. You’re going to be embarrassed by me. I’m going to wear Marilyn Manson shirts. When your friends come over, one of my favorite friends. No, that’s, I’m just thinking back on myself, like, paint my walls black.

THEO VON: I’m going to paint my ceiling fan black. Has anybody ever even f*ing done that? It’s just going to make black air in the room.

Dude, my buddy Jeff, dude, he was hilarious. We would go over to his house, and I’ve told this part of the story before, but we would, we’d all go outside and get high, and then I would come in the house, and I would come in before everybody. I would tell his dad that they were high. Right?

MILES TELLER: F*ing asshole. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Just to save yourself?

THEO VON: Just, because here’s what I love. I loved—

MILES TELLER: You were high with them.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t tell them that part.

MILES TELLER: No. That’s what I’m saying.

THEO VON: Yeah. But I would say that they were high and whatnot, and they were seeming, some of the behaviors they’d have been doing had seemed a little zesty or whatever.

MILES TELLER: Throw in a little—

THEO VON: Nugget like that, and you could kind of hear his—

MILES TELLER: Put a cigarette out on a lizard.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You’d see him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’d put a cigarette out. He just, that energy took over him, dude. If he thought kids were being high and zesty, it scared him a little.

But anyway, then I would sit in there and wait, and they would come in, and he would just be looking at him. And they would, it was always like, do not tell my dad I’m f*ing high. Like, don’t worry. And just seeing the dad figure him out, bro. I would lay there in the other room crying of laughter, just knowing that—

MILES TELLER: That they’re about to get beat.

THEO VON: Yeah. Knowing that this whole scenario had been created.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: But my buddy Jeff, dude, he had this anger sometimes, and he would go play that song. He had one CD and it was that song, You Gotta Keep Them Separated.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Oh, that’s Offspring. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: He would go in his room, he would beat the drywall out of his room. And then every year for Christmas, his parents would redo the drywall. Yeah, that was his Christmas present.

MILES TELLER: Every year. It’s f*ing, I had a buddy like that. And then he ended up kind of working in construction. And so now he, even as an adult, some whatever, kick a hole in his wall. But then he’s patching it himself.

THEO VON: Yeah, dude.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And Jeff is in the military too, dude. Shout out Jeff. And shout out the least favorite singer of Offspring. He came up to a show one time and I told him that story. And I’d waited my whole life to tell him that story. Yeah, I was like, dude, we had so much fun. And my, yeah, we just had so much fun. Dude. Dude, those—

Small Town Adventures

MILES TELLER: That’s what’s nice. Growing up in the town I grew up with, such a small town, it’s like, yeah, I mean, our, if we skipped school, it was to go float down the river and we would go to the Walmart and then, usually it started out just, you buy an air mattress for a couple bucks.

But yeah, you’re just sitting in Walmart looking around like Benjamin Franklin, like, all right, well, what do you think we can get to float? And I remember one time we got this 8 foot by 4 foot kids swimming pool. We fit six dudes in it and a cooler of beer in the middle and, push off a little bit. Okay. Yeah, we’re going. It’s great. I love that.

Nostalgia and Childhood Innocence

THEO VON: Yeah, I know. I miss it. Of course you miss it. Yeah, I just, that kind of stuff was so much fun when the world, when everything felt so new and the world didn’t. It felt big in some ways, but your view was so concise kind of.

MILES TELLER: Well, because you’re not, you’re typically not jaded at that point. That’s what I notice when I.

THEO VON: You just have to eat and lie to your parents.

MILES TELLER: When I’ve shot movies in some underprivileged areas, I mean, I’ll see these kids playing in what you would basically describe as a landfill. And they’re so happy, and they’re just kicking around trash like it’s a soccer ball. You just realize, children, for the most part, are innately happy.

They don’t know what else, especially where we were at. It’s like they don’t know what else out there. They don’t know how we’re living, how people are living in other parts of the world. Yeah, it’s really, it’s touching and it’s also very sweet.

But whenever a kid gets kind of their childhood taken away from them too early or they have to become an adult too early, that’s tough. It’s like, no, this was the time for you just to be a kid.

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. You’d think that that would be automatic. That would be kind of guaranteed, maybe one day it will be. Maybe that’s where we’re all headed.

MILES TELLER: No, it’s tough, man. It’s like, some people, adult life’s really tough for them. And because it’s tough on them, their kid a lot of time is handed a little more, I think, responsibility or even just emotional.

THEO VON: Stuff they shouldn’t have to think about that sort of thing. That’s the craziest dude I know. A guy who used to wake his kids up and get him to pee for him so he could go do drug tests.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Yeah.

