Jazz drumming is spotlighted in ‘Whiplash’
Miles Teller is a star on a rapid rise, while veteran actor J.K. Simmons has featured in many varied theater, movie and television roles. Together they are kinetic in the new film “Whiplash,” where Teller plays aspiring jazz drummer Andrew Neyman and Simmons is Fletcher, the stern, almost sadistic conservatory college band leader determined to drive his young pupil to greatness no matter what the cost.
The film, directed and written by Damien Chazelle, who based the script on his own experience as a music student, debuted earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival and since then has been gathering an increasingly deafening award chatter for its two leads. The film opens this weekend.
“When I wrote this movie I always thought, would anyone actually care? It’s about a jazz drummer,” says Chazelle. “That seems like such a limited audience, but people are really showing they care about this world, even if you are not a fan of jazz.”
For 27-year-old Teller, it’s a chance to flex his acting muscles, and prove he can move beyond the youthful cocky swagger of earlier films like “That Awkward Moment,” “21 and Over,” “The Spectacular Now” and “Divergent.” “I want to show I can do different roles,” says Teller, sitting in a suite in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. “This film has a lot of grit, a lot of old school drama and there is an intensity I haven’t had an opportunity to show before.”
It also helps that Teller already knew how to play drums. “I’ve been playing since I was 15. All my family play music. I think my mother hoped we’d become the Partridge Family,” he says with a smile. But Teller had to master the intricacies of jazz drumming — no stand-ins were used — practicing four hours a day to match the skills required for his role. (He recently showed off his prowess on the skins jamming with the Roots on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon”).
In the film Andrew is driven to practice so much his hands bleed. “I asked Damien would that actually happen? Have you played so much to where you got blood literally on your drum set? Then once I started rehearsing for the movie, and I started to get blisters, then after a while the blisters bleed. Damian said all of his drumsticks when he was in jazz band were covered in blood.”
Hank Levy’s intricate jazz standard “Whiplash” not only inspires the name of the film but becomes one of the central pieces Fletcher demands his students to master. “Its a piece that’s meant to mess with drummers because it switches times and is very confusing,” says Teller. “In a way, it was a central theme to the movie.”
“I wanted to make a movie about music that felt like a war movie, or a gangster movie,” says Chazelle. “Where instruments replaced weapons, where words felt as violent as guns, and where the action unfolded not on a battlefield, but in a school rehearsal room, or on a concert stage.”
J.K. Simmons in person is jovial and lighthearted, and a far cry from the intimidating band conductor he plays in the film. He says the central question of “Whiplash” is how much do you need to be driven to achieve greatness. “Fletcher thinks it’s his mission to find the diamond in the rough and polish it no matter how abrasive that polishing may be,” he says.
“There’s the old axiom, those who do teach, and I think in this case, there is truth to that, and part of his anger, part of his frustration, part of his sadism, comes from the frustration,” he says, accepting the mission of pulling “the greatness out of someone else.”
The intense scenes of psychological brinkmanship between the two actors turn physical at times. One scene builds into a crescendo of anger as Fletcher goads Andrew to play the tempo faster and then slower, finally hurtling a chair at his drum set. “That was a bit nerve wracking,” laughs the actor. “Trying to find the level of frustration with a moderate level of Miles safety.”
“Thankfully, we could both snap out of character immediately when they called cut. We could take a break, have a laugh and then go back at it,” says Simmons.
Simmons has played in many high-profile movies and TV shows, including “The Closer,” “Law and Order,” “Juno” and the original “Spider-Man” trilogy. But with award nominations likely coming for “Whiplash,” it may be the menacing Fletcher for which he will be most recognized. “I’ve been bouncing around for a while. I’m not sure if one role defines you, but this is certainly a career highlight,” he notes. He then adds with a laugh, “Thankfully my next role is nothing like Fletcher, I play a real sweetheart.”
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KATHERINE TULICH writes about film and culture for Marquee.