Damien Chazelle

Met his former wife, director-producer Jasmine McGlade , at Harvard University. She was his co-worker on several projects and movies.

Graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies.

Directed 3 Oscar nominated performances: J.K. Simmons , Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Simmons and Stone won for their performances in his films.

He is the son of Celia (Martin), a writer, and Bernard Chazelle, a computer scientist. His father is French, from Clamart. His mother was born in California, to an English-born, Beverly Hills-raised, father, and a Calgary-born, Canadian mother. Damiens mother was later herself raised in Calgary, before returning to the U.S.

Brother of actress Anna Chazelle.

All of the films he has directed feature a Jazz musician as a protagonist.

His Best Director Oscar win for La La Land at age 32, made him the youngest recipient of this award category in the Academys history (26 Feb 2017).

His maternal grandfather, John Sayre Martin, Jr., a professor of English, is the son of John Sayre Martin, who worked for Paramount Pictures in London, and Eileen Earle, who was a stage actress.

Some of Damiens all-time favorites include (film): Les parapluies de Cherbourg ; (soundtrack song): "As Time Goes By" (from Casablanca ); (movie scene): "Cheek to Cheek" dance number with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Top Hat (1935) ; (line of dialog): "Forget it Jake, its Chinatown" (Joe Mantell to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown ; (movie ending) Charles Chaplin s City Lights .

He has directed two actors in Academy Award winning performances: J.K. Simmons in Whiplash and Emma Stone in La La Land.

He is the youngest person to ever win the Academy Award for Best Director at the age of thirty-two. The previous record holder, Norman Taurog, had held the title for eighty-six years.

He is the youngest person to win the Golden Globe for Best Director.

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.

There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me.

That was my original passion.

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 handle screenings and award ceremonies really badly.

I was in this public high school in Princeton, and it had this topnotch,jazz program - if you were a musician of any kind of caliber, your holy,grail was to be in that orchestra. It was that claim to fame of the,school, of the town, other than the university. But it was better than,the university band.

I actually grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies,and music was a detour, almost.

There were so many specific things from high school jazz band that I,remembered: the conductor searching out people who were out of tune, or,stopping and starting me for hours in front of the band as they,watched.

I like a set to be a happy place, where people can feel free to,experiment.

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.

Certainly, my manager Gary Ungar was the first person to give me any,attention and hustle for me. This was back in 2009.

As a kid, I was just writing scripts and taking whatever film classes I,could in college.

At the upper echelon of musicians in general, I guess performers in,general, you have to have this kind of live-or-die, cutthroat,mentality.

I had seen a lot of music movies that celebrated music or that showed,the kind of joys from playing music, which is a big part of it of,course, and not something that I would want to deny.

It was only through getting interested in more out-there and avant-garde,forms that the musical suddenly seemed like such a wonderful genre to,me.

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

I was in high school, and when you get to be 14, 15, you start to feel a,little more like your own person so that you can assert your adulthood,a little bit.

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.

My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a,way, seems so antithetical to what art should be.

I think there is something to be said for not coddling people and not,accepting good as good enough.

I think, especially living in L. A.

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.

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

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

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.

My first movie was totally improvised.

Nothing is guaranteed to last, so you should just enjoy it as it,happens.

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

I feel like a lot of directing is casting.

My hands were constantly blistered or bloody; my ears were always,ringing. I tore through drumheads and drumsticks like there was no,tomorrow.

Mozart was born Mozart. Charlie Parker was born Charlie Parker.

I guess art itself is insane. Its actual function is rarely clear, and,yet people give their hearts and souls and lives to it, and have for,all of history.

I love the idea of using film language similarly to how musicians use,music - combining images and sounds in a way that they create an,emotional effect.

ANDREW: But do you think there’s a line? You know, where you discourage the next Charlie Parker from becoming Charlie Parker?FLETCHER: No. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged.

FLETCHER: The truth is I don’t think people understand what it is I did at Shaffer. I wasn’t there to conduct. Any idiot can move his hands and keep people in tempo. No, it’s about pushing people beyond what’s expected of them. And I believe that is a necessity. Because without it you’re depriving the world of its next Armstrong. Its next Parker. Why did Charlie Parker become Charlie Parker, Andrew? ANDREW: Because Jo Jones threw a cymbal at him. FLETCHER: Exactly. Young kid, pretty good on the sax, goes up to play his solo in a cutting session, fucks up -- and Jones comes this close to slicing his head off for it. He’s laughed off-stage. Cries himself to sleep that night. But the next morning, what does he do? He practices. And practices and practices. With one goal in mind: that he never ever be laughed off-stage again. A year later he goes back to the Reno, and he plays the best motherfucking solo the world had ever heard. Now imagine if Jones had just patted young Charlie on the head and said “Good job. ” Charlie would’ve said to himself, “Well, shit, I did do a good job,” and that’d be that. No Bird. Tragedy, right? Except that’s just what people today want. The Shaffer Conservatories of the world, they want sugar. You don’t even say “cutting session” anymore, do you? No, you say “jam session”. What the fuck kind of word is that? Jam session? It’s a cutting session, Andrew, this isn’t fucking Smucker’s. It’s about weeding out the best from the worst so that the worst become better than the best. I mean look around you. $25 drinks, mood lighting, a little shrimp cocktail to go with your Coltrane. And people wonder why jazz is dying. Take it from me, and every Starbucks jazz album only proves my point. There are no two words more harmful in the entire English language than “good job”.

I love movies where you can sense that the director risked biting off more than they can chew.

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