A Quote by Damien Chazelle

Certainly, I've loved musicals for a while, so I did some short films in college that had musical numbers and things like that, so I've kind of been obsessed with Fred and Ginger and Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Donen and Jaques Demy forever.
I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.
The musicals that I loved, growing up - many, many. 'Singing in the Rain,' of course, is a classic, I love 'Meet Me in St. Louis.' I love 'Funny Face,' Stanley Donen's beautiful movie. It's really countless for me.
Violence is a form of cinematic entertainment. Asking me about violence is like going up to Vincente Minnelli and asking him to justify his musical sequences.
It's almost scary how amateur I am when it comes to musicals - I'm a musical goer, but I am not as obsessed with musicals as perhaps some of my theatrical friends are.
Its almost scary how amateur I am when it comes to musicals - Im a musical goer, but I am not as obsessed with musicals as perhaps some of my theatrical friends are.
I love visual stylists like Bob Fosse and Vincente Minnelli and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger with The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman.
After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.
I did a lot of musicals when I was younger. And then I went to Northwestern University, and I did more musicals. I went on to do more work in Chicago, and then while I was in college, I got flown out to Los Angeles to do a screen test for 'Back to the Future.' When I got to Los Angeles, I was like, 'Hmmm, this is different.'
When I first got to New York, all I did was musicals. After a few years I had to make a conscious choice to close the door on musicals, because I was getting pigeon-holed as a musical theater performer.
Originally I had a block about appearing in a musical. I went to a voice teacher for a while, but that did no good. My range is about one and a half notes. I ended up talking the musical numbers, which was revolutionary at the time. The lyrics are extremely intricate. They move along like a precisely acted scene. If you miss a word - heaven help you - the orchestra rattles past like an express train, and you've got to run like the devil to catch up.
There was never any point in my life when I wasn't called Mr. Donen. I'm told my first words were, 'Call me Mr. Donen.' But I suspect that's apocryphal. My mother, Mrs. Donen, tended to exaggerate.
I never solicited myself as a singer until I realized I could use that to a musical standpoint. I loved musicals growing up. Classic films were some of the only ones I watched. So when the opportunity came for the show to audition, of course it was all of a sudden, "I sing! I sing! Send me in, please. I beg of you."
I got the boot once from Stanley Donen. The film was called The Little Prince.
Everything has to be intrinsic plot-wise in the same way, to use the Linda Williams analogy but to move it on a bit, as musicals - in old musicals, like in an old Cole Porter musical, you get the action, then they do a song, which reflects a moment - everything stops while that is being sung - and then you restart. These days in most musicals, the plot keeps moving through the song. I think it would be nice if someone constructed some pornography where the sex continues to propel you through the story.
I definitely wasn't cool in high school. I really wasn't. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.
I definitely wasn’t cool in high school. I really wasn’t. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas, but I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.
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