THEO VON: They ran a snow cone stand in our town. I’ll probably take that part out. We don’t have a lot of snow cone stands in our town, so people.

MILES TELLER: Know I got to watch it because that’s like, my town is just it.

The Brutalist – Film Discussion

THEO VON: Anything else you want to tell us about the film? Any reason why you believe, or was there anything about it that resonated with you after having watched it? Did you give notes on the edits? Just anything.

MILES TELLER: I don’t know. Yeah, I just, I think because we had our first premiere up in Toronto, and it was just really wonderful after the film. How many people you said, because it does, it just really makes you think about your own kind of mortality and loved ones.

But people really wanted to, I mean, for me, those are my favorite movies where you’re, you’re, it leaves you really thinking. But I think it’s just really, it’s a really funny movie. I think it’s really sweet and sincere and all of Kelly’s girls were crying.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s very sweet. It’s not too heavy. I mean, there’s some moments that are. You’re dealing with heavy.

MILES TELLER: I mean, well, you’re dealing with something that’s maybe inevitable or not based on kind of what you’re taking supplements wise and how you take care of the dojo, brother. It is. It’s just my wife says her favorite film that I’ve ever been in, her favorite film, maybe of the last however long.

THEO VON: And also I feel like that’s pretty sweet, huh?

MILES TELLER: I think it’s a movie that I think it can, I think it fits with kind of the classic romantic comedies that are more character driven. Yeah, I’m excited. I’m just really excited for people to see it.

THEO VON: Is it coming out in streaming? Is it coming out in theaters?

MILES TELLER: No, it comes out in theaters nationwide Thanksgiving.

THEO VON: Oh, sweet.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Yeah. So great holiday film. Take your mom, your grandma, dad, girl, whatever.

THEO VON: Yeah, I think anybody, a whole family could go see it. I think it’s that kind of thing. It’s certainly that. And yeah, I do think some of those questions, it made me feel a little bit more upbeat. Yeah, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s certainly something that I hadn’t seen before.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: And I thought that was, it was very creative. It was very creative. And then when you’re thinking about love, you’re thinking about the actual, if you’re thinking about the choices that we make and stuff like that.

It made me a little mournful that there’s some moments you never get to. It’s like, oh, I didn’t have that high school love that lasts forever. But then it’s like, but that couldn’t even have been a reality in my life. It never would have fit in. Right.

But it was just, it’s just interesting to kind of think about things like that. I like thinking about matters of the heart and stuff like that.

Military Service and Sacrifice

Oh, the last thing I was going to tell you. So, yeah, I went to the Vanderbilt game, but I saw these two, there was two kids there, and they were there with their dad. And their dad had just gotten back from service. He was in Qatar, and right when I saw the kids, oh, dude, my dad saw you perform in Qatar. I went over there and did just a thing for the military.

MILES TELLER: Was it through USO or something different?

THEO VON: No, it was like they were doing something for troops. Yeah, the president was doing something over there, and they were doing some troops thing. But anyway, it was just, they’re like, oh, dude, our dad. And you could just tell, I was like, oh, how long were you there for? He’s like, I was there for a year. And it was just.

MILES TELLER: I don’t know.

THEO VON: It’s just interesting to see this moment. And I was like, are you guys, dad, you’re glad, are you guys glad your dad is home? And you could just see, I don’t know, it’s just, you just see some of the sacrifice. It was just a moment that I had to witness kind of firsthand, a little bit of the sacrifice that.

MILES TELLER: Absolutely.

THEO VON: That sons deal with, that fathers deal with, that people deal with to keep our country safe. And yeah, it’s just touching, man.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. This guy, the guy that I played in Thank You for Your Service, Andrew Adam Schumann, because people say thank you for your service. And a lot of the time people say that sometimes to just alleviate their own guilt of having not served.

But I’ve heard guys talk about it. It’s weird. You’re thankful, me for something that, hey, I signed up for, I wanted to do, or you’re thanking me for, you don’t even know what my job was. It’s just a complicated kind of decorative term that we use out of lack of knowing.

But he would say the thing that really broke him, he was filling up his truck with gas, his army, the big red one. And guy saw that and basically just kind of shook his hand and said, welcome home. Welcome home, son, and glad you got home safe. And that’s, yeah, it’s tough. But we can do what we do because those men and women are over there doing the dirty work.

THEO VON: I mean, our job is built on the freedom of speech. Both of our jobs are built on it. It doesn’t even exist if people, if people aren’t making the sacrifice for us.

But yeah, that would be great to be able to talk with Gary Sinise. I know he does a lot with the, for veterans and yeah, it’s nice to just be reminded. It’s nice to be reminded of a space to, another reason just to have gratitude for the things we have going on.

