By Gill Pringle
“I’ve been lucky to work with immensely talented people, and Miles is 100% an actor that I really respect,” Jonah Hill tells FilmInk of his latest co-star. “In a short time, he has done really great work, and War Dogs is no exception.” In War Dogs – director Todd Phillips’ (The Hangover) take on a truly bizarre true story – Teller plays David Packouz, who teams with his buddy, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), to try their luck at arms dealing. Incredibly, the duo discovered that the bidding process employed by The Pentagon was open to exploitation by someone who knew how to shave points off every margin. Soon they were rolling in cash and neck deep in trouble, struggling to fulfill a $300 million contract to supply American allies in Afghanistan.
The role is another bravura showcase for Miles Teller, who has made a nice habit of taking on daring, full-tilt roles, such as his emotionally tortured teen in Rabbit Hole and his under-pressure music student in the acclaimed Whiplash. Even in lesser fare (Fantastic Four, Footloose), Teller has delivered fine performances, and largely walked away unscathed. With War Dogs, however, Teller gets a big, juicy part in a top-flight flick. “I love working on true stories,” the actor tells FilmInk during a long day of press for the film. “‘Based on a true story’ – I love those words at the beginning of the film. I love constantly feeling like, ‘Oh man, I can’t believe this!’ That’s particularly the case with this film. How did these two guys, at this age, at this point in their lives, have a $300 million deal? It’s crazy! I don’t think people look at war as a way to capitalise monetarily, so it will definitely create some discussion. When I first read the article [by Guy Lawson in Rolling Stone, which served as the inspiration for the film], I couldn’t believe it.”
To many in the audience, what David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli get themselves into – and how complicit the US government is in their behaviour – will come as a face-slapping shock. “What Todd Phillips does beautifully in this movie is that he makes that information palatable in a ‘poppy’ way,” Teller asserts. “That’s the biggest strength of the movie. You’re going to get this crazy, frightening, insane information – that would normally be told very straight to you – in a different way. You’re going to get it served to you in a very entertaining, and pop type of way. Todd does it in a way that a lot of people will hopefully want to see this movie. He’s able to make a story like this into pure entertainment.”
That’s not to say, however, that the film slots in easily alongside other Todd Phillips gag-fests like The Hangover, Road Trip, Old School, Due Date, Starsky & Hutch, and Due Date. “It gets darker, absolutely,” Miles Teller says. “There are real stakes, and when the consequences come, they come realistically, and that’s what I loved about it. It’s different when these guys are first building up, and they finally have their first big pay cheque, and they’re doing it with their best friend. But then when the stakes and consequences catch up with them, one guy tries to deal with it one way, and then the other guy’s trying to deal with it the other way. I just love where it takes you.”
The building of that on-screen friendship between Teller and Hill’s characters began, appropriately enough, off-screen. “I went over as soon as we got lockdown,” Teller explains. “There wasn’t a tonne of time before we started, but I went over to Jonah’s house, and we talked about who these guys were, and how this movie bonds you. We were travelling to all these different countries, and we were jetlagged together, and then shooting a scene, so that helped to bring us together too.”
Those travels haven’t included Australia (“I would love to. I have a lot of friends in Australia. My first film, Rabbit Hole, was with Nicole Kidman. She’s great!”), but Miles Teller is certainly moving when it comes to his career. “I just finished doing this film, Thank You For Your Service, where soldiers come back from the war in Iraq, and I’m about to do a fire fighting movie, called No Exit, with Josh Brolin and Jeff Bridges. It’s a true story about The Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, where 19 of 20 firefighters lost their lives. I’m playing the lone survivor there.”
War Dogs is released in cinemas on August 18.
