Miles Teller’s Hollywood comedy heroes: “Oh my god, you couldn’t beat him”
He might have been the worst version of Reed Richards, but Miles Teller has had plenty of other triumphs across his career. H
is biggest success was arguably Whiplash, in which he played an ambitious jazz drummer terrorised by a foul-mouthed teacher played by J K Simmons. Recently, he impressed as Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw in Top Gun: Maverick, reminding everyone around the world that moustaches were sexy. Or maybe they’re just sexy on him. Jury’s still out.
While he’s not known for them, Teller has been in plenty of comedies. He starred alongside Jonah Hill in War Dogs, the story of two real-life arms dealers who manage to land a deal with the US Army. In 2025, he’s due to appear in Eternity, a romantic comedy where a woman (Elizabeth Olsen) will have to choose between him and Callum Turner for who to spend forever with in the afterlife. Long before any of this, however, he was touted to play one of the greatest screen comedians of all time in a biopic.
Rumours began to swirl in the early 2010s that Teller had signed on to play Dan Aykroyd in a film about the life of his Blues Brothers co-star John Belushi. When asked about the rumours by Rotten Tomatoes, Teller confirmed that the plans were in motion and had some very kind words for his upcoming subject.
“I think Dan Aykroyd is a comedy legend,” the young star said. “He’s still around, so it’s very daunting. But as an actor, I think you want to try and challenge yourself. It’s gonna be hard to play Dan Aykroyd in front of Dan Aykroyd. We’ll see what happens, I guess.”
The project was being helmed by writer/director Steve Conrad, who at this point was famous for penning the scripts for The Pursuit of Happyness and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Emile Hirsch of Into the Wild fame was attached to play Belushi, while Elliot Page was also involved, presumably in the role of Belushi’s wife Judith. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.
The late Mr Belushi is a touchy subject when it comes to biopics. A 1989 movie about his life called Wired, which starred a young Michael Chiklis in the main role, was heavily criticised upon release. Conrad’s movie was equally cursed. Hirsch called the director “stupid” in a 2024 interview because he wanted him to gain around 100lbs before the picture had even been greenlit. Thank God he didn’t, because the film never got off the ground, and remains something of an oddity to this day.
While he may have never played Aykroyd on screen, at least Teller got the chance to say some nice things about him. In the same interview, he was asked about some of his other comedy heroes, a question he was happy to answer.
“Bill Murray is pretty legendary, and I love Steve Martin and Chevy Chase,” he revealed. “But as a kid, growing up, for me it was Mike Myers, Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey – those were the kind of guys that I really looked up to.”
He seemed to have a particular fondness for Myers, saying, “Oh my god, you couldn’t beat him,” in reference to his work on Saturday Night Live.
Maybe one day someone will make a biopic about one of those three. If they do, then they know who to cast in the lead role.
