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Damien Chazelle looked incredibly young—he had some acne on his right cheek, short black curly hair flowing out—he stretched out his hand and brushed his hand over his head.
"Thank you so much for this meeting. I can't believe it. I thought Mark was pranking me."
I smiled. "You can never know with Mark." I whispered, "I'm filming a YouTube video right now."
For a second, he looked lost, but then said, "Just give me 5 minutes."
"No. You have all the time." I got up. "Do you want anything?"
"No, thank you."
The café occupied the corner of a building beneath tall palms in Silver Lake, where the sidewalks sloped toward the reservoir. It was right before the burning, hot sensation of the LA sun that seemed to make your whole body sweat.
I walked up to the register, where a sheet of pastries sat beneath a curved glass.
"Hello."
She flashed a brilliant smile. "Hello. What can I get for you?" She fixed her blonde hair and quickly tapped the white marble countertop.
I leaned in. "Large iced latte, please."
"Whole milk okay?"
I nodded. After a minute, the drink arrived, and as she gave me the cold drink, she smiled. "Good luck on your next project."
"Thank you." I walked back to the dimly lit booth.
"When I read the script, I really felt this project was different from other films."
I turned to my favourite scene—one of the most iconic scenes in film history, when Andrew is playing off tempo:
Andrew nods. Get it together… Fletcher claps. Stops.
Fletcher
You're rushing
Claps again. Stop again.
Fletcher (cont'd)
Dragging.
Andrew plays the piece and Fletcher slowly turns around. Puts his hand on a spare chair. Looks like he's about to sit down, when…
…like a flash of lightning he WHIPS up the chair and HURLS it straight at Andrew's head
Andrew ducks, as the chair catches the top of the bass drum, almost toppling it over.
Fletcher (cont'd)
(as though discussing the weather)
Why do you suppose l just hurled a chair at your head, Neiman?
Andrew
I…. I…. l d-don't kn—
Fletcher
Yes, you do.
Andrew
I…The…the…tempo…
Fletcher
Were you rushing or were you dragging
Andrew
I… dont't…l don't
Andrew's stuttering response wasn't enough, and Fletcher begins slapping his face to the tempo, quizzing him on the difference between dragging and rushing:
Andrew tries to hide his tear, mortified, wipes it, cowers—
Fletcher
Oh, so you don't give a shit about any of this?
Andrew
No, l—l do give a shi—
Fletcher
So are you upset? Yes or fucking no.
Andrew
Yes…
Fletcher
You are upset…
Andrew
I am upset…
Fletcher
Say it so the rest of the band can hear you
Andrew
I am upset….
Fletcher
Louder.
Andrew
I am upset!
Fletcher
Louder.
Andrew
I am upset!
Fletcher
LOUDER!!!!
Andrew
I am upset!!!
Fletcher
Your are a worthless friendless faggot—lipped little piece of shit, whose Mommy ran out on Daddy once she realized he wasn't Eugene O'Neil, and who's now weeping and slobbering over my drum kit like a fifteen-year old girl - so for the last father fucking time, SAY IT LOUDER!
Andrew
(tears pouring out now)
I AM UPSET
I said after we both read it, "Damn, I can't wait to shoot that scene. I'm curious, who's going to play Fletcher?"
Damien said, "J.K. Simmons is signed on."
I smiled. "J. Jonah Jameson from Spider-Man?"
He laughed. "He's a perfect fit for the role."
I smiled and thought about the movie.
The plot was nothing amazing—actually, at first glance, it could be called boring.
But you had to look deeper at the script, and man, it was good. After all of my years in Hollywood, you could instantly tell when a character's motivations were surface-level.
And for Whiplash, all of the characters had real desires. Was Jim really unsupportive of Andrew's dream? Or did he just want to protect his son from a life of pain and rejection? Was Andrew striving for greatness, or did he just want Fletcher's approval? Did Fletcher act the way he did because he had a God complex, or did he really want to bring out the greatest version of each of his musicians?
Even up to the last scene, was Fletcher really trying to sabotage Andrew, or did he want him to rebel on stage?
"I saw your performance in Looper and I knew it right there." He pulled out the script, and the edges of the paper hit the old brown bag.
"Why?" I put my hand on my chin.
