Damien Chazelle Quotes

Damien Chazelle

Profession : Director

Birth : January 19, 1985

One interesting thing about jazz, or art in general, but jazz especially is such an individual art form in the sense that improvisation is such a big part of it, so it feels like it should be less soldiers in an army and more like free spirits melding. And yet, big band jazz has a real military side to it.

Damien Chazelle

Certainly, I've loved musicals for a while, so I did some short films in college that had musical numbers and things like that, so I've kind of been obsessed with Fred and Ginger and Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Donen and Jaques Demy forever.

Damien Chazelle

I was a jazz drummer, and it was my life for a while: what I lived and breathed every day.

Damien Chazelle

I wanted to look at the mentality that can breed that sort of intensity, that kind of cutthroat, pressure-cooker feeling, especially a form of music like jazz, that should be - or you'd think should be - all about liberation and improvisation and everything.

Damien Chazelle

In a weird way, I'm always going to ground myself. I'm an insecure kind of pessimist, but I'm always kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Damien Chazelle

I'm predisposed to never be in pure celebration mode.

Damien Chazelle

'Whiplash' scared me. I feel you should only do projects that scare you to some degree. I get motivated by those sorts of feelings.

Damien Chazelle

My first movie was totally improvised.

Damien Chazelle

If you want to make a movie, there may be many forces trying to pull you down, but really, a lot of it is will power. You can will it into being if you just believe that you are going to make a movie.

Damien Chazelle

Going back to my film education, I always have that voice in my head that's always screaming, 'Sell out!' And that's good: you want that, because it keeps you on your toes, and it's important to remember what's actually important.

Damien Chazelle

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.

Damien Chazelle

There are a few musicians that I know who seem on the outside like very asocial or somewhat unemotional people, people who aren't capable of emotions, and people think they're very cold inside.

Damien Chazelle

If there's a good review, I'll skip over the headline, but I always find the bad reviews and read those. I don't know why. It's a little sick and demented.

Damien Chazelle

I like the idea of working my way up. I don't feel impatient to immediately jump into something that could literally bring down a studio if I don't do it well.

Damien Chazelle

I tend to latch on to things and not let go.

Damien Chazelle

What's great about musicals is their energy and go-for-brokeness - stopping the story to sing and dance. How can you not love that?

Damien Chazelle

My dad is a big jazz fan, and that was the reason I first got into jazz.

Damien Chazelle

As a drummer, you're always fighting for a level that you never quite attain.

Damien Chazelle

First time that I cried at a work of art was at a drum solo that I saw. A drummer named Winard Harper, part of the Billy Taylor Trio, gave back in - I would have been in high school - 2005 or something.

Damien Chazelle

I like movies that are specific. Movies that home in on a very specific subculture, a specific discipline, a specific world.

Damien Chazelle