MILES TELLER: Also, it’s like, it’s different parts of the, we’re growing up in Florida. I feel like there’s so many people that had family members in the military, but it’s a lot more socioeconomic driven now to where the military, it doesn’t feel like the entire country is really a part of it and it’s really happening in very specific pockets.

So it’s kind of, it’ll be interesting in the next 25 years, 50 years of who you kind of have to live in these certain areas to have a relationship with somebody who’s serving because that’s what personalizes it.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s a good point, man. During, in ancient Rome they used to have the politicians were also on the battlefield, which is pretty fascinating. So it was like the rules that they were making, if they were going to send people into battle, they were going to have to be associated with those rules.

And I think it would be, I mean, who am I to say? I didn’t serve, but it would be, I think maybe some of the rules we would make might be, some of the choices we make might be a little bit different if you had skin in the game.

MILES TELLER: Yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: I think there’s always some value in having skin in the game.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. I think that’s just a tricky thing with politics in general. When you just can’t recognize the elected officials and the leaders, you just feel like you cannot relate to them, they can’t relate to you on any level. And it feels like those margins are getting wider, getting wide.

Closing Thoughts

THEO VON: Dude, that might be a cool, I’m sure there’s a cool film out there, a lot of cool opportunities. Well, man, I hope you continue to serve us in great ways by bringing art to life and bringing it into video format for us.

And yeah, thank you so much, dude, for all the entertainment and for stopping by and chatting. Thanksgiving week you guys can check out Eternity with Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen and also my.

MILES TELLER: My wife Kelly, she’s coming out with a pajama, a robe line.

THEO VON: Will that be available in the holidays?

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Yeah. And I’m just so, I’m just so proud of her.

THEO VON: Yeah.

MILES TELLER: So had to get that out there too.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s awesome.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: You guys have been together for how long?

MILES TELLER: It’s almost 13 years.

THEO VON: Dang.

MILES TELLER: Yeah.

THEO VON: Did you know right when you met her that that was the one?

MILES TELLER: I knew she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Yeah, there you go. Appreciate that. She’s the most pure hearted person I’ve ever met in my life. I didn’t know that obviously when I saw her, I was just attracted to her face.

And as I’ve gotten to, but then we’re pretty inseparable right off the bat. But I do remember, sounds like 25, dude. This was very, I’d lived in, my career just started. And she, and I remember my boys, my Florida boys I moved out with.

When they start seeing her hanging around more and more, I’m like, yeah, well, she’s my girlfriend. They’re like, what the f* are you talking about? They’re like, why would you have a girlfriend right now? This is our moment. This is our entourage moment. We rented a house in the Valley, we had a pool. They’re like, this is our time, dude. I was like, well.

THEO VON: I.

MILES TELLER: Was probably like, yeah, am I ready to settle down? No. But also, I’m not ready for her to just leave me either. Yeah. It’s like, I don’t want, this one’s not getting away for sure, dude.

THEO VON: That’s funny.

Life with Kelly

MILES TELLER: That’s my best friend, dude. We literally, I never get sick of her. And when I tell people, the difference is most people, they have a job nine to five, whatever it is. And when I’m filming, certainly it’s like that. But when I’m not, it’s like, and she comes with me when I’m filming, it’s like I see her from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed.

You know, maybe I go work out for a little bit or do something like that. But we are with each other all of the time and we love it. That truly is like, she cracks me up. She’s very low. She’s so hard to rattle, to get rattled. She doesn’t raise her voice. She says being calm is her superpower. But she is, she’s just unflappable. She’s great.

THEO VON: The unflappable Kelly Teller.

MILES TELLER: Oh, she’s going to love that. She loves you.

THEO VON: And she has a new pajama line that’s out. Yeah. I remember the day that I met her. You guys were sitting out there out back together, man. I think almost every time I’ve seen you, except that one time that you were dancing by yourself, which is pretty admirable.

MILES TELLER: I think I was seeing people.

THEO VON: Miles taught us there. Dancing by myself. I’m like, that dude is dude.

MILES TELLER: I took my boy to the fight that time.

THEO VON: It’s so much fun. It’s fun to bring your friends, man, and it’s fun to bring us into your world for a little while. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Check out Kelly’s new pajamas. And congratulations, man, on everything.

MILES TELLER: Thanks, dude.

THEO VON: Yep. Have a good day, brother.

MILES TELLER: I’ll see you in a fight, sir.

THEO VON: It sounds good.

MILES TELLER: Yeah. Cornerstones.

THEO VON: Oh. But when I reach that ground? I’ll share this piece of my life.

MILES TELLER: I can feel it in my bones? But it’s going to take a little.

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