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 it right. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
Practicing is not normally fun. Sometimes people say they’re practicing, but they’re really just enjoying themselves and the instrument. That’s not real practice. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
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 Read Quote
I love movies where you can sense that the director risked biting off more than they can chew. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
I was always pretty decent at fast stick work or doing stuff that seems impressive that’s not really; I was pretty tasteful and had good ideas musically. But I had a terrible sense of tempo, which is like being a blind painter. The conductor would just rip into me, and it lasted for years. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
I didn’t have traditional stage fright. If there was 500 people in the audience or three people in the audience, it didn’t really make a difference. What made a difference was the conductor. Everything that I was scared about as a drummer was him. It was his face. It was whether or not he’d approve of my playing. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
When someone is playing drums, they aren’t actually moving around a space; they’re just moving their arms and limbs. They’re stuck behind the drum set. So to film someone playing the drums and make it feel as kinetic as a car chase or a shootout or a battle scene was the challenge. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
The first thing I did as a child was draw. I wanted to make animated movies. I think Disney’s ‘Cinderella’ was the first movie I ever saw. ‘Peter Pan’ was the first movie I ever saw in the movie theater. I grew up with ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Pinocchio’ and ‘Sword in the Stone.’ Those were the movies I wanted to make. Damien Chazelle Read Quote
