Emma Stone rumoured to be new lead in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/15/emma-stone-lead-role-la-la-land-damien-chazelle

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Emma Stone is set to replace Emma Watson in the musical La La Land, a paean to the Los Angeles dream factory for Whiplash director Damien Chazelle, reports the Wrap.

The Oscar nominee may end up starring opposite Ryan Gosling: she as the lonely, aspiring actor Mia, he as the charming jazz pianist Sebastian. Miles Teller, who starred in Chazelle’s Oscar-winning drama Whiplash, recently dropped out of the project. Chazelle would work with Whiplash composer Justin Hurwitz on the project.

Watson left the film after she was cast as Belle, the lead in the upcoming Disney live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.

In an extended precis of La La Land, Chazelle describes “a contemporary musical about LA, starting with the LA we know but slowly building to a vision of the city as romantic metropolis – one that is actually worthy of the dreams it inspires”. He adds:

I’d like to make a musical about the way LA’s peculiar rhythms can push its residents to the edge of their emotions – be they hope, desperation or love. Think of the kind of teetering-toward-madness you see in The Graduate or Boogie Nights, and imagine if you were to push that further. In this case, the city pushes its residents all the way: it pushes them into song.

“The characters of this movie are just people trying to make it. One thing most movies about struggling LA actors and musicians miss is the poetry of their struggle: these are blue-collar folks working day in and day out to make something happen. What I’m interested in is pitting their yearnings and their ambitions against the musical genre. After all, musicals are all about the push and pull between reality and fantasy; the heroes of this film, because of their big dreams, are constantly poised on that edge.

“At its core, this is a movie about artists in love – and what it means to be an artist in love in arguably the most competitive city on the planet. How do you juggle the need to find success as an artist with the need to share oneself with another human being? And how do you do so in a place where every poster, every street corner and every sign remind you of the glories just beyond reach? LA is the ‘Dream Factory’, and to me there’s something swooningly romantic about that: all those unsung songs and unrealised ideas clouding the air. By casting an affectionate eye on a pair of young hopefuls, while aspiring to the kind of full-fledged romanticism you hardly ever see in today’s movies, I hope to capture the spirit of the city I now call home, and make a movie that feels both classical and urgent – and, yes, intrinsically LA.”

Whiplash, Chazelle’s semi-autobiographical drama about an ambitious jazz drummer, won JK Simmons the best supporting actor Oscar in February for his portrayal of a vindictive music teacher. The film also won Academy awards for best film editing and best sound mixing, and was nominated for Chazelle’s adapted screenplay (from his own short film) and best picture.

Stone was Oscar-nominated for her role as the waifish recovering addict and daughter of Michael Keaton’s lead in Birdman. She will star in Woody Allen’s Irrational Man opposite Joaquin Phoenix, and in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha, with Bradley Cooper.