It was widely expected that everyone gave 110 percent of themselves during the 19 days on set. By the end of the first week, the Palace Theatre had stopped feeling like a theatre. It became Shaffer Conservatory.
The halls were crowded with musicians carrying instrument cases. Music stands filled corners that had been empty a few days earlier. Cables ran along the floor under strips of black tape. Every room had a different sound coming from it, and I thought about how different this was from Call Me By Your Name.
We arrived before sunrise most mornings.
Downtown Los Angeles still looked asleep when I walked toward the theatre. The streets were mostly empty except for trucks making deliveries and people waiting at bus stops. The moment I stepped inside, I saw everyone chatting and looking forward to the day's work.
Someone would hand me a call sheet. Afterwards, I would find my clothes hanging from the rack, with ANDREW written above them in black tape.
At first, I thought the clothes were too simple. In my past film, it was a very retro 80s look.
What Andrew wore was plain shirts, jeans, a jacket, and sneakers.
But the longer we filmed, the more I understood why Andrew dressed that way. He was not trying to look important. He was trying to become important. He had no time for anything that did not move him closer to being great.
That was the thing Damien kept coming back to.
Andrew did not see himself as someone who wanted attention.
He saw himself as someone who wanted to earn it.
The first few days were mostly about getting used to the rhythm of the set.
Damien worked fast, but he never made anyone feel rushed. He knew exactly what he wanted before the camera started rolling. He would stand beside Sharone Meir, looking at the monitor while the crew made adjustments around them.
Sometimes Damien barely spoke.
He would watch the framing, glance at the musicians, then walk over to me.
"I can tell you're acting," he would say.
Or, "It seems you think Andrew is too scared."
The notes were always simple, but they helped me redirect to something better.
In one scene, I was supposed to sit in Fletcher's office while J.K. talked about talent, practice, and the people who had failed to become extraordinary. I had been playing Andrew as visibly uncomfortable. I wanted the audience to understand that Fletcher was getting under his skin.
Damien watched the take and shook his head.
"Andrew is still under Fletcher's spell," he said.
I looked at him.
"He thinks Fletcher likes him," Damien continued. "He thinks this conversation means his life is going to change."
I smiled. "So it's like your first movie, thinking you're going to be a superstar."
Damien chuckled and nodded.
And then I became Andrew, or was it the other way around? We both wanted to be great. I started to understand the movie differently.
The story was not only about a teacher who pushed a student too hard. It was about a student who wanted something so badly that he could not recognize when the thing he wanted was destroying him.
Every day, I came in early to practice.
The drumming lessons had prepared me for the physical side of the role, but filming made everything harder. When I practiced alone, I could focus on the rhythm. I could make mistakes, stop, begin again, and work through the difficult parts until they became familiar.
On set, there was no such comfort.
I had to think about where the camera was. I had to remember the timing of the music. I had to react to J.K. as Fletcher. I had to make Andrew's drumming look urgent without making it look staged.
Some shots were close on my hands. Some focused on my face. Some were wide enough to show the entire band room.
If I hit a cymbal at the wrong moment, the DP would notice. If I looked toward the wrong musician, Damien would notice. If I played the scene with too much confidence, it would not feel like Andrew.
I started to leave the set with bruises on my hands.
Nothing serious. Just red marks from the sticks, sore wrists, aching shoulders, and fingers that felt stiff after hours behind the drum kit.
The makeup department had a way of making the pain look worse when it needed to. They added blisters, cuts, and blood to Andrew's hands. Sometimes I would look down between takes and forget which marks were real.
J.K. was intense in a completely different way.
When the camera was rolling, he became Fletcher so fast it was mesmerizing.
His body changed first. His shoulders squared, and his usual professional demeanor became a flash of anger. His voice changed into something obviously sharper, but him being silent just unnerved me a bit.
During a band scene, J.K. would stand at the front of the room and look down the line of musicians. No dialogue. No movement. Just Fletcher deciding who was good enough and who was not.
The musicians would feel it immediately.
Even though we all knew it was a scene, the room would go silent.
Then Damien would call cut, and J.K. would smile, thank everyone, and ask whether anybody needed water.
One afternoon, we were filming a rehearsal scene where Fletcher moved through the band, stopping players one after another. A trumpet player missed a cue. A trombonist could not find the right page. A saxophonist got cut off after a few notes.
Then Fletcher turned to the drums.
I was sitting behind the kit, waiting.
"Double-time swing," J.K. said.
Damien wanted the scene to stay tight on my face before the performance started. He told me that Andrew was supposed to feel relieved at first. Another drummer would play before him. Andrew would have a few seconds to watch and prepare.
Then Fletcher would stop the other player.
"You," he would say. "Behind him."
I asked Damien how he wanted Andrew to react.
"Like he's been called into court," he said.
That was the feeling I carried into the take.
My palms were already wet when I walked to the kit. I picked up the sticks and watched Fletcher's hands. I did not look at J.K.'s face. Andrew could not afford to.
