‘Bleed for This’ is now playing in theaters everywhere. For our review, click here.
It’s early on a Saturday morning – if you want to call nine thirty early in the morning – when Miles Teller, with leather jacket cool, walks into the Beverly Hills Four Seasons hotel room for our roundtable interview.
Looking ever the Movie Star part, one wonders how the twenty-nine year old actor might have spent his Friday night just the night before: whether working, traveling, promoting, or partying (or all of the above), he’s all focus this morning as he discusses his latest movie “Bleed For This,” the Vinny Pazienza biopic in which he stars as the boxer who trained his way back into the ring after suffering a spinal injury that nearly paralyzed him.
In our interview, Teller discusses the grueling process of getting into boxing shape, wearing the Halo head device (“highly uncomfortable”), and embracing the unknown future (“This is like, the first time in probably four or five years where I don’t know the next thing I’m doing and that I think for me right now that’s probably a good thing.”)
Growing up in South Jersey, did that help at all with the Rhode Island accent that you have for the movie? It’s near, but far away…
The Jersey accent is different. Like, it’s just impossible to sound… intelligent, honestly.
(Laugher)
Especially with South Jersey. But I was thinking about that. I do think… I mean, I moved to Florida when I was twelve, I moved to a really small kind of country town. The North-East has a very specific kind of energy, and even though Rhode Island is totally different from New Jersey, I’ve just been around those guys. Yeah, so I think it probably added something to the relation that I found to Vinny.
What was the most difficult thing that Vinny had as a person for you to “get” for the movie?
I mean, the physicality was very tough, to have the conditioning to be able to shoot a boxing fight for… that last fight, it was the only day we went overtime, and that was like a sixteen hour day. The last two fights, back to back days, each fight took one day, which is almost unheard of. We shot the movie in twenty-four days.
But to even just look like a boxer, that was eight months. I had to shoot two movies in between… but that was eight months of just very strict diet and working out, and I lost twenty pounds, then got down to six percent body fat, for the first fight.
But Vinny also moved up in weight, you know, one title in light-weight and junior-middle, and we showed that. That’s also something very unique and special to Vinny’s legacy – he and Roberto Duran were the only two guys to win titles in those two weight classes specifically. So, I started at one-sixty-eight, then had to gain fifteen pounds to get to one-eighty-three, in like, two and a half weeks. But that was fun – once I had to gain weight, that was fun.
(Laughter)
“I had to shoot two movies in between… but that was eight months of just very strict diet and working out, and I lost twenty pounds, then got down to six percent body fat…”
Ice cream and pizza?
It was a lot. It was just like, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Federal Hill – I don’t know if you guys have been to Providence, but Federal Hill has like, amazing Italian food. So, I could find ways.
But you were still in the gym at the same time, though. Even though you’re eating a lot you still have to be boxing…
Oh yeah. I was cast two and a half years ago, we filmed it two years ago, so this was pre-“Whiplash”… I had never done anything where I got to play a man, like, a world-champion boxer. Even when I was on set, if I had any time in between I was always doing something, push-ups or sit-ups, cause I didn’t walk into this movie with like this god-given talent of being in shape – even though that’s not really a talent, you just have to work out. I think I went “anti” that early on in my career, cause I was just like, “I don’t want to be that guy with a six-pack, and a tan…”
(Laughter)
Did doing this project help you appreciate the nuances of boxing–
Yeah.
Or is that something you already had being a sports fan?
I was a big MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fan, and I still am. I started watching it in high school when it was the WEC (World Endurance Championship). I was sixteen years old. And then boxing, I always played the video games, you know. Certain guys like Tyson and Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, the heavyweights back then who were kind of the big draws.
But absolutely – once you start training in it, yeah. They say it’s a sweet science, and you realize it’s highly nuanced. I don’t see it as just two guys, barbaric, bloodsport… no. I see it as technique.
