From around 1995-2011, J.K. Simmons has worked closely with two directors named Sam Raimi and Jason Reitman. He worked with these two directors on films that include the Spider Man trilogy and the paranormal thriller, The Gift. By 2014, Simmons had starred in all of Reitman’s featured films, one of them being the award winning comedy Juno.
But perhaps the biggest achievement in his acting career has been when he played the supporting role of Fletcher in the Academy Award winning film, Whiplash. Whiplash is where all the years of playing the villain paid off. His role, Fletcher is a music teacher in the one of the most prestigious jazz school in the country. He used… lets say unorthodox methods of teaching and many people who saw the movie summed up his character as, “one scary dude.”
In an interview after the movie was released, he was asked what was it like to play the role of the sadistic jazz instructor, Fletcher. “Fletcher was fun to play, it felt good to let all that anger out.” He admitted that his past experience in music helped him his performance. But perhaps one of the most shocking things about his illustrious career was that he had no real training. Simmons said that the only reason he got is first role in the Montana theater play was because they needed somebody who could sing. “It was horrible!” he said. “I went back there for three years in a row before I left.”
But I believe that his great success in Whiplash was from his many years of experience of being the secondary character or the villain, always the one not in the spotlight. I think he used all the anger he had bottled up over the years in the character, Fletcher.
Whiplash was J.K. Simmons’s first Oscar nomination and first Oscar win. “Whiplash has been a great experience for me but it has also opened many doors for me. I have a few offers for future movies that I not allowed to spoil and I think Whiplash affected that greatly.”
So, even if you remember him as the guy form Law and Order, that guy in spider man and that guy that I see in the background on T.V, J.K. Simmons is a great example of an actor that waited patiently for his time to shine and has always been a helpful member of any cast he has been in.