The 'Spiderhead' star opens up to ET about his recent success on the big screen and phone screens.
Top Gun: Maverick finally soared into theaters this year, 36 years after the original, and it seems that the film's record-shattering success meant it was worth the wait. For star Miles Teller, the success was something he never expected, despite being warned.
Teller recently spoke with ET's Matt Cohen while promoting his upcoming film, Spiderhead, and the actor opened up about the wild fan reaction to Maverick -- as well as his recent popularity on TikTok, an app he doesn't have or use.
Top Gun: Maverick broke Memorial Day box office records, and has earned $395.2 million domestically, with a worldwide total of $749 million. From a critical standpoint, the movie has garnered a 97 percent positive score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes -- beaten only by the 99 percent positive audience score.
"It's been awesome, man. I've never really experienced something like this in my life," Teller said of the wild popularity and support. "Tom [Cruise], before I signed onto this, he tried to lay out what it would be like and the anticipation for this film and how much fans really want this movie and how hard it was going to be to satisfy them. But just based on the reaction and the box office and everything, we did it."
"So it's just, it's a really good feeling," he added.
Teller's success hasn't been limited to the big screen either. The 35-year-old actor has become a sort of inadvertent TikTok star, and his dance moves have sparked the thirst of fans -- fueled largely by clips of him posted by his wife, Keleigh.
However, for Teller, the whole thing has mostly flown under his radar.
"I don't have Instagram or TikTok or anything, but I know my wife, I'll just see her on her phone and then she'll start cracking up. And so then she shares with me what's going on," Teller explained. "But I mean, yeah. It's great. If it brings people in the theater or, I don't know, gets some new fans maybe for me? That's all good."
Fans who've been loving seeing him on TikTok will get a chance to see him in another project very soon, as Teller stars in Netflix's new sci-fi thriller film Spiderhead.
Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski also helmed the dystopian crime thriller, and Teller had nothing but praise for getting a chance to work with Kosinski again after shooting Maverick, as well as 2017's Only the Brave.
"I think he's one of the best visual storytelling directors that we have. He's really confident, and he's really competent in his ability to create these worlds," Teller shared. "As an actor, it takes a lot of the pressure off when you know the quality behind the camera... because you know that your efforts are going to be validated at the end."
"It really is a director's medium. So if you can find a couple directors that you feel really confident in, I think you should try and work with them all the time," he added.
In the film, set in the near future, Teller stars as a convicted criminal who volunteers to be a test subject for a new drug that can manipulate your emotions. The state-of-the-art prison facility where the test subjects are incarcerated is overseen by the mysterious visionary Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth), who begins to push the limits of what the drugs can do.
"He's somebody that I was really excited to work with," Teller said of Hemsworth. "I'd met him once or twice and everybody who meets Chris, works with Chris, we pretty much all have the same things to say about him. Just he's an incredible person and he's a wonderful scene partner. He's just a great guy. He's really wonderful."
"For being a pretty small cast, I really loved [working with] Jurnee [Smollett] and Chris, and I felt really grateful because we filmed it in the middle of COVID. It was a time when so many of my buddies who were actors were out of work and directors and everything," Teller recalled. "So I think I was just really appreciative to be working."
Spiderhead debuts on Netflix June 17.
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