15 INSPIRING Damien Chazelle Quotes for Writers & Filmmakers

He’s a modern-day Hollywood heavyweight. But it’s easy to forget that it’s not long ago at all that Damien Chazelle was the industry’s hottest new thing. He’s a director who has rapidly risen up the ranks but someone whose intelligence is visible in the subjects he tackles and the breadth of his influences. So it’s for this reason that we’ve put together 15 fascinating Damien Chazelle quotes for writers and filmmakers to get inspired by.

Wunderkind to Hollywood Heavyweight

Unsurprisingly, Damien Chazelle was training to be a musician before filmmaker (although he has said filmmaking was his first love). At Princeton High School, Chazelle was part of a studio band and has cited this experience as inspiration for his breakout film, Whiplash.

He failed to make it as a jazz drummer and so pursued his first love instead. But the two disciplines would overlap. Indeed, Damien Chazelle’s first three films take music as their subject matter. Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench tells the story of a couple navigating love amidst various jobs in music. Whiplash tells the story of a brutal jazz teacher and student. Whilst La La Land uses the language of a musical to tell the story of a romance between an aspiring jazz musician and an aspiring actor.

All of Chazelle’s films arguably deal with the chasing of a dream and the realities of such a chase. He seems fascinated by what goes into being an artist and the folklore that comes with it. Even his film about Neil Armstrong, First Man, is about the imagery of dreams and the reality of dealing with success and fulfilled aspirations.

Each of his films has, in some way, progressed on the idea of showbiz aspiration. From the out-of-work musician to the budding student to the jobbing musician. Even the context of Hollywood’s transition from silent to sound films in the 1920s (Babylon) provides a background of music and the movies as a playground for aspiring artists.

Damien Chazelle, therefore, seems uniquely placed to provide insight into the process of being an artist and the allure of Hollywood. Through the below 15 Damien Chazelle quotes, it becomes even more evident that he’s a filmmaker obsessed with the life of the artist.