Damien Chazelle
Damien Chazelle
Damien Sayre Chazelleis an American film director and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut with the musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. In 2014, he wrote and directed his second feature film Whiplash, based on his award-winning short film Whiplash. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival and went on receiving 5 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Chazelle received an individual nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth19 January 1985
CityProvidence, RI
CountryUnited States of America
I think, especially living in L.A., it's very easy to get wrapped up in weekend announcements and the trades and the whole social life of the city, and to get divorced from what actually matters.
I was a jazz drummer, and it was my life for a while: what I lived and breathed every day.
There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me. That was my original passion.
If you're an artist, you want to draw from real life; you want to draw from experiences, emotion, and it's something that a lot of musicians juggle with. I've always found it so fascinating.
Real practice means working on stuff you're not good at. Real practice is about butting your head against the wall repeatedly until you get it right.
People like Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, you look at them playing music, and it's just like looking at a heavy metal drummer. I mean, they're playing with the same amount of ferocity. It's not to say all jazz is like that.
My version of a stress dream is, really, showing up on a concert stage with a drum set and not knowing the chart.
I was a writer for hire. I wrote to pay the bills.
I remember when I first met Jason Reitman with the 'Whiplash' script; he quickly became a mentor figure who guided me through the process and also protected me and made sure that when it came time to actually make 'Whiplash,' I was able to make exactly the movie I wanted to make.
I would break a lot of cymbals. You whack the cymbals hard enough, and they will crack in half. Drums are not actually as sturdy as they look. They're actually somewhat fragile instruments.
'Whiplash' was always the song I hated the most because it's a song designed to screw with drummers.
I didn't feel the kind of joy every day playing drums that I thought you were supposed to feel.
I actually grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies, and music was a detour, almost.
By the end of high school, I had this fork-in-the-road moment where part of me considered going to vocational music school to really pursue it.