Then Fletcher clapped once.
I started playing.
The room disappeared.
There was only the tempo, the pressure, and the feeling that if I made one mistake, Fletcher would know it before I did.
"Cut," Damien said after the take.
He came over and crouched beside the kit.
"Good," he said. "But don't give up when he stops you."
"I thought Andrew was embarrassed."
"He is. But embarrassment is not enough. He's angry at himself. He thinks he was almost there."
That note stayed with me.
Andrew was never allowed to feel finished.
Not after a good rehearsal. Not after a bad one. Not after Fletcher humiliated him in front of everyone. Every moment was only proof that he needed to work harder.
By the second week, the crew had settled into a kind of exhausted routine.
People knew which hallway would be blocked by equipment. They knew where the coffee was kept. They knew that if Damien and Sharone were standing together at the monitor without speaking, nobody should interrupt them.
The musicians worked long hours. The crew worked longer. Everything had to happen quickly because the schedule was unforgiving. Nineteen days was not much time to make a movie.
Damien kept the energy focused. If a scene was not working, he did not panic. He would stop, think for a moment, give a note, and start again. There was always another setup waiting. Another page of the script. Another scene that had to be finished before the day ended.
The pressure made the movie feel more like Andrew's world.
Nobody on set was being screamed at. Nobody was being treated the way Fletcher treated his musicians. But everyone understood that the work mattered. We were trying to make something intense, and the schedule gave us no opportunity to become comfortable.
Then, during the third week, Damien did not come in.
At first, I did not think much of it.
Sometimes directors were pulled into meetings. The production team had to make changes before filming could begin. I arrived, went through wardrobe, sat in makeup, and then made my way toward the band room.
Although, the energy was off and the usual packed craft services line was empty.
A few crew members stood near the entrance, looking toward the hallway. One of the production assistants had a phone in her hand. Another was talking to someone from the production office.
I saw Sharone standing near the monitor.
He looked tired.
"Where's Damien?" I asked.
Sharone looked at me for a second before answering.
"He was in an accident," he said.
I did not understand at first.
"A car accident?"
Sharone nodded.
"He's at the hospital."
The words did not feel real.
The day before, Damien had been moving through the theatre faster than anyone. He had been standing beside the monitor, explaining a shot, then walking to the band room to talk to the musicians, then coming back to adjust a scene with J.K.
Now he was in the hospital.
I asked if he was okay.
No one seemed to know much yet.
There was concern that he might have a concussion. His car had been badly damaged. The production team was waiting for more information.
The set did not stop.
It could not completely stop.
Crew members still checked equipment. Musicians still waited with their instruments. The schedule was still posted on the wall. But the energy had changed.
Everything was quieter.
I sat near the drums with my sticks in my hands, not practicing, not talking, just waiting.
It was strange how quickly someone's absence could fill a room.
Damien had been the person holding the whole movie together. He knew the shots, the pace, the performances, and every emotional turn in the script. Without him, the theatre felt like a set again instead of the world we had been building.
J.K. came in later that morning.
He spoke with the producers and crew for a while. Then he walked past me and stopped.
"You alright?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I just hope Damien is okay."
J.K. nodded.
"We all do."
There was nothing else to say.
We finished what we could that day. The work continued, but everyone kept asking for updates. Every time someone's phone rang, heads turned. Every time a person came through the door, people looked up.
That night, I went home exhausted but unable to sleep.
I kept thinking about the speed of the shoot. Nineteen days. No extra time. No easy days. We had all been working as if nothing could interrupt the movie.
Then life had interrupted it.
The next morning, I arrived at the Palace Theatre before sunrise.
The street outside was still dark. The production trucks were parked in their usual places. Crew members moved equipment through the entrance. Someone pushed a cart stacked with camera cases down the hallway.
For a moment, everything looked normal.
Then I saw Damien wearing a neck brace.
He was walking through the entrance with a member of the production team beside him.
He looked tired. A little slower than usual. But he was standing, and he was there.
The crew noticed him almost immediately, and people stopped what they were doing.
A few of them walked over to ask how he was feeling. Sharone came out from behind the monitor. J.K. appeared from the other side of the hallway.
Damien gave everyone a small smile.
"I'm okay," he said.
There was concern about him, of course. He had been in an accident. He had gone to the hospital. But he was determined to return and finish what he had started. Then he walked toward the monitor.
Sharone showed him the camera setup.
Damien watched the frame silently for a few seconds.
It was the same thing he had done every day.
He looked at the shot, thought about it, and then made a decision.
"Okay," he said. "Let's go."
The room started moving again.
Lights were adjusted. The camera rolled into place. Musicians took their seats. J.K. stepped toward his mark. I sat behind the drum kit and picked up my sticks.
Damien looked over at me.
"Ryan," he said, "Andrew is exhausted here."
I nodded.
"But he still thinks he can get there."
The room went quiet.
Damien looked toward the monitor.
"Action."