First Look - Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling Star in Upcoming Musical Drama LA LA LAND

Entertainment Weekly has shared a first look at the upcoming musical drama LA LA LAND from "Whiplash" director Damien Chazelle. The film stars Emma Stone (Broadway's CABARET), Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Broadway's GUYS AND DOLLS) and Ryan Gosling. John Legend, who recently won an Oscar for the song 'Glory' from the Martin LUTHER King, Jr. biopic "Selma" will compose songs as well as sing and act in the film. Check out the first look below shot last fall in LA's Griffith Park and featuring Stone and Gosling

LA LA LAND tells the story of a jazz pianist (Gosling) and an aspiring actress (Stone) who fall in love but face difficulties as they become more successful.

In Chazelle's LA LA LAND "lookbook," a document which includes the story, characters, look and tone of the film, he writes, "I'd like to make a contemporary musical about L.A., starting with the L.A. we know but slowly building to a vision of the city as romantic metropolis-one that is actually worthy of the dreams it inspires. I'd like to make a musical about the way L.A.'s peculiar rhythms can push its residents to the edge of their emotions-be they hope, desperation or love. Think the kind of teetering-toward-madness you see in "The Graduate" or "Boogie Nights", and imagine if you were to push that further. In this case, the city pushes its residents all the way: it pushes them into song."

Emma Stone made her Broadway debut in 2014 as Sally Bowles in the revival of CABARET. The actress made her feature film debut in Superbad(2007). Her other films include Easy A, for which she received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Musical or Comedy, Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011), The Help (2011) The Amazing Spider-Man film series (2012, 2014).

In 2014, Stone co-starred in Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). Her performance in Birdman earned her nominations for the SAG, Golden Globe, BAFTA andAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

J.K. Simmons won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in WHIPLASH. The actor has performed in many regional theatre productions in the Northwest before deciding to head East to New York in the early 1980's. He appeared in a number of Off-Broadway and Broadway productions, perhaps his most famous being in the 1992 revival of GUYS AND DOLLS.

Source: EW