“He was utterly blown away”: J.K. Simmons Made Damien Chazelle Drop His Jaw With One Revelation About Joining Whiplash That Turns 10 This Year

Whiplash was a miracle film made in 20 days by a ragtag team of an up-and-coming actor and a new director with a $3 million budget. After it premiered, Whiplash walked away with 5 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay for Damien Chazelle, and won 3, including Best Supporting Actor for J.K. Simmons.

However, it is not the awards and the statistics that make Whiplash such an enduring work of postmodern art. The dialogue, performance, delivery, and intensity contained within each frame of that film qualify it as one of the best movies of all time.

Even more surprisingly, it was the experience and maturity with which the then 28-year-old director carried himself that helped solidify Whiplash as a once-in-a-lifetime movie.

J.K. Simmons Left Damien Chazelle Speechless

Released in 2014, Damien Chazelle‘s second feature-length film based on jazz, and the toxic dynamic between an ambitious artist and his abusive teacher, left the whole world stunned. The possibility that such a young director fresh off the block could carry such volume of passion and intellectual understanding made Whiplash a rare treasure in the eyes of Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons.

After being cast in the role of Terence Fletcher, J.K. Simmons shed his warm and boisterous on-screen persona reserved for his earlier films until Whiplash crossed his path. The Oscar-winner then turned on a façade that made it to the final cut, undoubtedly making the film all the better for it. Chazelle, in an interview with Vanity Fair, recalled:

When we first started doing Whiplash, I mainly thought of [J.K. Simmons] as the dad in Juno. He had this wholesome, decent, all-American vibe to him in a lovably, gruff, comic way. So my big concern was, ‘Can you get to a place where we don’t just think you’re kidding around all the time, we’re actually genuinely scared of you?’

Simmons promised his best, and that best went on to win him an Academy Award for the Best Actor in a Supporting Role category. However, Chazelle was not so easily convinced in the beginning. Simmons later divulged how he relieved the young director of his worries and bias during their first meeting:

[Chazelle] said, “We’re going to have a technical adviser there for you at all times. We’ll have a body double who can do a lot of the actual conducting.” He goes on and on trying to put me at ease, and I’m just staring at him with this odd look on my face. He says, “What’s on your mind?” I go, “Well, did Jason [Reitman] not tell you that I have a degree in music? I was going to be a conductor. I thought that was part of why you came to me, because I can do that.” He was utterly blown away.

J.K. Simmons has been known in Hollywood for a lot of films and a lot of memorable performances but Whiplash continues to remain his most impactful role to date – not just because of the honor bestowed by the Oscar but due to how much of himself he put into the project.

J.K. Simmons Gives His Sweat, Blood, and Tears

Those who have witnessed J.K. Simmons at work must admit that the actor has been every bit worthy of an Academy Award win with his performance in Whiplash. The film brought Simmons out of the shadows and established him as an A-list character actor in the industry while simultaneously raising Miles Teller from relative obscurity.

Meanwhile, Damien Chazelle, after witnessing the master at work, did not fail to sing his praise at every given opportunity. In the Vanity Fair interview, the director further went on to explain Simmons’s process at length and how the role of Terence Fletcher came into existence:

I go onto set and I’m just waiting to see initially what he’s going to do with the role and how much I’m going to want to adjust… I did not wind up needing to adjust much because he instantly was that guy… I’d written it thinking about a variety of people, but the jazz orchestra conductor that I played under was very different physically, temperamentally, from J.K. Simmons. A different creature.

Yet within five minutes of shooting the short, just seeing J.K. doing the first take on whatever piece of dialogue we began with – that preconceived notion of the character in my head went out the window. J.K. became that character, the character became J.K., and it became unthinkable to play the character any other way.

Damien Chazelle’s filmography, including Whiplash, La La Land, and Babylon – are all built as an homage to a lost art form. As such, his work remains necessary and relevant, now more than ever, while the industry gets overrun by reboots, sequels, and endless spin-offs.

With a rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes Whiplash remains one of his best projects yet. On the tenth anniversary of its premiere, the movie earns a widespread rerelease reserved only for works that hold such an enduring impact on modern pop culture.

Whiplash will be rereleased in theaters nationwide on September 20, 2024.