99 Fun Facts About La La Land

Which actor plays Bill, the restaurant boss who fires Sebastian for straying from the Christmas set list in La La Land?

J. K. Simmons sacks Sebastian for playing jazz at all; a year earlier he had won an Oscar as a teacher who torments a young jazz drummer for not playing well enough, in Chazelle's previous film.

What does Sebastian plan to call the jazz club he dreams of opening in La La Land?

Chicken on a Stick, he insists, honours Charlie Parker, who he says was nicknamed Bird for his love of chicken; Mia's verdict is that no one will come to a place with that name.

Which musician plays Keith, the bandleader who hires Sebastian for his pop-jazz band in La La Land?

John Legend had barely acted before, though he already had an Oscar for the song 'Glory'; he co-wrote and sings 'Start a Fire', the hit that pays Sebastian's bills and pulls him away from his own music.

Which two actors were attached to La La Land before its eventual stars, Gosling and Stone?

Miles Teller and Emma Watson were the original pairing: Watson left to star in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and Teller was dropped after negotiations over his fee dragged on.

Which earlier film written by Damien Chazelle was the hit that finally got La La Land financed?

Whiplash, his drama about a young jazz drummer, cost $3.3 million and won three Oscars; Chazelle wrote it only after La La Land had stalled, as an easier film to sell, and its success reopened the doors.

Who composed the score and songs of La La Land?

Justin Hurwitz met Chazelle at university, where the two first worked the idea up as a student film; he wrote the music for that film and for every feature the director made up to La La Land.

Which duo wrote the lyrics for nearly all of La La Land's songs?

Pasek and Paul came from the stage: their musical Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway the same month the film reached cinemas, and within half a year the pair had an Oscar for one and a Tony for the other.

Which song opens La La Land with drivers dancing on a gridlocked freeway?

Another Day of Sun was the first thing shot, on a closed ramp arcing 100 feet above the 105-110 interchange, over two days when the temperature passed 100 degrees; the designer feared someone would fall off.

Damien Chazelle said the freeway ramp curving toward downtown in La La Land's opening made him think of which classic musical?

The Wizard of Oz: when the camera pulls back to show the downtown skyline, he said, the ramp becomes the yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City; ordinary traffic can be seen passing below.

Which 1955 film do Mia and Sebastian watch together at the Rialto in La La Land?

Rebel Without a Cause comes up when Mia lands a call-back for a show she likens to it, and Sebastian offers to take her 'for research'; the print burns in the projector just as their hands touch.

Where do Mia and Sebastian share their first kiss in La La Land?

Griffith Observatory is where they drive when the film they are watching breaks down: they slip inside after hours, switch on the planetarium projector and waltz up among the stars before they kiss.

In La La Land, Mia works as a barista on the lot of which studio?

Warner Bros. is where Mia serves coffee between auditions; walking Sebastian round the backlot, she points out the window Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman looked out of in Casablanca.

In La La Land, which 1980s hit does Mia request to needle Sebastian when she finds him in a party cover band?

'I Ran', the Flock of Seagulls hit, is her revenge for his rudeness months earlier; he complains that asking a serious musician for it goes too far, and she pounces on the words 'serious musician'.

In La La Land, Mia retreats to her hometown in which state after her one-woman play flops?

Nevada: Sebastian drives to Boulder City with news of an audition and finds her house because she once told him it stood across the street from the library where she fell in love with acting.

In La La Land's 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)', whom does Mia sing about?

Her aunt, a stage actress who once lived in Paris, is the song's heroine: she jumped into the Seine and, as Mia tells it, would have done it again. The casting directors had asked only for a story.

Five years on, La La Land's epilogue finds Mia working as what?

A film star: the epilogue opens with Mia ordering an iced coffee at the studio café where she used to serve, where every eye turns to her and the manager tries to give it to her on the house.

In La La Land's epilogue, what tells Mia the club she has wandered into is Sebastian's?

The sign she once drew hangs on the door: it reads 'Seb's', the name and lettering she sketched for him years earlier, when he was set on calling his club something else.

Which French director's musicals were the main inspiration for La La Land's style and tone?

Jacques Demy made The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which Chazelle screened for his cast and crew during rehearsals; one Lionsgate executive helped win the director over by knowing Demy's films shot by shot.

One studio wanted La La Land's jazz-playing hero turned into what?

A rock musician was Focus Features' request, along with a changed opening number and no bittersweet ending, for a version costing about $1 million; the project stalled and Chazelle set it aside.

