La La Land Trivia
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49 free La La Land trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
41 free La La Land trivia questions with answers. La La Land is the rare modern musical people watch on repeat, and this quiz is built for the fans who know the planetarium scene by heart. Forty questions cover the story of Mia and Sebastian, the songs by Justin Hurwitz with Pasek and Paul, the Los Angeles locations from the 105-110 interchange to Griffith Observatory and the Angels Flight railway, the actors who were nearly cast, the classic musicals Damien Chazelle borrowed from, the box office, and the night at the 89th Academy Awards when it was announced as Best Picture for about two minutes. Easy questions ask who plays Seb and what instrument he plays; the hard ones want the name of Mia's hometown, the studio that first turned the script down, the aspect ratio Chazelle chose and the record the film set with its fourteen nominations. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its songs, its director and the 2017 Oscars, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
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Q 01Which actor plays Bill, the restaurant boss who fires Sebastian for straying from the Christmas set list in La La Land?
J. K. Simmons
J. K. Simmons sacks Sebastian for playing jazz at all; a year earlier he had won an Oscar as a teacher who torments a young jazz drummer for not playing well enough, in Chazelle's previous film.
Q 02What does Sebastian plan to call the jazz club he dreams of opening in La La Land?
Chicken on a Stick
Chicken on a Stick, he insists, honours Charlie Parker, who he says was nicknamed Bird for his love of chicken; Mia's verdict is that no one will come to a place with that name.
Q 03Which musician plays Keith, the bandleader who hires Sebastian for his pop-jazz band in La La Land?
John Legend
John Legend had barely acted before, though he already had an Oscar for the song 'Glory'; he co-wrote and sings 'Start a Fire', the hit that pays Sebastian's bills and pulls him away from his own music.
Q 04Which two actors were attached to La La Land before its eventual stars, Gosling and Stone?
Miles Teller and Emma Watson
Miles Teller and Emma Watson were the original pairing: Watson left to star in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and Teller was dropped after negotiations over his fee dragged on.
Q 05Which earlier film written by Damien Chazelle was the hit that finally got La La Land financed?
Whiplash
Whiplash, his drama about a young jazz drummer, cost $3.3 million and won three Oscars; Chazelle wrote it only after La La Land had stalled, as an easier film to sell, and its success reopened the doors.
Q 06Who composed the score and songs of La La Land?
Justin Hurwitz
Justin Hurwitz met Chazelle at university, where the two first worked the idea up as a student film; he wrote the music for that film and for every feature the director made up to La La Land.
Q 07Which duo wrote the lyrics for nearly all of La La Land's songs?
Pasek and Paul
Pasek and Paul came from the stage: their musical Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway the same month the film reached cinemas, and within half a year the pair had an Oscar for one and a Tony for the other.
Q 08Which song opens La La Land with drivers dancing on a gridlocked freeway?
Another Day of Sun
Another Day of Sun was the first thing shot, on a closed ramp arcing 100 feet above the 105-110 interchange, over two days when the temperature passed 100 degrees; the designer feared someone would fall off.
Q 09Damien Chazelle said the freeway ramp curving toward downtown in La La Land's opening made him think of which classic musical?
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz: when the camera pulls back to show the downtown skyline, he said, the ramp becomes the yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City; ordinary traffic can be seen passing below.
Q 10Which 1955 film do Mia and Sebastian watch together at the Rialto in La La Land?
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause comes up when Mia lands a call-back for a show she likens to it, and Sebastian offers to take her 'for research'; the print burns in the projector just as their hands touch.
Q 11Where do Mia and Sebastian share their first kiss in La La Land?
Griffith Observatory
Griffith Observatory is where they drive when the film they are watching breaks down: they slip inside after hours, switch on the planetarium projector and waltz up among the stars before they kiss.
Q 12In La La Land, Mia works as a barista on the lot of which studio?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. is where Mia serves coffee between auditions; walking Sebastian round the backlot, she points out the window Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman looked out of in Casablanca.
Q 13In La La Land, which 1980s hit does Mia request to needle Sebastian when she finds him in a party cover band?
'I Ran'
Q 21Emma Stone first met Damien Chazelle about La La Land while starring on Broadway in which musical?
Cabaret
Cabaret had Stone playing Sally Bowles; Chazelle came to watch on a night she was full of cold medicine, which she calls her unofficial audition, and she says the run gave her the stamina for a film musical.
