Miles Teller Swore Off Print Interviews After 2015 Esquire Disaster

There’s a reason Miles Teller stopped doing sit-down interviews with journalists years ago, and it all traces back to one particularly brutal profile that left him feeling blindsided.

In a May 2026 interview with IndieWire, the actor opened up about why he pivoted hard away from extended written interviews. The culprit? A 2015 Esquire piece that he felt completely misrepresented who he was as a person. The article’s headline—Miles Teller Is Young, Talented, and Doesn’t Give a Rat’s Ass What You Think—set the tone for a piece that repeatedly questioned whether Teller was, well, difficult to be around. The subheader suggested he had“acquired a bit of d***ishness”in his quest for greatness, and the journalist spent significant real estate wondering aloud whether Teller actually was one.

“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,'”Teller explained. He called the Esquire experience a“violation of what actually transpired”and made a firm decision with his team that he wasn’t going to participate in that format again. At the time, he took to X with a direct response:“Couldn’t be more wrong. I don’t think there’s anything cool or entertaining about being a d*** or an a**hole. Very misrepresenting.”

What’s telling is how Teller reflects on it now. He told IndieWire that it’s“unfortunate”being a decent person doesn’t sell copy the way negativity does.“People want to click on the negativity,”he said.“If you go to bed and put your head on your pillow and how you treat people truly, that’s what matters.”He also noted that you can’t hide who you really are on a film set, surrounded by actors, directors, crew, and producers who see you every single day. And judging by his steady work since that 2015 article, his reputation on set speaks louder than any profile ever could.

It’s a reminder that not every story written about a public figure captures who they actually are—and sometimes the best response is simply to change the game entirely.