“I like movies that are specific. Movies that home in on a very specific subculture, a specific discipline, a specific world.”

“'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. ”

“I love movies where you can sense that the director risked biting off more than they can chew.”

“I find L.A. kind of romantic, actually. As a movie junkie, it's a city that was built by the movies. There's something really weird and surreal about it that I find energizing.”

“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.”

“I like movies that are specific. Movies that home in on a very specific subculture, a specific discipline, a specific world.”

“When someone is playing drums, they aren't actually moving around a space; they're just moving their arms and limbs. They're stuck behind the drum set. So to film someone playing the drums and make it feel as kinetic as a car chase or a shootout or a battle scene was the challenge.”

“I've always wanted to make movies that are fever dreams.”

“It's interesting when you wind up distilling all your ambitions and your goals and dreams into one single person. It's giving that person a lot of power.”

“The greatest thing has been that projects that were pipe dreams before 'Whiplash' are now feeling more realistic.”

“There something to be said for having even unrealistic dreams. Even if the dreams don't come true - that, to me, is what's beautiful about Los Angeles. It's full of these people who have moved there to chase these dreams.”