La La Land was the third film to pair Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone; which was their first?

Crazy, Stupid, Love came first, in 2011: Stone was brought in to improvise scenes with an already-cast Gosling, and has joked that she is not sure he knew who she was; Gangster Squad followed in 2013.

Emma Stone first met Damien Chazelle about La La Land while starring on Broadway in which musical?

Cabaret had Stone playing Sally Bowles; Chazelle came to watch on a night she was full of cold medicine, which she calls her unofficial audition, and she says the run gave her the stamina for a film musical.

Which mishap from Ryan Gosling's own auditions was written into La La Land for Mia?

The casting director took a call while Gosling was crying his way through an emotional scene; he told Chazelle the story, and it went into the script as one of Mia's auditions.

Who choreographed La La Land's dance numbers?

Mandy Moore, not the singer but a choreographer from So You Think You Can Dance, drilled the two leads for months in a warehouse rehearsal space, because both had to learn to dance for the film.

La La Land's 'A Lovely Night' dance had to be filmed within what brief window each day?

The 'magic hour' at sunset gave the crew only minutes of usable light, and the six-minute number was staged as one unbroken take, so they managed just eight attempts across two evenings.

Which downtown funicular, shut since a 2013 derailment, ran for a single day so La La Land could film on it?

Angels Flight, built in 1901 to carry passengers up Bunker Hill, was out of service at the time; Chazelle's crew arranged to run it for one day's shooting, and it reopened to the public in 2017.

La La Land was framed in the extra-wide 2.55:1 shape of which 1950s screen format?

CinemaScope gave 1950s musicals their sweep, and Chazelle wanted that look for Los Angeles; the original process no longer exists, so the film was shot on 35mm stock through anamorphic lenses instead.

At which festival did La La Land have its world premiere in August 2016?

Venice opened with the film on 31 August; Chazelle, shaken by poor test screenings, kept his eyes shut for half an hour of the premiere, then heard a standing ovation, and Emma Stone left with the best actress prize.

Which awards show gave La La Land a then-record seven prizes?

The Golden Globes gave it all seven prizes it was up for, beating the six won by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and by Midnight Express; seven weeks later it lost the biggest prize of Oscar night.

With fourteen Oscar nominations, La La Land tied the record then shared by Titanic and which other film?

All About Eve set the mark of fourteen and Titanic matched it nearly half a century later; both went on to win Best Picture, the prize La La Land was handed by mistake and had to give back.

Which La La Land song won the Oscar?

City of Stars beat the film's own 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)' in the category; it was sung live on set, not mimed, and Emma Stone says she laughed twice mid-song because she was out of tune.

Which presenters wrongly announced La La Land as Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars?

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were there to mark fifty years of Bonnie and Clyde; handed the duplicate Best Actress envelope, Beatty hesitated over the card and showed it to Dunaway, who read out the film's name.

Which film actually won Best Picture after La La Land was wrongly announced?

Moonlight's makers reached the stage only after the La La Land producers had begun their speeches; its director, Barry Jenkins, said that even in his dreams this could not be true.

Which La La Land producer took the microphone at the Oscars to say Best Picture had been wrongly announced?

Jordan Horowitz cut into his own team's celebration: 'There's a mistake… This is not a joke', he said, then took the winning card from the presenter's hand and held it up to the cameras.

Which accounting firm was responsible for the envelopes at the 89th Academy Awards?

PricewaterhouseCoopers keeps a full set of envelopes on each side of the stage, which is how a spare for the previous award reached the presenters; the firm took the blame and apologised within hours.

At 32, La La Land's Damien Chazelle became the youngest winner of which Oscar?

Best Director went to Chazelle at 32 years and 38 days, 222 days younger than Norman Taurog had been in 1931; before the night was over his film had been wrongly named Best Picture.

Where does Sebastian first sing 'City of Stars' in the film?

The song won Best Original Song at both the Golden Globes and the Oscars.

Which drama did Chazelle direct after La La Land, in 2018?

First Man, the story of Neil Armstrong, reunited him with Ryan Gosling; Chazelle saw a link between the two films, since the space programme, he said, set a goal without knowing how to reach it.

La La Land was first written as a love story set in which city, before Damien Chazelle moved west?

Boston was the setting of the first drafts, and of Chazelle's first feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench; that film's title turns up again in La La Land, on a fake 1930s poster on a studio wall.

In February 2023 it was announced La La Land would be adapted into what?

Producer Marc Platt and Lionsgate are behind the stage version.

