I rarely get given a Joe Bloggs role
comebacks ever – forget sports – I mean, just in general.”
To look the part, Miles spent eight months training in Los Angeles with Darrell Foster, whose celebrity clients include Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett-Smith, Antonio Banderas and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
“He didn’t want to teach me movie boxing or show me how to throw fake punches. Darrell’s like, ‘By the end of this movie you’ll be able to mess some dude up if he’s talking to your girl’.”
Pizza and sandwiches were strictly off the menu, as Miles had to shift body fat.
“I weighed 188 pounds and was 19 per cent body fat when I got the movie,” says the actor, who’s been dating model Keleigh Sperry for three years. “From there, I went to 168 pounds and got my body fat down to six per cent. It’s not about wanting to take my shirt off and look cool or anything. These boxing scenes last all day. The first boxing match you see in the movie we filmed for 13 hours pretty much non-stop.”
On screen, it’s Aaron’s trainer Rooney who’s tasked with getting Vinny into shape. He and Miles had worked together once before, on 2010’s Rabbit Hole (about a couple whose son dies in a car accident), and they had a memorable first meeting.
“Aaron will always have a certain place in my heart because I met him on, ‘Action!’ in the first scene I ever shot. I’d just graduated college, there was no rehearsal and I was very nervous. In the scene, I come in to give Nicole Kidman’s character a comic book, we’re both kind of looking for closure. Aaron’s the father, I killed his son in a car accident. The director had told Aaron, ‘Look, this is Miles’
4WHEN WE WERE KINGS (1996)
LEON Gast’s Academy Award winning documentary film about the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight championship match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.
Miles Teller takes on the role of real life boxer Vinny ‘Pazmanian Devil’ Pazienza, above, who defied the odds – and his doctors – to return to the ring very first scene, I really want you to go off-book, just make this guy feel uncomfortable and bad and scared.
“And boom! ‘Action!’ Aaron walks in and he’s just giving it to me and I’m like, ‘Oh man!’ But in the back of my head I’m just smiling ‘cos it’s Aaron Eckhart. This guy is so good!
“For this movie it was great to explore the fighter-trainer relationship – it’s so sincere, two guys that want the same thing so passionately, and intrinsically need each other to accomplish it.
“I think we got that right on this movie, the fighter-trainer relationship, because it is so sacred.”
Born in Pennsylvania to an estate
5ROCKY (1976)
ROCKY Balboa (Sylvester Stallone – who also wrote the film), is a small-time boxer, who gets a rare chance to fight heavy-weight champion Apollo Creed and strives to go the distance for his self-respect. agent mum and nuclear power plant engineer dad, Miles grew up in Florida and studied acting at New York University’s Tisch School. In August 2007, he was travelling back to Florida after a festival with two friends, when their car, going at 80mph, skidded and flipped eight times. Teller was thrown 30ft from it and miraculously escaped with a broken wrist and cuts that have required laser surgery to heal – you can still see the scars o on his chin.
Did the car crash scene in B Bleed For This bring it all back?
“Not really, I mean, my car accident was nine years ago and I think it’s tougher for the p people around you, you know?” h he says matter-of-factly.
“I could relate to the recovery process. I had to go through my own amount of hospital visits and surgeries and stuff.”
Having starred in a string of fantasies, including the Divergent franchise and as Reed Richards in Fantastic Four, Miles clearly enjoyed getting his teeth into a real person for a change, but admits it comes with a certain sense of responsibility.
“Vinny’s alive, Vinny still has to walk around, and this movie is just another representation of him and who he was. So man, I felt so indebted.”
Miles says he was mindful that he wanted to make Vinny proud.
“I respected what he was able to accomplish, I held what he did in the highest regard. You know those guys with that warrior mentality – to be able to face those odds and still want to overcome? That’s something I was very nervous about getting wrong.”
Bleed For This is in cinemas now
6GRUDGE MATCH (2013)
AFTER four bouts in the 1980’s Billy ‘The Kid’ McDonnen (Robert De Niro) and Henry ‘Razor’ Sharp (Sylvester Stallone) are drawing. Thirty years later, they get the chance to finally settle the score.
7THE FIGHTER (2010)
MICKY WARD (Mark Wahlberg), is from a boxing family but a fight nearly kills him, so he goes it alone. When he is in line for a title bout he and his family have a shot at redemption. SIR DEREK JACOBI doesn’t believe in fate.
“I would like to think we make our own choices and it’s not all laid out for us beforehand,” comments the esteemed actor. “I’d like to think we’re in charge of our own destiny – but I might be kidding myself!”
The boy from Leytonstone in East London, whose talent was spotted by Sir Laurence Olivier, is now considered one of the country’s finest thespians, and in 1994 was knighted for his services to drama.
“It’s certainly wonderful in the latter stage of my career to be working,” says the 78-year-old, who will be seen in two specials this December; BBC One’s Last Tango In Halifax and ITV’s Vicious.
“In the USA, Last Tango and Vicious were both on the same TV channel on the same night. At 8pm, I was married to Anne Reid [who plays his wife Celia in Last Tango], and at 9pm I was married to Ian McKellen – beat that!” he says with a laugh.
The festive hour-long Vicious special is being billed as the last ever episode, with viewers set to bid farewell to the newly-married Freddie (McKellen) and Stuart (Jacobi), two men who appear to relish their love/ hate relationship.
“Freddie and Stuart are still bickering with one another, but the special has a great level of nostalgia and sadness,” reveals Sir Derek.
“It’s like a parting of the ways; it all comes to a gentle conclusion. It’s also very funny, the humour in this is less raucous than other episodes.”
Split into the four seasons, the special follows the pair’s adventures and those of their best-friend Violet (Frances de la Tour), who embarks on a major lifestyle change; neighbour Ash (Iwan Rheon), who shares some life-changing news, as well as Freddie’s antagonistic brother Mason (Philip Voss) and their old friend Penelope (Marcia Warren).
“It was lovely to return,” remarks Sir Derek. “I think it’s written cleverly so viewers get a good farewell, it’s not too final.”
Last Tango, written by Happy Valley’s Sally Wainwright, will return after a two-year break for a two-part special, but Sir Derek reveals: “It’s not that much about Christmas, actually.”
Part of show’s appeal for the actor was an opportunity to portray Alan, a man he describes as “an ordinary bloke”.
“Because of [playing] Hamlet and King Lear, you acquire a reputation for being classical, posh.
“For some casting director to think of me in terms of an ordinary bloke was wonderful!” he exclaims. “I rarely get given Joe Bloggs to play, which is what I am basically.”
He also liked that the series “doesn’t patronise older people”.
“It had tragedy and comedy but it wasn’t sold as a comic relationship, it was sold as a proper romantic and sexual relationship between two people in their 70s.
“In a way, it started a trend, because there’s a proliferation of shows centred around older people now.”
Vicious might just be one of those series that benefited, and while we might be bidding goodbye to Freddie and Stuart, Sir Derek would consider another sitcom in the future.
“You betcha!” he says. Derek Jacobi Vicious is on ITV on Friday, at 9pm BY SUSAN GRIFFIN