Actor Miles Teller got a very warm welcome to Bloomington on Tuesday. At Upstairs Pub, that came in a couple different forms: a private room in the bar's secret speakeasy, adoring fans screaming his name and titular songs from his movies “Footloose” and “Top Gun: Maverick” blasting through the speakers.
And Teller tried to return the reception, throwing merch and talking to bar-goers during his hour and-a-half visit.
Before greeting fans, Teller, who arrived in Bloomington just hours before from Toronto, said he prefers to sign autographs instead of taking selfies with fans.
“I signed a chick’s epi-pen in Georgia,” he said. “I signed a girl’s diabetes thing. And a lot of shoes. A lot of people gave me a single shoe to sign, which is disgusting ... I don’t know, college is still college, I guess.”
Bloomington was the latest stop in Teller’s country-wide tour to college campuses to promote Long Drink, a company he’s invested in and been involved in for six years. Long Drink produces canned cocktails with a 5-8.5% alcohol by volume.
According to Long Drink’s website, the first long drink or “lonkero” — a drink made with gin and a mixer, usually grapefruit soda — originated in 1952 in Finland as the country was preparing to host the Olympic Summer Games. The country’s government commissioned the drink’s creation to help attract tourists to the country, which was still recovering from fighting against both sides in World War II. The long drink is now a staple of Finnish bars.
Teller, who sported a Long Drink branded baseball cap, said his love for the brand is authentic, and that he’s not “a celebrity trying to sell you stuff.”
“I wear this hat, I think, 90% of my life,” Teller said. “When our house burned down in the Palisades this was one of the few things I grabbed. I was like, ‘I need that hat.’”
Evan Burns, cofounder and CEO of Long Drink, graduated from IU with an economics degree in 2010. He said he first tried the drink after visiting Finland at the invitation of two students from the country who studied abroad in the U.S. He was around 27 when the brand launched in 2018.
“It wasn’t like we set out to build a really big business,” he said. “We set out because it was fun, and we thought it’d be a fun kind of puzzle, project to work on.”
However, Burns said he didn’t expect some of the challenges of starting a business.
“Like kind of everything that can go wrong, probably will go wrong, and you have to have a plan for it,” Burns said. “And the most important thing is, yes you need good product, but you really need people that you work with, that you care about, that you believe in and you have each other’s backs to overcome those problems.”
Burns said Teller and Long Drink representatives plan to visit more colleges in the future.
“It’s about being in Lansing, Michigan, and being at Ohio State,” Burns said. “So I was happy he wanted to do IU because I was like ‘I went there.’ So, we knew we were going to Upstairs, we know we were going to do Kilroy's.”
A sign advertising Actor Miles Teller's visit to Upstairs Pub is pictured April 8, 2025, in Bloomington. Teller stayed at the bar for about an hour and a half.
Bloomington resident Riley Goode, 22, said she attended the event specifically to catch a glimpse of the star, though she admitted she’s not necessarily a big fan of Teller’s.
“I’m a big Upstairs fan,” she said. “But, you know, I like him too.”
Bloomington is no stranger to celebrities promoting their lines of alcohol. In October 2023, model and internet influencer Kendall Jenner participated in a margarita tasting at the bar to promote her “818” tequila line. “The Vampire Diaries” star Ian Somerhalder did a meet and greet in April last year at a Big Red Liquors to promote “Brother’s Bond Bourbon.”
Goode said she was relieved the event was less scary than she thought it would be.
“People aren’t, like, punching each other, you know,” she said. “So, I’m glad about that."
That didn’t mean the bar was lacking in energy. All standing room and tables were packed with students trying to crowd in to take a photo of Teller or grab merch. Some students stood on tables and stools hoping to see him.
“I see that cute face,” one student yelled while balancing on a stool. “I’d see that cute face from a mile away.”
In front of one of the bars, a patron held out a poster of Teller shirtless from “Top Gun: Maverick” for him to sign. Teller said he drinks the sugar-free version of the Long Drink when he’s preparing for shirtless scenes.
IU seniors Kate Curtis, Abby Tillar and Jessica Minor got to Upstairs right before 3 p.m. when the doors opened to get a table at the bar.
“We had just recently watched the ‘Top Gun’ movie before we found out he was coming, so it made it even more special,” Tillar said. “I don’t know it was just so amazing.”
The seniors got Teller to autograph photos of him standing next to his wife, Keleigh, and popstar Taylor Swift, as well as a collage of stills from “Top Gun: Maverick.” Though the students had never tried Long Drink before Teller’s visit, they said they enjoyed it and would recommend it to other students.
“I have an exam tomorrow and two exams on Thursday and one exam on Friday, and I still took the time to be here, and I will never forget it,” Tillar said. “I’ll never regret it.”
