How Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling Shaped the Music of ‘La La Land’

MTV

Crystal Bell of MTV talks with La La Land songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul:

The songwriting duo, who met as undergrads in the University of Michigan’s musical theater program, have a knack for putting life’s messy, uncomfortable moments to song. In La La Land, Pasek and Paul capture a kind of buoyant melancholia only artists could truly understand, as the complicated lives of jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and struggling actress Mia (Emma Stone) romantically intertwine. Chazelle’s ode to dreamers is a lush cinematic experience bathed in brazen technicolor and Stone’s effervescent charisma, but its music is wonderfully simple.