Whiplash' was just a lucky kind of convergence of events in that I'd been trying to get a bigger project off the ground with no success for a while, and then finally, out of frustration, I just wrote this leaner, meaner, personal script about my experiences as a jazz drummer, and that's the one that wound up getting made.

I guess I'm kind of interested in that elusive search for a bond between life and work and between compassion and competitiveness. There's always something at the end you have to find to live a full life, but it's hard to find.

I never desperately wanted to be a jazz drummer. If anything, I was motivated a lot by fear. Fear of the conductor, fear of the future.

Damien Chazelle Quotes