From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment.

I'm Elvis Mitchell.

You may have heard the film Whiplash in the last 10 months or so.

My guests are J.K. Simmons, who's been nominated for just by everything you can be nominated for,

and the writer-director of the film who got his star in another musical film and who I met,

was it 11 years ago?

Well, when you were like 11 at the time, then probably right?

No, no, when he's matriculating at Harvard University in Cambridge, JJ.

I've heard of it, yes.

At 11.

Yes, probably running the program, I guess,

who also are the writer director of Whiplash, Damien Chazelle.

First of all, guys, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you. until the smart questions go to you, Damien. Correct. Does you tell the audience what the movie's about?

Yeah, I mean, it's about a kid who wants to be a great jazz drummer, and he's in a very

kind of top-notch conservatory, and this kid's played by Miles Teller, and he meets

J.K. Simmons, or the character that J.K. Simmons plays, who's the sort of top conductor instructor there.

And the idea for me was to just sort of do something about what happens when you have a kind of tyrannical, borderline sadistic conductor, teacher who thinks his methods are what are required to make a student great.

So you turned the gentle Dr. Emil Skoda from Law and Order to essay this said character.

Who else?

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