A psychological thriller about a young jazz musician, helmed by a 28-year-old unknown director and shot for under $4 million, might not sound like the recipe for a Hollywood smash. But from the moment it premiered to raves at the Sundance Film Festival, Whiplash defied the odds. Damien Chazelle’s thrilling, agonizing, technically immaculate portrait of the toxic dynamic between an ambitious drummer named Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller, then best known for The Spectacular Now) and his abusive instructor, Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons of the Spider-Man movies), won over Hollywood, then moviegoers around the world. It marked the arrival of a major American filmmaker on the scene, cemented the promise of a rising star, and provided the crowning role to a character actor who’d been working for decades on screen and stage.
Even more impressively, Whiplash has held up. The movie regularly ranks on lists of the greatest films of the century, and even of all time. Its portrait of artistic relentlessness has spawned a whole category of memes. Above all, it’s a shining example of what a talented director can do before the world catches on, taking a deeply personal story—Chazelle has said he drew on the “dread” he experienced in high school band—to make something specific and fresh. The 2014 film received five Oscar nominations, including for best picture, and won three awards—with Simmons taking home the best-supporting-actor trophy. Chazelle has since won the best-director Oscar for La La Land, with his most recent movie being Babylon (and, he tells us, something new on the way). Teller is coming off of the box-office sensation of Top Gun: Maverick.
Sony Pictures Classics is now giving Whiplash the kind of treatment reserved for movies of its enduring stature: a full-on rerelease. In honor of the 10th anniversary, the distributor will put the film back in theaters nationwide starting September 20. Kicking off the reunion tour, Whiplash will also screen as part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Ahead of celebrating the milestone, Chazelle, Teller, and Simmons joined Vanity Fair to reflect on the movie for the first time this year—and assess how it changed their lives.
The Short
After falling hard for the Whiplash feature script, Helen Estabrook sent it to her then producing partner, Jason Reitman, who then convinced Chazelle to make a short film version as a kind of proof of concept. The short, which earned acclaim in its own right, starred Johnny Simmons as Neiman, before Teller took over the role in the feature, while J.K. Simmons originated the role of Fletcher.
Damien Chazelle: Even though it was this 15-minute short, that was my first time ever doing something with a professional crew and with things like an AD and a script supervisor, and all these roles. Before that, I’d just been making basic student films—camera on my shoulder, me and a few friends, going out on the streets and shooting on weekends. That was my conception of filmmaking.
J.K. Simmons: Jason [Reitman] said, “Check this out.” I read the feature, and it was one of those life-altering experiences of just encountering not only sheer brilliance on the page, but a character that every single move he made, every word out of his mouth, was just like I was assimilating organically. It’s hard not to sound narcissistic and egomaniacal—which I am, because I’m an actor. It was just one of those rare parts. I thought, I’m the guy for this part. I am the guy for this part. I understand everything. I’m dying to do this. They said, “Well, we’d like you to meet with Damien.”
Chazelle: It was always clear in my head that whatever the resources we might have or not have to make it, it had to feel very metronomically precise. It had to feel like the movie that one of those characters would’ve made. It had to reflect their mindset, for lack of a better expression. March to their rhythm. I knew it had to be shot that way, but I had to learn how to shoot that way. I learned the hard way. I flailed around for the first day or two, and really thought I didn’t know what I was doing and I wasn’t cut out for this kind of filmmaking. And then by the end of the short I was like, Okay, I still don’t feel comfortable with this, but I’m not going to quit just yet.