What did La La Land's 10th-anniversary poster change after Ryan Gosling said the original haunted him?

The angle of his hand: on the 2016 poster Gosling tilts his raised hand flat instead of matching Emma Stone's, a choice he came to call 'La La hand'; the 2026 artwork straightens it.

Who interrupted a Telluride Q&A for his own film Sully to rave about La La Land?

Tom Hanks had seen it at a Telluride screening the day before; with Clint Eastwood on stage beside him he broke off to praise a rival studio's musical, joking that Sully's distributor would not thank him.

Which editor spent nearly a year cutting La La Land with Chazelle to get the tone right?

Tom Cross and Chazelle were hunting for the tone, and at one point cut the freeway opening number from the film altogether; it went back in once they saw a musical has to announce itself at the start.

Which instrument did Ryan Gosling spend three months practising for his role in La La Land?

The piano: Gosling had to play jazz for real, so for three months he practised in one room of a warehouse rehearsal space while Emma Stone worked on her dancing in another.

A fake Ryan Gosling accepted La La Land's prize on live TV in 2017 at which country's Goldene Kamera awards?

Germany's Goldene Kamera went to a Munich cook, Ludwig Lehner, who greeted the audience with 'Good evening, I am Ryan Gosling'; two TV comedians had invented a fake agency to book him in.

Which festival's audience-voted People's Choice Award went to La La Land in 2016?

Toronto's audiences voted it their favourite; the same prize had earlier gone to Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech and 12 Years a Slave, which all went on to win Best Picture, as La La Land so nearly did.

Which actor, the previous year's Best Actor winner, handed Emma Stone her La La Land Oscar?

Leonardo DiCaprio presented it; Stone said backstage that she was still holding her winner's card when a duplicate of it got her film wrongly announced as Best Picture.

Which Paul Thomas Anderson film did Damien Chazelle screen for La La Land's cast alongside Singin' in the Rain and Top Hat?

Boogie Nights, a drama about the 1970s porn business, shared the Friday-night bill with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg during rehearsals, an unlikely companion piece for a romantic musical.

At which real jazz club does Sebastian try to win Mia over to the music in La La Land?

The Lighthouse Café has presented jazz since 1949; in the film Sebastian lectures Mia there on why the music has to be seen live, and she slips out to take a call about a call-back.

What are Mia and Sebastian looking for as they dance through 'A Lovely Night' in La La Land?

Her parked car, a Prius whose key fob beeps in time with the music: the pair tap-dance along a hilltop road while insisting, in song, that the evening is wasted on the two of them.

What colour is the dress Mia wears for the dusk dance pictured on La La Land's poster?

Yellow, in a canary shade, was cut with only slight fullness in the skirt. Costume designer Mary Zophres saved her biggest swirl of fabric for the white dress Mia wears in the epilogue.

How do Mia and Sebastian first cross paths in La La Land, well before they exchange a word?

In a freeway traffic jam, Sebastian leans on his horn behind Mia, who is rehearsing audition lines at the wheel. She answers with a rude gesture as he swerves past.

Why does Mia have to walk home from the Hollywood Hills party early in La La Land?

Her car was towed from a tow-away zone, so she heads down the canyon in heels. The detour takes her past the restaurant where she first hears Sebastian play.

What cuts short the classic film Mia and Sebastian watch on their first cinema date in La La Land?

A projector malfunction stops the screening just as the pair lean in towards each other. With the house lights up, Mia suggests they finish the evening somewhere else.

Why does Sebastian fail to turn up for the opening of Mia's one-woman play in La La Land?

A band photo shoot for the album artwork had slipped his mind, and it overruns. Mia plays to roughly ten people and overhears some of them running her down afterwards.

How do Mia and Sebastian acknowledge each other in the closing moments of La La Land?

A silent smile and a nod pass between them as Mia pauses at the door of the club. Moments earlier the film had shown the whole life they might have shared.

Which long-running animated series spoofed La La Land in an episode titled Haw-Haw Land?

The Simpsons borrowed the bully Nelson's catchphrase for the title. The episode ends with Marge apologising that it was meant to parody a different film, a jab at the Best Picture mix-up.

Ryan Gosling turned down a lead role in which Disney live-action film to star in La La Land?

Beauty and the Beast wanted Gosling as its Beast. By coincidence, the actress first lined up to play Mia left La La Land to play Belle in the same film.

What is Mia asked to do at her final film audition in La La Land, instead of reading lines?

