If his new drama Whiplashis a blistering jazz tune,J.K. Simmons is the guy playing the hot solo everybody leaves humming at the end.
In the movie (opening in N.Y. and L.A. Friday , nationwide Oct. 17), the 59-year-old thespian plays a signature — and quite possibly Oscar-worthy — role as a psychopathic music instructor trying to bring the best out of his young charges. Among them is a first-year drummer (Miles Teller ) who becomes the target of much of his teacher's ire.
"It was just a really, really good fit. So I'm basically a raging (jerk)," Simmons says with a hearty laugh.
The Detroit-born character actor has been a veteran of TV, movies and theater since the 1980s, and extreme roles have brought him the most notice: the kind, gentle dad of a pregnant teen in Jason Reitman 's 2007 movie Juno and the brutal neo-Nazi inmateVern Schillinger on HBO's 1997-2003 prison series Oz.
"I very studiously avoided doing the same thing again and again and again, and did my best to avoid being typecast," says Simmons, who worried about being pigeonholed because his dynamic and memorable Oz character— a baddie who burned swastikas on fellow convicts' posteriors — was his breakthrough.
"I was a little leery of it because I also realized it had the potential to brand me — forgive the pun — as that guy," Simmons says. "I'd be playing the 'Nazi bastard of the week' on TV for the rest of my life."
After the first season, though, he won the role of psychiatrist Dr. Emil Skoda on Law & Order , and Simmons feels "that was a blessing and a nice kickoff to my career, to be seen as a guy with some versatility."
In helping Simmons to inhabit jazz master Terence Fletcher,Whiplash writer-director Damien Chazelle didn't tell him much more than to be as terrifying as possible. He remembers telling the actor, "I don't want to hear a normal scream. I want you to literally become a gargoyle come to life."
"When you have someone like that who is such a pro, there's not much that you have to do."
Even though awards season is barely heating up, Fandango chief correspondent Dave Karger expects Simmons to be a supporting-actor nominee at the 87th Academy Awards on Feb. 22 — honored not just for Whiplash but for his overall body of work.
"He's certainly overdue," Karger says. "Everyone's just been waiting for that one role that would put him over the top."
Simmons himself adds that it's hard not to notice the buzz, but he's humble when it comes to his Oscar chances.
"I don't feel like it's a gigantic step in my career or the history of my work," he says ofWhiplash. "I got a great part and it was a bigger part than people usually entrust me with."
No trophies were handed out, but receiving approval from the real bands he conducted on the Whiplash set hit just the right note for Simmons.
"It was a gigantic ego rush for me when some of the musicians were like, 'Damn, you know what you're doing here. You're not just up there waving your arms like actor boy,' " says Simmons, who also appears in the just-released Men, Women & Children and next summer's sci-fi reboot Terminator: Genisys .
"It was really fun to let my limited musical ability allow me to pretend to be a genius musician."
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