JK Simmons

The initials JK correspond to Jonathan Kimble, effectively surnamed Simmons, who was born on January 9 in Detroit, the city of automobiles. He hastily dropped out of school to become a music composer, not because he found an instructor as fierce as the one who has given him, but because he discovered the world of great Broadway shows. He was soon singing familiar theme songs from works like “Guys and Dolls” and “Carousel.”

Since he played his first film role, in the comedy This (Not) Is a Kidnapping , where he appears very briefly, JK Simmons rolls to the rhythm of a frenetic percussionist. He was a cop in The First Wives Club , a doctor in Crossing the Line , a souvenir salesman on Celebrity , Woody Allen and even Charlize Theron ‘s handyman father  in The Cider House Rules .

But the public remembers him especially for two creations. One of them is Dr. Emil Skoda, an eminence in the field of psychiatry who advises Law and Order police officers . The character has also appeared in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent , two of the five spin-offs in the vast series. The other would be the despotic and abusive JJ Jameson, director of the Daily Bugle, in the Spider-Man trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. Fittingly characterized with the gray hair, mustache and cigar that distinguishes the famous Marvel character, he convinced comic book fans that he was the ideal actor to continually yell at poor Peter Parker. They don’t protest if they are traded to Wallcrawler, but they continually ask for Simmons to come back.

Throughout his career he has beaten himself over and over again, like a tireless drummer who feels he can still improve, in the theater. During a tour on the stages of “Peter Pan” he became intimate with his co-star Michelle Schumacher, with whom after marrying in 1996 he has had three children. You should not make things easy for them. “There’s a kind of numbness, monotony and lack of motivation in the ‘good job’ culture. We’re raising a generation of kids who are being praised for very minor achievements,” he said. “I think it’s counterproductive.” The dumbest of his offspring will be a little telecommunications engineer.

The Coen brothers have cast JK Simmons to play a CIA boss in Burn After Reading , and criminal yokel with irritable bowel syndrome Garth Pankake, who is part of the lead gang in The Ladykillers . But without a doubt, the one who has trusted him the most on screen has been his good friend Jason Reitman , who hasn’t left home without him to shoot since he gave him the role of BR, Aaron Eckhart ‘s boss , in Thanks for smoke . “I thought you were one of those who know how to say enough”, he reproached his daughter, the protagonist of Juno . He was also one of the employees that George Clooney fired in Up in the Air ., the editor of the aforementioned Charlize Theron , whose voice is only heard, in Young Adult , Kate Winslet ‘s neighbor in A Life in Three Days , and again another parent faced with the challenge of a teenage daughter, this one obsessed with losing weight , in Men, Women & Children .

But he will be especially remembered for the ‘indie’ Whiplash , Damien Chazelle ‘s debut , which was born as a short where JK Simmons already embodied the music instructor more feared than José de Espronceda’s pirate ship, while the young man he martyred, Miles Teller, was incorporated into the feature film version. The domineering Fletcher hasn’t resisted the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Fed up with having to flatter minor directors by contract during promotions, he had a particularly good time when he gave interviews for this project, which he has seen born. “I have had some very negative experiences in recent years,” he explained in The Guardian. “It’s really cool to do this as part of a movie that I can brag about unreservedly and not feel like I’m flipping anything. I can be 100% honest and I don’t have to say bullshit.”