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appear onscreen in a brief, practically wordless cameo role.
SPOILER ALERT: If youve already seenLa La Land, then you know which role Tom Everett Scott plays.
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If you have not seen it, be forewarned that late-film plot revelations lie ahead.
I truly loveThat Thing You Do!
Growing up and wanting to be a jazz drummer, that movie was kind of revolutionary for me.
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Plus, there were some on-the-surface mundane considerations.
And we didnt want to have another blond guy.
And the big thing was that Tom is just the nicest guy.
That was the key.
And Stone certainly didnt feel that way.
and found out what part he was playing.
And I was all, Not bad, not bad!
Mia did pretty well for herself.
And this wasnt for a meeting or an audition, it was just a flat offer.
It was to appear in the next movie by Damien Chazelle.
I said, The guy who madeWhiplash, really?
And it would be starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
So you accepted the role sight unseen?I did, of course.
I knew I was gonna take it.
Right, you dont want to get to set and realize youre gonna be tortured onscreen.Exactly.
It was actually quite flattering.
Damien, Emma, and Ryan were very warm and wonderful to me and said many nice things.
It was mostly about their love ofThat Thing You Do!
Emma really wanted to do a Dubsmash with me of That Thing You Do, the song.
We never got around to it.
Theres still plenty of time.True.
Its still high on the to-do list if Im speaking for myself.
So are you aware that Damien Chazelle was 11 years old whenThat Thing You Do!came out?
And he was, just as you play in that film, an aspiring jazz drummer.Yep, Im aware.
Yeah, I mean, I will say that he was geeking out, shortly after he introduced himself.
We talked about it a lot.
I see that similarity between the two movies.
Whats he like on the set?Loose, easygoing, very efficient.
They were cramming it in, too, bouncing all over the place.
We chatted about the difficulty of learning an instrument for a movie.
He had 88 keys.
And playing piano convincingly on film is much harder than playing drums.
But he was being really humble about it, as usual.
Did you imagine a backstory for your character?
He was supposed to be somebody really stable and they like each other a lot.
The audience just has to believe that shes in a good place.
Other than that, I just held her hand and smiled.
And for the purposes of the movie, we decided that he wasnt supposed to know who Ryan was.
We imagined that they hadnt dug too deeply into that.
Youre a spoiler in the movie in two ways.
First for Mia and Sebastians relationship and then for the audience.Thats a way of saying it.
She said, Nah, come on, just tell me.
And then it flash-forwards five years later and she comes through the door with a baby and her husband.
And you think her husband is going to be Ryan Gosling, but instead, its me.
And my neighbor goes, Noooo!!
Geez, what a good neighbor!Shes very, very sweet.
But I asked her, Well, its notthatbad, is it?
Have you been approached by fans of the film?Yes, Ive had some very pleasant encounters.
Everyone is extremely nice… to my face.
Youve also lived in Los Angeles for most of your career and youve raised your family there.
And I hadnt thought about it very deeply before then.
Theyre all pretty obsessed withLa La Land but Im pretty obsessed too.
And while driving home, we drove past all those murals that Emma walks by in the movie.
And that really hit me.
Its beautiful to come out of a movie and see the world that you live in with fresh eyes.