“I don’t see it as just two guys, barbaric, bloodsport… no. I see it as technique.”
The mind is very important to be a champion boxer. Strategy…
Yeah, for sure. That’s what they say, it’s like – you have a game plan, until you get hit in the face–
(Laughter)
And then it all goes away. I think I only had five weeks in LA with my boxing trainer, and he was Sugar Ray Leonard’s trainer for eighteen years, and just a high-level guy. The first fight in the movie against Roger Mayweather, I had five days to work with that boxer, the second boxer we had like a day and a half, and the third boxer, Edwin Rodríguez, he was a top-ten guy, and he actually got in a fight – professionally – that he wasn’t supposed to. He told Ben (Younger, the director) he wasn’t gonna fight, got in a fight, luckily knocked the dude out, didn’t get messed up, flew down, and I think I had like, honestly maybe a day with him. And so, a lot of the movie is not choreographed.
The first fight is choreographed. Up against the ropes, I come out, they can bring the camera back. The other times the camera kind of has to come in… we didn’t know what we were going to get, so there were a lot of moments of free boxing. And to do free boxing, so much of it is mindset, and that was what Darrell (Foster) really taught me.
On top of the physical transformation of getting into shape, you also had to wear the Halo brace that keeps your head and spine immobile. What’s the difference between reading that in the script, and then actually putting that on and shooting with it?
Yeah so, the beginning physical transformation, it was eight months of just all that stuff that you hear – you can’t eat any bread or drink for that time, and you’re just eating like a rabbit – and you know, hoping that it all pays off. (Vinny) dedicated everything and his life to this, so it would’ve been very immature of me to like, slack off and mess with that.
As far as the halo goes, that was highly uncomfortable. Again, you don’t like to complain because Vinny, you know, it was screwed in his head. But for me, it wasn’t actually screwed in my head…
(Laughter)
So we really had to make it as tight as possible, cause if the thing moves at all, then it doesn’t matter what you just did in that take – and you only get so many takes – it’s not usable. Because as soon as that thing moves, people understand it’s not real, and it sucks. But yeah, if this was like a big budget studio film I would’ve had like, a ton of fittings with it. Like, I just did a firefighting movie (“Granite Mountain”) – I had more fittings for my boots then I did for this thing.
(Laughter)
Like, a girl just went to a hospital in Providence and got (a halo brace) from them. And then we put little rubber pieces on the end and just put it so far in my head that I used to be able to… I could tell when it was in the right spot because I just had like, indentations in my head.
“As far as the halo goes, that was highly uncomfortable. Again, you don’t like to complain because Vinny, you know, it was screwed in his head…”
Did you get headaches from it?
No… I didn’t really get any headaches. I guess I was pretty durable.
Vinny himself – was he around?
He was on set a little bit. I think he was a really good resource for Aaron [Eckhart] and Ben. For me, certain things I absolutely wanted to talk to Vinny about. Other things, you know, he’s a little older now, making a movie about his life, I had a lot of material to build my character of Vinny, twenty-five years ago, so that was important.
But the time that I absolutely needed Vinny to be on set was when I try and bench press for the first time (wearing the halo brace). Because I just didn’t know how to get underneath the bench, honestly, with this thing on, and so I had to ask him like, “How did you do that?” And he was like [impersonating Vinny] “Well, you know, I get down here, and then I kind of shimmy down there, and then I start pumping ’em out bro.”
(Laughter)
How was working with the director, Ben? Did he give you freedom on set?
He did. I think that a lot of directors feel like they have to mess with it all the time, cause there’s other people on set and they want, maybe all the credit for it, or they need to feel validated. But what I would say about Ben is he’s confident enough to just sit back, and when he feels like it’s working, he doesn’t have to mess with it. And then when Ben would come in and give a note, it was very succinct. And Ben wrote the script. , In my experience of working with a writer/director, they’re usually the best resource that you have in terms of character and material.
Boxing is obviously, one of the most featured sports in movies.