Tell a story is the only brief, because the film has no script yet and will be built around its leading actress. Mia's answer turns into a song.

Which La La Land song do Mia's three roommates sing to coax her out to a Hollywood Hills party?

Someone in the Crowd promises that a stranger at the party could be the one who finally discovers her. The night delivers nothing of the kind.

What is the name of the pop-jazz band Sebastian joins for a steady wage in La La Land?

The Messengers offer him $1,000 a week plus a cut of tickets and merchandise. The price is a modernised sound that Sebastian, a jazz traditionalist, can barely stomach.

Which Mad Men actress plays Laura, Sebastian's sister, who warns him about his unpaid bills in La La Land?

Rosemarie DeWitt was Midge Daniels, Don Draper's bohemian mistress, in the first season of Mad Men. She is married to her Standoff co-star Ron Livingston.

What is the name of the boyfriend Mia walks out on at a restaurant to meet Sebastian in La La Land?

Greg, played by Finn Wittrock of American Horror Story, is holding forth with his brother about exotic travel. A familiar tune over the restaurant speakers sends Mia running to the cinema.

Which That Thing You Do! star plays David, the man Mia has married by the epilogue of La La Land?

Tom Everett Scott found fame as Guy Patterson in That Thing You Do! In the epilogue his David is the one who suggests following the sound of jazz into a nearby club.

Which actress plays Alexis, one of Mia's three roommates in La La Land?

Jessica Rothe became a scream queen a year later as Tree Gelbman in Happy Death Day. She returned to song and dance in the 2020 musical Valley Girl.

A duplicate envelope for which category caused La La Land to be wrongly named the top film at the 2017 Oscars?

Best Actress had gone to Emma Stone minutes earlier, so the card the presenters opened carried her name and her film's title. Sorting it out on stage took more than two minutes.

Which cinematographer won an Oscar for shooting La La Land on film in an extra-wide frame?

Linus Sandgren also collected the BAFTA for La La Land. Back home he holds a Guldbagge, Sweden's highest film honour.

La La Land's Oscar-winning production designers, the Wascos, are regular collaborators of which director?

Quentin Tarantino hired the husband-and-wife team for Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, both Kill Bill films and Inglourious Basterds. La La Land brought them their Oscar.

At which university did Damien Chazelle and La La Land's composer meet and first dream up the film?

Harvard is where the two shared a room and made a low-budget thesis musical about a jazz musician, the seed of the film to come.

Damien Chazelle, the director of La La Land, tried to make it in jazz as a teenager on which instrument?

Drums were his ambition at Princeton High School, under a music teacher intense enough to inspire a later film villain. He decided he lacked the talent and went back to film.

La La Land star Emma Stone traces her love of musicals to seeing which show at the age of eight?

Les Misérables left her dreaming of bursting into song. Her favourite film is a quieter affair, Charlie Chaplin's 1931 romantic comedy City Lights.

Which 2013 crime film reunited Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone before they made La La Land together?

Gangster Squad, set in 1949 Los Angeles, was the middle film of their three together. Chazelle likened the pair to old Hollywood couples such as Bogart and Bacall.

Ryan Gosling first met La La Land's director while about to film which financial-crisis comedy-drama?

The Big Short also featured Finn Wittrock, who went on to play Mia's boyfriend in La La Land.

Besides Ryan Gosling, which actor was considered for the role of Sebastian in La La Land?

Michael B. Jordan was one of three actors linked to the part. Chazelle ended up rewriting both leads as older strugglers rather than fresh arrivals in Los Angeles.

Damien Chazelle wanted La La Land's dances shot head to toe in one take, like the 1930s films of which duo?

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were also on Emma Stone's homework list as she got ready to play Mia.

Which Gene Kelly musical did Damien Chazelle admit the makers of La La Land had simply pillaged?

An American in Paris, he said, shows how daring the old musicals really were. La La Land also makes visual nods to The Band Wagon.

Emma Stone prepared for La La Land by watching which 1964 French musical starring Catherine Deneuve?

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in which every line of dialogue is sung, was also shown at the Friday-night screenings Chazelle held for cast and crew on the soundstages.

Which studio first took on La La Land at a budget near $1 million, then demanded changes its director refused?

Focus Features wanted the complicated opening number altered and the bittersweet ending dropped. Chazelle shelved the project and wrote a cheaper film instead.

Which studio released La La Land in American cinemas in December 2016?

Lionsgate executive Patrick Wachsberger, a veteran of the Step Up dance films, pushed Chazelle to raise the budget, arguing that good musicals cannot be made cheaply.

