Miles Teller Jokes About Pushing Himself to the ‘Absolute Limit’ for ‘Top Gun’ on ‘SNL’ — With Jon Hamm Cameo
02.10.2022 - 17:59
/ usmagazine.com
Live from New York, it’s Rooster! Fresh off his Top Gun success, Miles Teller has made his hosting debut on Saturday Night Live — and he’s touting the military movie as comedic inspiration.
“This year I was in a movie called Top Gun: Maverick, and one of the things that I loved about the movie is that it really seemed to bring people together,” Teller, 35, on the Saturday, October 1, season 48 premiere. “I mean, it’s not every day that you get a movie that’s loved by both the military community and the gay community. So, it worked out.”
He continued: “It was also amazing to get to work with Tom Cruise. I mean, that guy is a legend. We both pushed ourselves to the absolute limit for this movie. I mean, he did his own stunts and I grew my own mustache.”
In addition to growing his own facial hair, Teller also learned some new musical tricks.
“In the movie, there’s a scene where my character Rooster plays and sings ‘Great Balls of Fire’ on the piano and, you, I played piano a bit growing up, so I told [producers], ‘Look, I don’t need a double, guys. I will do this myself; I’ll do this live,’” the actor quipped during his monologue. “So, I learned this song and I practiced it a bunch; I even took piano lessons. My instructor was J.K. Simmons [my costar in Whiplash, and] he was surprisingly nice.”
The War Dogs actor was even joined by one of his Maverick costars who previously hosted the late-night series three times: Jon Hamm.
The Mad Man alum, 51, joined Teller and the SNL cast for the cold open sketch, which parodied Peyton Manning and Eli Manning‘s “Manningcast” recap series.
“I don’t know what [I’ve seen so far], but it’s not comedy,” Hamm quipped after Teller’s Peyton asked how the political sketch was going. “I mean, they