"That scene when you shoot yourself and the camera catches a close-up of your face! That dedication, that obsession—Andrew needs that." He leaned in so close that the table began to shake.
"Thank you. Umm. I'm afraid I can't play the drums, and I don't think I'm musically gifted at all."
His voice got deeper. "I saw Luca at Paris Cinema last week, and throughout the whole festival he was so excited about his project. You learned the piano. It's all about visual tricks anyway. You know that for pianists to do fast arpeggios, it's actually quite easy. As a drummer, it's pretty easy to do fast stick work and spin around and do stuff that's really fast or do over/underarm stuff."
I nodded my head.
"You would have two months anyway. If you sign on, Blumhouse will greenlight this project in the next minute!"
I was silent for a couple of seconds, and as more people came in, they looked back at our booth. I looked at the flowery wallpaper on my left and cleared my throat.
"Why did you write this?"
He leaned back. "I did jazz during high school, and it was a way to mediate that. And I wrote the first draft in ten days—"
"Really?"
"I mean, you should have read it. It looked like it was written in ten days."
"Ha. Writing is the worst, though. Editing is my favourite part of the entire thing. I just write to be able to get on set. I'm no William Goldman. You kinda look like Westley in The Princess Bride." He murmured the last part.
He changed the subject. "What made you want to act?"
"I was in middle school and did theatre at such a young age," I smiled. "I remember the local high school was doing a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat."
"I love that show."
"I love it too—'Close Every Door,' when Johnny Osmond sings it, specifically, is my favourite."
"I watched that show in New York and cried during it," Damien said.
We both laughed, and I said, "Maybe we could do a musical instead."
He stretched his hand. "I would love to do a musical. Maybe some romance movie with a jazz pianist?"
I smiled. I grabbed the crumpled script on the table after taking a sip of my coffee. I waited for a moment.
"I don't like the ending. Why doesn't Fletcher leave? I don't know if Andrew wins or disappears. Is he becoming great or becoming Fletcher?"
Damien shook his head. "No." He continued, "That's the beauty of it."
He grabbed the script and flipped to the Jazz Club diner conversation scene, in which they discussed whether or not his hard teaching style was more beneficial or detrimental to the students, which prompted Fletcher to ask Andrew if he had ever heard how Charlie Parker, one of the great jazz artists of his time, came to be Charlie Parker. He pointed to the page:
Andrew
Because Jo Jones threw a cymbal at him
Fletcher
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. Cries himself to sleep that night. But the next morning, what does he do? He practices and becomes the best…Now imagine if Jones had just patted young Charlie on the head and said, 'Good job'....It's about weeding out the best from the worst so that the worst become better than the best
Before the conversation ends, Andrew asks Fletcher if maybe there's a line to draw from this ethos. Maybe instead of inspiring the next Charlie Parker, he's actually discouraging the next Charlie Parker. Fletcher answers with full confidence:
Fletcher
No. Because the next Charlie Parker would never be discouraged
Damien raised his voice. "That humiliation is the cymbal. That's his Charlie Parker moment. Fletcher thinks he's destroying him, and then Andrew comes back and finally proves himself."
I nodded. "So that ending is supposed to be emotionally resounding, but it leaves some intellectual ambiguity."
Damien nodded his head. "Exactly. But I didn't sit down and decide that the movie needed some philosophical debate."
He folded the corner of the page between his fingers. "I don't really write that way."
"What way?" I asked.
"Starting with a major theme." He shook his head. "Whenever a movie begins with someone saying, 'I want to explore the nature of ambition,' you can sense it."
I nodded.
"So you weren't thinking about whether Fletcher was right?"
"Not at all. I wanted to explore the process of someone wanting to be great and how they failed."
The café door opened behind us, releasing a brief wave of heat into the room. A woman entered with a little boy holding her hand, both of them squinting as their eyes adjusted from the white afternoon glare, both looking towards me.
"I started with fear," he said.
"Fear? That fucking conductor in high school must have been the devil."
Damien laughed.
I looked down at Andrew's name on the title page. Two months of drum lessons. I had done two months of piano and Italian lessons. But I wanted to have bleeding hands. I wanted a bigger challenge, something to leave my mark.
My heart started racing. After a long moment of silence, I said, "I want to do this movie. Don't care about the salary."
Damien shot up so quickly that the table shook beneath the cup. "You won't regret it."
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