Oscar-Winner J.K. Simmons on His Memorable ‘Whiplash’ Scenes with Miles Teller

The chair was real. The fear, mostly, was not. J.K. Simmons pulled back the curtain on one of the most jarring moments in "Whiplash" when he joined Rich, and the answer was refreshingly unglamorous. There was no all-day setup, no stunt double, no cinematic patience. The direction, essentially, was throw the chair at Miles and let's move on.

The moment came up because Simmons had signed a cymbal for Del Tufo, referencing the character that follows him around in public. When people recognize the Oscar winner, he said, they hit him with the "not quite my tempo" line from the film, or they ask where they can find photos of Spider-Man, a nod to his run as J. Jonah Jameson across three iterations of the franchise.

Asked how much of the volcanic conducting-studio scenes came off the page, Simmons credited the film's writer-director. Over the whole shoot, he estimated, 95 percent was scripted. But Damien, like all truly great writer-directors, was smart enough to know that once in a while an actor like Miles Teller or Simmons himself can go off the map and find something. The chair throw, though, was not one of those moments. That was 100 percent scripted, Simmons said, and it was a little scary.

The reason was simple physics. Chairs are heavy, and Simmons was throwing one right over the head of an actor who had nowhere to go. When you are perched on a stool behind a drum kit, he pointed out, your escape routes are limited. The production was working on a budget, so the scene got two takes and a quick move to the next setup. Simmons noted, with a laugh, that the chair was concerning in a different way than slapping Teller, which was also fun.

Simmons was candid that the role landed at the right stage of his life. He was 58 or 59 during the shoot, and he was glad the whole thing arrived when he was already an experienced hand at the work. Early in his career, he said flatly, he was a terrible actor. He learned the craft in front of hundreds of people doing theater, starting at the Big Fork Summer Playhouse in Montana in 1977, where he played the lead in "Brigadoon" as a good-sing, no-act kind of guy. He moved to Seattle after college, took every job he could, from Shakespeare to musicals to dinner-theater comedy, and worked with a long line of directors who helped mold him.

As for whether Teller was actually frightened, Simmons had fun with the question before giving it to Rich straight. Between takes, he said, it was all guy banter and sports talk, with Teller puffing his chest and dropping the whipping-boy character he played on screen. Miles is an alpha, Simmons said, the kind of presence that had to be calmed down, not scared straight.