Yeah.
When you go into such a project, do you think to yourself, what stands out about this?
MT: I mean, my job on this was just to, you know, play Vinny. I know the producers and the director obviously had the ghosts of all the boxing movies present when they were working on this one and trying to make it different. But also, I finished this movie before Mike (Michael B. Jordan) shot “Creed.” I remember that because we were just doing “Fantastic Four” reshoots, and his got pushed back, and we didn’t know “Hands of Stone,” and “Southpaw,” and “Creed,” we didn’t know all those, like I said we shot this two years ago so you know, at the time you don’t really know. It is interesting, everybody kind of gets the same idea at the same time. But for me personally, yeah, I was very excited to play a boxer. I didn’t know I would get that opportunity at that point, at twenty-seven or whatever it was. But yeah, for sure, I wanted to play a boxer, I wanted to play a soldier. I like blue-collar guys, those are guys I can relate to. I was very nervous about it but at the same time it’s, you get to play the boxer on screen, a guy like Vinny who’s always just covered in blood, broke his nose every fight, and was just the biggest warrior and had more heart I think than anybody – you have to risk paralysis because you love this thing so much. That faith is going to be tested, how much you love the sport truly is going to be tested when you’re risking literally never being able to walk again.
Did he watch it, did you get his reaction?
He watched it with Ben the first time, and he – Ben will give you a better response but yeah, he was crying, and not at the parts that you would think. Like, he was crying like at the dinner scenes, around the table, cause his parents aren’t around. But yeah, it was very touching for Vinny, and I got to talk to him about it, and that means everything.
When you play a real life guy, like the firefighter – the only survivor in this terrible fire in the movie that you just did with Jeff Bridges. When you do something like that, is it a whole different thing because he’s not really well known the way playing real life Vinny is?
It’s different in terms of that, there’s nothing less important about the prep and the process for me. There was a little added, not pressure, but expectations, because I knew that afterwards… you know, I’ve seen biopics and stuff, and you know that at the end of the movie they’re going to play archival footage, or people are going to be able to look it up. And yeah, you’re damn right, you kind of want to have the voice down and you want people to see how close you can get.
There are similarities between your character in “Whiplash” and Vinny here, are you drawn to these determined characters with that risk of self-destruction with their determination?
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s nice to, if you can explore that on a movie set, it’s a lot easier than I think going through that in real life, but there’s going to be certain parallels there. Yeah, I don’t know. I think Vinny’s story is really inspiring, truly. I mean, when someone’s telling you it’s impossible, it’s never been done, and just to have that sense of self to say well I’m going to be the first one to do it – yeah, I do like that, and I think obsession and passion and focus and drive, yeah those are, if I had the physicality to be a baseball player, like, I would’ve. That was something that I would’ve given everything to. I’ve been lucky to be put in a nice position, as far as acting goes where I’m able to get some good scripts and yeah, I’m more than willing to give everything to them and I think they’re just cool stories. I like intense stuff. Like, when I was in college, I wasn’t doing scenes of me sitting at a coffee table talking to the girl and flirting. I was like, “No, let’s do the scene where it’s like, shit is just happening and flying and everyone’s just into it.”
So what’s on your blue-collar bucket list?
Um… I want to do a baseball movie, but it can be anything. Honestly, it could be the guy who, he’s a garbage man, or he’s a construction worker, anything. Vinny obviously is a bit of a historical figure, but I’m just inspired by like, everyday people – the guy who’s working three jobs to pay for his kids, to do any of that stuff, that’s inspiring. Some of my closest friends are construction workers and military guys.
What’s next?
Next, I’m taking some time off. I did two movies this year, and I’m going to do an animated film, and this is like, the first time in probably four or five years where I don’t know the next thing I’m doing and that I think for me right now that’s probably a good thing.
Is that scary?
What?
Not knowing?
No, I don’t feel like I’m done working.
(Laughter).
