Miles Teller Hated Working On ‘Divergent’

It’s a rarity when actors voice their displeasure with a popular blockbuster franchises like Divergent, but that’s exactly what actor Miles Teller did. During a recent interview with W Magazine, Teller revealed that he was miserable on the set of the young adult action film.

While it isn’t unlikely that an actor would voice his or her opinion after the film’s release, Teller just got finished with filming the sequel Insurgent, so we really don’t know what brought on this confession. Even though critics agreed that the film was a poor adaptation, the fact that this series is still trucking doesn’t bode well.

While talking about his new film Whiplash, Miles compared the film to the unpleasant experience on Divergent.

“When I first read Whiplash, I was feeling dead inside. I didn’t have an interesting part [in Divergent], and I’d taken the film for business reasons: It was the first movie I’d done that was going to have an international audience. I called my agent and said, ‘This sucks.’ He told me about Whiplash.”

In the film Teller plays the one-dimensional bully, Peter. Back in March, ahead of the film’s release, he was open to speaking with People of the exposure the film would lend him.

“Out of all the movies I’ve done, this one feels like the biggest one. And it is. Budget-wise, following-wise, it is the biggest thing I’ve been a part of. It’s cool, because I’ve done a lot of small movies where you don’t get that kind of exposure. When Hunger Games came out, there were life-size posters of character in the subway, so I’m waiting for Peter to be in the subway.”

The fact that Miles admitted that Divergent was a business move isn’t too shocking. A lot of hungry actors are willing to adopt the philosophy, “one for the studio.” In the end, it’s easy to point out that the film gave the actor the visibility to be a part of bigger projects and quality indies that a character-actor like Miles is after.

That said, even without Divergent, he still would have done just fine. Up next is another huge role in the reboot of The Fantastic Four. Teller plays Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, in the series, alongside Michael B. Jordan, Kata Mara, and Jamie Bell.

It will be interesting to see how the filming of Insurgent compares to Teller’s experience filming Divergent. Hopefully it doesn’t make him feel dead inside all over again.

[Image via Summit Entertainment]