Which La La Land producer also brought the musical Wicked to both the stage and the screen?

Marc Platt later produced the film of Dear Evan Hansen with his own son, Ben, in the lead. His other screen musicals include Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns.

Mary Zophres, costume designer of La La Land, is the long-time costume designer for which directing duo?

The Coen brothers first used her on Fargo, when their regular designer Richard Hornung fell ill and recommended her. She has worked on all their films since.

What was meant to come before the big opening number of La La Land until editing showed it dragged?

An overture turned out to be unnecessary. Putting the film's title on the final beat of the song let the number itself announce that this was a musical.

While filming Mia and Sebastian's first dance for La La Land, Emma Stone stumbled over what but kept going?

A bench caught her mid-routine, and she carried straight on. The six-minute number needed eight takes across two days.

Damien Chazelle said he rewrote which La La Land scene more than any other in the script?

The surprise dinner, which Sebastian cooks for Mia, was also shaped by Gosling and Stone. They helped write its dialogue to keep it realistic in a film full of fantasy.

On what was La La Land photographed, rather than with the digital cameras most films now use?

35mm film, shot through Panavision anamorphic lenses, gave La La Land the widescreen look of 1950s musicals such as It's Always Fair Weather.

What does Mia spill down her shirt moments before an audition near the start of La La Land?

Coffee from a collision with a customer leaves her auditioning with a jacket over the stain. She cries real tears in the room and is still cut off mid-scene.

What happens to Mia and Sebastian during their waltz inside the planetarium in La La Land?

They float into the stars, rising to the dome and dancing on through outer space. The pair had slipped into the building through an unlocked door round the back.

Which Saturday Night Live host played a man interrogated by police for calling La La Land overrated?

Aziz Ansari played the suspect in a sketch that sent up the awards fervour around the film, just as a backlash against all the praise was building.

Which TV host opened a 2017 awards show with a starry spoof of La La Land's big opening number?

Jimmy Fallon's version moved the routine to a line of limousines bound for the ceremony, with cameos from Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams and Rami Malek.

Which K-pop group's 2018 hit Love Scenario was inspired by the final ten minutes of La La Land?

iKON leader B.I said he wanted to capture a warm farewell that is neither sad nor happy, the feeling the film's ending left him with. It became the group's signature song.

Which trophy did Emma Stone win for La La Land at the film festival where it had its world premiere?

Volpi Cup winners receive an acting prize named after Count Giuseppe Volpi, who founded the festival. Stone collected hers months before her Oscar.

Which car does Mia drive in La La Land, prompting Sebastian to note that every car at the valet is one?

Toyota Prius owners are so common at the party that Mia has to say hers is the one with the green ribbon. Sebastian drives a 1982 Buick Riviera convertible.

Sebastian finds Mia's family home in La La Land by remembering that it stood across the street from what?

A library is where the young Mia borrowed old movies and fell for acting. She had told Sebastian so months earlier, on their first walk together.

Sebastian decides to join Keith's band in La La Land after overhearing Mia on the phone with whom?

Her mother is asking whether Sebastian has steady work. Hearing Mia defend a club he cannot yet afford pushes him to take the regular pay.

La La Land is divided into chapters by on-screen title cards that each name what?

One of the seasons heads each chapter, starting with winter and running round to fall. The last winter card turns out to be painted scenery on a studio lot, five years later.

La La Land's director and composer once played together in which indie-pop band at college?

Chester French took its name from the sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial statue. Its singer, D.A. Wallach, turns up in La La Land in a small role.

In which city is the Colorado Street Bridge, where Mia and Sebastian take an evening stroll in La La Land?

Pasadena opened the concrete arch bridge across the Arroyo Seco in 1913. The film also shot at the Rialto Theatre in neighbouring South Pasadena.

Which Los Angeles landmark do Mia and Sebastian visit during La La Land's montage of dates around the city?

Watts Towers, seventeen interconnected sculptural spires, rose on Rodia's own plot from 1921. The couple stop there during the film's montage of dates around the city.

La La Land's soundtrack stalled at number two in America but topped the main albums chart in which country?

Britain sent the album to number one in early 2017. A year later the film's music won two Grammys, for best compilation soundtrack and best score soundtrack.

Which House of the Dragon actress, a Royal Ballet School graduate, plays Mia's roommate Caitlin in La La Land?

Sonoya Mizuno danced with companies including Scottish Ballet before turning to acting. Her film debut was as Kyoko in Ex Machina.