Miles Teller is definitely an in-demand young star in Hollywood, garnering some praise and criticism along the way. Given his turn in Whiplash, it’s no surprise he’s on the list of actors who auditioned for the role of young Han Solo in the upcoming Star Wars prequel. He’s doesn’t see much like Harrison Ford, but who does? River Phoenix isn’t around anymore.
But Teller revealed a surprising bit of info during his appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast: He’d never seen any of the Star Wars films until right before the audition:
“I had never even seen any of the original Star Wars movies until maybe a month or a couple weeks before my first audition because I was like, ‘I should check this out’ (laughs). It holds up. I just love Harrison Ford, I think that’s a great character. I love his brand, I mean so many guys would’ve played that part so wrong and he has humor at the right times.”
“It holds up” is something to say when you’ve never seen a movie before — though I guess he’s saying it about it being good by today’s standards. Still, not having seen Star Wars is a little odd considering the gigantic cultural stakes tied to the film. Makes you kinda hope he doesn’t get the role, right? RIGHT?! Make Whiplash 2 instead.
The Star Wars talk wasn’t all for Teller because he had to discuss Fantastic Four. If you have Miles Teller on a podcast or a show, you need to discuss the odyssey behind Josh Trank’s take on Marvel’s first family and the alleged fist fight dares that happened on set. Surprisingly, Teller goes to defend the film here — or at least tries to deflect the negativity from the film away from his other work:
“People think that when you make something like a Fantastic Four that doesn’t do well, people think ‘Oh you phoned it in’ and it couldn’t be more untrue. You work harder on the bad films, or the films that turn out maybe not the way you intended, because something’s not working. And I thought it was kind of unjustly critiqued that way; there are even bigger bombs if you’re looking at how much money went into the production and what they reaped back. But I think it’s unfortunate a movie like that becomes a scarlet letter on a resume when so many talented people worked really hard and maybe a handful of people took it in a negative direction. ”
Personally, I don’t find much truth in the statement that you work harder on bad films. Sometimes, sure, but there are plenty of Nic Cage films that scream out quite the opposite. Drive Angry.
One thing that does get a little blame on the podcast is the script, which was always in flux according to Collider. This makes Teller drop George Clooney’s name as a guy who knows a bit about bad scripts:
“I think it was Clooney who said you can make a bad movie out of a good script, you can’t make a good movie out of a bad script, and that’s very true. If they’re telling you maybe your part’s not as big and they say, ‘Oh you’re gonna be bigger in the sequel’ or ‘Oh we’re gonna rewrite’ and ‘Yeah we’re gonna take in all these notes,’ if you’re in a position where you can say hold off I’m not signing off on this dotted line until this script is exactly where you want it, then you’re in a very fortunate position.
If you’ve seen the movie and can point out the changes that were made to the script that either tanked or attempted to save Fantastic Four, let us know.
(Via Collider / Slash Film)
