I was really trying to sell to people who hate jazz: to make a case for the art form as youthful and energetic, not the sort of rarified intellectual activity it's painted as. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
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… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
My motivation for being a good drummer was born out of fear, which, in a way, seems so antithetical to what art should be. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
It's interesting when you wind up distilling all your ambitions and your goals and dreams into one single person. It's giving that person a… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
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… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
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… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
It's a little difficult when something goes from being an utter obsession - a thing where your skill defines you as a person -… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
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. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
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… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
I was interested in music and making movies about musicians, but my own experiences, and doing what it felt like for me to be… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me. That was my original passion. — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
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… — Damien Chazelle Copy Share Image
