Hollywood musical La La Land is widely expected to score a string of Oscar nominations but its director said it was not long ago that the film felt like “an unrealistic dream”.

The Golden Globe-winning movie sees Ryan Gosling’s jazz musician and Emma Stone’s aspiring actress sing and dance their way around Los Angeles but Damien Chazelle said there was a time when it seemed like it would never happen.

He told the Press Association: “I try not to think about awards too much, any of this awards season stuff I think is about trying to shine a light on the movies themselves.

“This was a movie we were told no one wanted to see for six years so I feel incredibly privileged and blessed to even be in the conversation at all, especially with the movies this year. It’s an incredible year for cinema.”

Damien, 31, penned the script before he wrote Whiplash, a film about a young drummer that landed JK Simmons an Oscar, and the young director said this was the project he always hoped he would bring to the big screen.

He said: “This was the dream project all along, I’ve been asked recently what’s your dream project and I think ‘Well this was it’. I have to think of a new one because this really seemed an unrealistic dream for a while and it’s a movie about dreams and dreamers, so all of that makes this feel all the more rewarding.”

La La Land is in UK cinemas now.