When La La Land was released back in 2016, the musical romance starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling had managed to seize its audience in an awe and ended up being the receipient of various accolades too, thanks to the talented actors and the incredible directing on the part of Damien Chazella. Without them, the movie wouldn’t have received the fame and success that it did.
But as it happens, Ryan Gosling was actually not the first choice for the role of Sebastian Wilder in the film. Although he definitely was the preferred one, apparently.
The French-American filmmaker had actually planned on taking War Dogs star Miles Teller on board as the lead character in his romantic musical comedy before he decided to eliminate the latter from his potential list of candidates, something which ended up making a rather bitter impression on the actor.
Miles Teller Was Deemed to be Creatively Unfit for La La Land
In one of his extensive interviews with Vulture, Miles Teller revealed how things concerning his scrapped-out role in La La Land “played out in an interesting way” but “much differently” than people assumed, with only a few aware of the reality behind the whole situation.
Teller admitted that at some point, the film had been quite close to “falling apart” but he hadn’t wavered from his allegiance towards the franchise even then, only for Damien Chazella to reward his loyalty by removing him from the movie altogether.
“A couple people know the truth. When that movie was almost falling apart, I stayed attached to it and told directors that I really wanted to work with that. I couldn’t jump ship from La La Land just because the project was in flux. I’ll go to my grave knowing that when push came to shove I expressed extreme loyalty to Damien and that movie. That’s sorta all I can say.”
In Esquire’s 2015 profile of the Top Gun: Maverik star, it was revealed that Chazella had decided to take Ryan Gosling instead because he believed Teller was not “creatively right for the project,” something which irked the Whiplash actor a great deal, prompting him to send a text to the director saying, “What the f*ck, bro?”
Rumors Claimed Miles Teller Was the One Who Dropped the Film
Earlier the same year when all of this was happening, a rumor via Page Six had come to the surface with regard to Teller not being a part of La La Land anymore, claiming that it was the actor himself who turned down the film due to monetary reasons.
As per the rumor, the 35-year-old was being given a large sum of about $4 million for the Academy Award-winning movie, but he’d apparently asked for $2 million more, and because his demands weren’t being catered to, Teller had then decided to drop the film. However, the Project X star debunked these rumors in the same conversation with Vulture, explaining that “it was absolutely false.”
See also: Miles Teller – 3 Short Films Featuring A Teenaged Teller
“I’m pretty sure a talent agency planted that story to try and turn me against my own agent. It was absolutely false. The money side of it was fine. I can 1,000 percent assure you that if there was a part I wanted to play, I would not turn down four million dollars to do it.”
Although Teller had a sour experience with Chazella’s La La Land, the film was still a hit in theatres and Ryan Gosling surely did justice to Sebastian’s character.
La La Land is available on Netflix.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
