How did Miles Teller get his facial scars? And what impact
did the accident that caused them have on his acting career? Keep watching to find out.
Miles Teller just has one of those faces. The actor has built an impressive resume over the
course of the past decade, starring in both blockbuster action movies and character-driven
independent films in equal measure. And while some audiences might not have previously recognized
Teller, the long-awaited sequel to 1986's "Top Gun," "Top Gun: Maverick," has likely
changed that. Teller plays Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell's
former radio intercept officer, best friend, and partner-in-crime Nick "Goose" Bradshaw,
played by Anthony Edwards in the original film. The resemblance between these two
unrelated actors is downright eerie, making Teller's casting a fitting choice.
Teller made his feature film debut in 2010's "Rabbit Hole," in which he starred
opposite Nicole Kidman. In the 2011 remake of "Footloose," he took on the role of Willard,
the good-natured guy with two left feet. Teller's breakout performance was in the 2013
coming-of-age drama "The Spectacular Now," which won the special jury prize at the Sundance Film
Festival and proved that Teller could hold his own as a leading man for the first time. Some of his
other film credits include the Oscar-nominated "Whiplash," "The Fantastic Four," and the
"Divergent" trilogy. Given his wide-ranging success as a performer, it's hard to believe
there was once a time when Teller was turned away after auditions because of his facial scars.
During an interview with ABC News' "Popcorn With Peter Travers," Teller revealed that
his face was wounded and subsequently scarred during his young adulthood,
which then affected his burgeoning acting career. When he was 20 years old and attending college,
Teller was injured in a serious car accident after his friend lost control of a vehicle while
driving at 80 miles per hour. The car rolled eight times in total and ejected Teller fifty feet away.
"We flipped eight times going 80 miles per hour, and I flew out my window."
After being thrown from the vehicle,
the actor ended up in such bad shape that his friend thought he might be dead.
Fortunately, Teller survived the incident after sustaining some significant injuries to his face.
Following the accident, Teller underwent multiple painful surgeries to remove the
scar tissue resulting from his wounds over the course of roughly four years. As it turns out,
he still has some pieces of gravel embedded in his face, which his doctors said would cause
even more damage if removed rather than if left alone. For a while, Teller's appearance
after the car accident stood in the way of his acting ambitions, as he told ABC News,
"When I first started auditioning,
people were straight up just like, 'Yeah, Miles is a good actor,
[but it] doesn't make sense for this character to have scars.' [The scars] used to be really bad."
"But I was very surprised about how comfortable people felt just being like,
'Man, what happened to your face?'"
Soon, however, one director took a chance on Teller when others would not,
putting him on the career trajectory he maintains today. As Teller revealed in his interview with
Peter Travers, "Rabbit Hole" director John Cameron Mitchell didn't just cast him in
his debut feature in spite of his facial scars. Instead, the director saw the scars as a strength.
Teller recounts Mitchell characterizing his scars as adding a new dimension to his
character in the film. Beyond the mystique with which they imbue Teller's character,
in "Rabbit Hole" he portrays the driver of a car that killed a young boy in a happenstance
accident, so the real-life source of his scars parallel this fictional incident.
Teller would then go on to appear in "The Spectacular Now" and "Whiplash,"
both of which include pivotal scenes in which Teller's character is involved in car accidents.
So, in the end, rather than his facial scars hindering him, they seemingly became a part
of his identity as an actor. As it turned out, Teller's scars helped to shape him and
led him to roles for which this aspect of his appearance became a unique strength.
Of course, Teller's filmography isn't limited to just films featuring car accidents,
as evidenced by his marquee role in "Top Gun: Maverick." When Teller's casting was
announced back in 2018, he beat out both Nicholas Hoult and Glen Powell,
alongside whom he tested for the role. It's safe to say that at this stage,
Teller is unencumbered by his injuries and the hardships it caused early on in his career.
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