It surprised me because there are so many things that we weren't able to focus on not only during the lunar EVA but in the entirety of Apollo 11, just by the nature of the story we were telling, we just couldn't go into every detail. So our through-line became -- especially at this part of the movie where it's the final emotional journey for Neil -- what were the private, unknown moments of Neil on the moon ?

Damien Chazelle

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We're already talking about the soundscape and score ideas, that [music] will always be at the center of everything I do.

Damien Chazelle

entertainment

I certainly remember the sheer anxiety and terror of being in rehearsals, my hands bleeding through practice.

Damien Chazelle

entertainment

You can actually end up telling a more universal story the more you really burrow into a specific world.

Damien Chazelle

entertainment

As a drummer, you're always fighting for a level that you never quite attain.

Damien Chazelle

never you drummer fighting

I think there is something to be said for not coddling people and not accepting good as good enough.

Damien Chazelle

good think enough people

I love being in the editing room and playing with tempo and with the rhythm of shots.

Damien Chazelle

room being editing love

First time that I cried at a work of art was at a drum solo that I saw. A drummer named Winard Harper, part of the Billy Taylor Trio, gave back in - I would have been in high school - 2005 or something.

Damien Chazelle

work time art school

Certainly, grades only matter so much when you're in Hollywood. But I became an utterly motivated, devoted, committed student. I was a good student because I was convinced that it would somehow help me in my quest to become a filmmaker.

Damien Chazelle

good me you matter

I actually grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies, and music was a detour, almost.

Damien Chazelle

make movies up music

'La La Land' is about the city I live in. It's about the music that I grew up playing; it's about movies that I grew up watching. Even the big spectacle of the movie feels private to me in that way.

Damien Chazelle

city me music way

When you're trying to paint a portrait of a very specific world, you're trying to show what makes the world different. So, sometimes it means exaggerating certain kind of aspects, but I don't think it's that important or it's that much of an issue as long as you get an emotional truth across.

Damien Chazelle

you truth long world

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.

Damien Chazelle

difference everything drummer people

It's a little difficult when something goes from being an utter obsession - a thing where your skill defines you as a person - to it just being a thing you occasionally do.

Damien Chazelle

skill your person you

I do truly believe that the smallest stories can wind up being the biggest because it's through the specific that a writer can best access the universal.

Damien Chazelle

best being wind believe

I guess art itself is insane. Its actual function is rarely clear, and yet people give their hearts and souls and lives to it, and have for all of history.

Damien Chazelle

function history people art

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

your good you practice

It's easy to show terrible people's behavior on screen, and we all just kind of nod and go, 'Isn't that terrible.' It's more interesting when you can show terrible behavior in the interest of something good.

Damien Chazelle

good you behavior people

The go-to reflex all over Hollywood is still likeability. I've always had a problem with it because I think I have a weird barometer in the sense that some of the characters I've cared about the most in movies are characters that are often thought of as despicable.

Damien Chazelle

weird movies think problem

I don't think of 'Macbeth' as the villain. I don't think of 'King Lear' as the villain. I don't think of 'Hamlet' as the villain. I don't think of 'Travis Bickle' as the villain.

Damien Chazelle

macbeth king think villain

By the end of high school, I had this fork-in-the-road moment where part of me considered going to vocational music school to really pursue it.

Damien Chazelle

me moment music school