There may not be an obvious connection between Damien Chazelle’s horror script “The Last Exorcism Part 2” and “Whiplash,” but the adapted screenplay nominee drew heavily on his training as a ...

J.K. Simmons revealed in an oral history of “Whiplash” to mark the film’s 10th anniversary that he assumed the film’s director, Damien Chazelle, was a Black man after he first read the script about ...