Miles Teller & J.K. Simmons talk Whiplash | Film4 Interview Special

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The story was, er, it was just, you know, came out of me thinking back on my own personal experiences. For whatever reason, my mind shot back to me as a drummer with a very terrifying teacher and how I felt every day in band rehearsal. It was probably because I still, to this day, have monthly nightmares about it. So it's just, you know, a memory that's always been very present in my mind. And it just occurred to me, a few years ago, that maybe it could actually make a movie. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What's your name? Andrew Neiman, sir. You know who I am? Yes, sir. Then why did you stop playing? Meeting Damien in person and really getting to... to have a talk about the central themes of the film, and how he wanted to, er, affect an audience. He was impeccably prepared, but also able to think on his feet and collaborate and it was just the ideal shooting environment. I really didn't know what my expectations were for Damien. You know, my first kind of introduction to him as a director was really, you know, the first day on set. And I just remember him being extremely efficient in how... in how he was shooting the scenes. You know, we'd shoot from one angle for, like, two min... or for two takes, and then he would say, "OK, moving on." Then we'd go to another angle, and I remember thinking at the time, like, either this guy's, like, really good and did all of this prep, and knows exactly what he wants, or we're not getting enough, you know, kind of coverage. There's a lot of scenes that is just purely on me. You don't see JK, or the other way around. And...and so, yeah, I... I just... I was blown away by what Damien did with the film. You're here for a reason. You believe that, right? I'm here for a reason. It started with the emotion then, from there, it becomes about how you capture that. And so we shot it kind of like a thriller, and sort of it was even plotted as a thriller, and it was very much sort of done in the style of certain '70s, kind of paranoid kind of movies, that I just personally love and adore. Erm... But all in the interest of kind of really mapping that sort of anxiety in a very subjective way onto the screen. I want to be great. And you're not. I want to be one of the greats. And I would stop you from doing that? Yeah. You're right, we should NOT be dating. I was just really drawn to his drive and his ambition, and his... his determination to become, you know, one of the greats, and I don't think there's anything, you know, wrong with kind of wanting to make a stamp, you know, on this Earth, and to really kind of put your fingerprints all over something and have people, as he talks about it, talk about you, kind of long after you're gone. Working with Miles, you know, we quickly developed a rapport and a rhythm of working together and he's such a good listener, which is not... something you always find in especially a young actor, and, you know, I mean, the final product of the film is... 95%, you know, exactly as Damien wrote it. That 5% that we ended up having the freedom to kind of create on our own was...was a really joyous part of the process. Little trouble, there. Some of the pieces of music in the movie were pieces I played myself as a drummer. Whiplash, Caravan, so...those were kind of starting points in a way. So I, I... I knew what it would sound like in those cases, and I kind of knew what it would look like, or what I wanted it to look like... Pick it up! ..that it would be this movie that was very up close and personal, even uncomfortably so. That we'd see the blood, the sweat, the tears, literally, you know? It's the closest that instruments get to sports. And, er, and I did want this movie to kind of flirt with the ideas of physical violence and the sort of physical toll in the way that boxing movies or dance movies do. And so drumming within the big band jazz world is the closest you get to that. Damien and I kind of worked on, you know, we talked about, there's...there's...you know, the way they have their shoulders, there is kind of like a slant, and just kind of the way they sit, you know, over the drum kit, cos every...every style of music is kind of defined by... you know, the drummer can be defined by that era, you know? If I was playing an '80s kind of hair rock guy, you know, it's more theatrical and this and that, and then if you got the grunge, it's kind of the, you know, the headbanging, and then, you know, but with jazz, it's, you know, it's a certain posture and a certain way they kind of sit over the kit, that was something I really got into because it was the most, you know, the most physical, you know, training that I had to do for any character that I've done. Most of the shots in the film, we were playing live, Miles and everybody else in the band, but they also were just so wonderfully spontaneous, and so much of the film... of my character in the film lives in other people's responses to him. It felt to me like this was a guy who, you know, thrives on intimidation and using sort of physicality and these guys are, you know, real musicians, who trained with, you know, some pretty serious guys, so I think some of them didn't have to work too hard at being intimidated by their conductor, because, you know... it's a tough world and there are a lot of guys out there that are not unlike Terence Fletcher. His lack of regard for... for anything outside of, you know, creating great jazz. His single-minded focus and his, er, his, er... He completely just doesn't care about what collateral damage there may be, and that, you know, I mean, that's the central debate of the film, really, is, you know, what cost is too great? Ah. Ready? OK. Five, six, and... Were you rushing or were you dragging? I...I don't know. If you deliberately sabotage MY band, I will gut you like a pig. Oh, my dear God. Are you one of those single tear people? In a weird way, this movie's a love story between, you know, these two people, and it's a very twisted, sick love story, but it is...kind of it does operate in that way, in a sense. In the sense that it...it hinges on their relationship, and, um, and the ups and downs of that relationship. And so, you know... you had to have a duo that you wanted to watch and you wanted to see together and the movie had to hum when they were together. So it was important to me that the movie keep pushing the envelope a bit, in that...in that way, and that as the movie progresses, it gets increasingly... crazier and crazier as our character gets crazier and crazier. Most of the guys in the band really didn't know what was coming, cos most of them never really read a script. They were just there cos they could play. And with Miles, he's just, you know, such a good combination of, you know, a trained actor, but a guy who, er, you know, who lives in the moment, and can be very spontaneous, both in terms of what he's giving, and how he's responding, so that was, you know, that was a big part of what was fun on set, was just Miles and I sort of throwing the ball back and forth. Even though I was throwing it directly into his face, as hard as I possibly could. You're done. I guess that's where the acting comes in, because in real life, you know, JK and I were joking around and we're talking about, like, baseball, and he's telling these stories from Broadway and stuff. And then as soon as action happens, boom. Then you're this more impressionable person, you're this kid, a little more vulnerable. You're this person who's very much intimidated by this figure, but when you get a script like this that's so kind of complete, there's no really gaps in it. You know, for me, anyway. Like, I've... It's very clear what my character wants, what his character wants, and so from there you just kind of let it fly on the day. All set? One, two, mm, and... FAST JAZZ BEAT Not quite my tempo. Connelly? OK. Yeah, I'll take it... Connelly? ..right from the top. I can do... No. We'll go with Connelly now. Hey, do you mind? OK, man. Ready? Mm-hm. One and two and... ARRHYTHMIC BEAT Perfect, Connelly. (Oh, my God.) See, this to me is the beauty of studio band. You walk in here an alternate, who knows when you could be the new core? Oh, my God, are you serious? I was definitely thinking about a lot of musical films, West Side Story, things like that, but also even silent films, you know, ironically. That sense of rhythm through film-making, that sense of pure cinema, erm... Those moments of pure cinema I really, really kind of love, where it just becomes about juxtaposing image and sound and seeing what can result. I guess it's those moments where, to me, cinema gets close to music, where really the closest art form, er, to it is...is music, and so it made sense to me that that's where we wanted to aspire with a lot of this film. Try practising harder, Neiman. Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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Channel: Film4

Views: 1,877,381

Rating: 4.9654241 out of 5

Keywords: film4, film4 interview, whiplash, jk simmons interview, miles teller interview, damien chazelle interview, damien chazelle whiplash, whiplash making of, la la land, first man, whiplash film, jazz, jazz drummer, oscars

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Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 30 2014