Q 22Which mishap from Ryan Gosling's own auditions was written into La La Land for Mia?
The casting director took a call
The casting director took a call while Gosling was crying his way through an emotional scene; he told Chazelle the story, and it went into the script as one of Mia's auditions.
Q 23Who choreographed La La Land's dance numbers?
Mandy Moore
'I Ran', the Flock of Seagulls hit, is her revenge for his rudeness months earlier; he complains that asking a serious musician for it goes too far, and she pounces on the words 'serious musician'.
Q 14In La La Land, Mia retreats to her hometown in which state after her one-woman play flops?
Nevada
Nevada: Sebastian drives to Boulder City with news of an audition and finds her house because she once told him it stood across the street from the library where she fell in love with acting.
Q 15In La La Land's 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)', whom does Mia sing about?
Her aunt, a stage actress
Her aunt, a stage actress who once lived in Paris, is the song's heroine: she jumped into the Seine and, as Mia tells it, would have done it again. The casting directors had asked only for a story.
Q 16Five years on, La La Land's epilogue finds Mia working as what?
A film star
A film star: the epilogue opens with Mia ordering an iced coffee at the studio café where she used to serve, where every eye turns to her and the manager tries to give it to her on the house.
Q 17In La La Land's epilogue, what tells Mia the club she has wandered into is Sebastian's?
The sign she once drew
The sign she once drew hangs on the door: it reads 'Seb's', the name and lettering she sketched for him years earlier, when he was set on calling his club something else.
Q 18Which French director's musicals were the main inspiration for La La Land's style and tone?
Jacques Demy
Jacques Demy made The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which Chazelle screened for his cast and crew during rehearsals; one Lionsgate executive helped win the director over by knowing Demy's films shot by shot.
Q 19One studio wanted La La Land's jazz-playing hero turned into what?
A rock musician
A rock musician was Focus Features' request, along with a changed opening number and no bittersweet ending, for a version costing about $1 million; the project stalled and Chazelle set it aside.
Q 20La La Land was the third film to pair Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone; which was their first?
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Crazy, Stupid, Love came first, in 2011: Stone was brought in to improvise scenes with an already-cast Gosling, and has joked that she is not sure he knew who she was; Gangster Squad followed in 2013.
Mandy Moore, not the singer but a choreographer from So You Think You Can Dance, drilled the two leads for months in a warehouse rehearsal space, because both had to learn to dance for the film.
Q 24La La Land's 'A Lovely Night' dance had to be filmed within what brief window each day?
The 'magic hour' at sunset
The 'magic hour' at sunset gave the crew only minutes of usable light, and the six-minute number was staged as one unbroken take, so they managed just eight attempts across two evenings.
Q 25Which downtown funicular, shut since a 2013 derailment, ran for a single day so La La Land could film on it?
Angels Flight
Angels Flight, built in 1901 to carry passengers up Bunker Hill, was out of service at the time; Chazelle's crew arranged to run it for one day's shooting, and it reopened to the public in 2017.
Q 26La La Land was framed in the extra-wide 2.55:1 shape of which 1950s screen format?
CinemaScope
CinemaScope gave 1950s musicals their sweep, and Chazelle wanted that look for Los Angeles; the original process no longer exists, so the film was shot on 35mm stock through anamorphic lenses instead.
Q 27At which festival did La La Land have its world premiere in August 2016?
Venice
Venice opened with the film on 31 August; Chazelle, shaken by poor test screenings, kept his eyes shut for half an hour of the premiere, then heard a standing ovation, and Emma Stone left with the best actress prize.
Q 28Which awards show gave La La Land a then-record seven prizes?
The Golden Globes
The Golden Globes gave it all seven prizes it was up for, beating the six won by One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and by Midnight Express; seven weeks later it lost the biggest prize of Oscar night.
Q 29With fourteen Oscar nominations, La La Land tied the record then shared by Titanic and which other film?
All About Eve
All About Eve set the mark of fourteen and Titanic matched it nearly half a century later; both went on to win Best Picture, the prize La La Land was handed by mistake and had to give back.
Q 30Which La La Land song won the Oscar?
City of Stars
City of Stars beat the film's own 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)' in the category; it was sung live on set, not mimed, and Emma Stone says she laughed twice mid-song because she was out of tune.