Miles Teller made the press rounds at the Cannes Film Festival to promote James Gray’s competition entry “Paper Tiger,” in which he stars opposite Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. But Teller is wary when it comes to interviews after he felt violated by an infamous 2015 Esquire profile that labeled him “kind of a dick” and claimed he would “charm the world with his dickishness.” The profile even started with the line: “You’re sitting across from Miles Teller at the Luminary restaurant in Atlanta and trying to figure out if he’s a dick.”
“That was so mishandled,” Teller told IndieWire in Cannes. “The reason why I have not done profiles is because I said, ‘Wow, if I’m not doing this interview on camera, this person can misquote things or put things out of order or say things that didn’t happen.’ It felt like such a violation of what actually transpired.”
“I told my team, ‘Guys, I don’t think I’m doing this again, because I’m reading this and this doesn’t sound like me to me. This is not life, so why would I ever want to be a part of something where they can just put that in?’” he continued. “So it’s unfortunate that being a good person, that doesn’t sell. People want to click on the negativity. If you go to bed and put your head on your pillow and how you treat people truly, that’s what matters. That [2015] interview was like 12 years ago.”
Teller concluded that “the actors, the directors, the crew and the producers” all know who he really is because “you can’t hide who you are when you’re on set.”
Responding on Twitter/X at the time of the Esquire profile’s publication, Teller wrote: “Esquire couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t think there’s anything cool or entertaining about being a dick or an asshole. Very misrepresenting.”
Set in 1986, “Paper Tiger” follows two brothers, Irwin and Gary Pearl, whose get-rich scheme to help clean up the Gowanus Canal ends in disaster after Irwin (Teller), a nebbish family man, angers Russian mobsters by unwittingly witnessing their criminal activity. It falls to Gary (Driver), a former cop, to bail him out, but his efforts to make a deal only drag them deeper into a world of violence.
Neon is set to release “Paper Tiger” in theaters later this year.
