From the musical lead at the Bigfork Summer Playhouse to “Law and Order” and “Spider-Man,” J.K. Simmons’ acting career has spanned a few decades. 

On Sunday it took Simmons to the 87th Academy Awards in Hollywood, where he won the Oscar for best supporting actor.

Simmons, 60, graduated from the University of Montana with a music degree in 1978. His musical background served him well in his role in “Whiplash.”

“I got to use [my degree] here in this movie,” Simmons said in a post-Oscars interview with Robin Roberts of ABC. “It was great to be able to have that ability to actually learn those [musical] scores ... and be able to know what was going on.”

“All those guys that you see in the film are all real players, and Miles [Teller] is really whacking on those drums and we were making music in that room,” Simmons said. “It was cool.”

Simmons’ singing voice landed him his first acting job with the Bigfork Summer Playhouse after he graduated from UM.

“I began with no real training as an actor,” Simmons told Roberts. “Just because I could sing and they needed somebody to do the lead in the musical at the Bigfork Summer Playhouse ... I was horrible. And I worked with director Jim Caron ... who started to edge me a little bit towards being able to act like a human being on stage.”

Simmons went on to perform for many seasons with the Playhouse.

Bigfork Summer Playhouse owner and producer Jude Thomson remembers those years well.

“[Simmons] was with us for about seven years,” Thomson said Tuesday. “He was young and had long flowing blond hair and an incredible singing voice.”

Thomson and her husband, Don, were in the middle of an out-of-town trip scouting talent for the Playhouse when the Oscars aired Sunday night. Thomson said they went to a sports bar and had one of the servers change the channel to the awards show so they could watch their friend.

“We’re just so happy for him,” she said. “To see him grow from where he started to where he is now ... It’s just been great.”

In the interview with Roberts, Simmons said the Thomsons and many of the Bigfork directors he had in his early acting years were “instrumental in helping bring me along.”

Simmons moved to Seattle after leaving Montana, and then went on to New York and eventually Hollywood where he now lives with his wife, Michelle Schumacher, and their two children.

In 2011 he received a University of Montana Distinguished Alumni Award and he frequently visits both the university and the Bigfork area. 

It was the first Oscar nomination for Simmons. But it wasn’t his first award for his role as Terence Fletcher, an abusive jazz teacher and director, in “Whiplash.” He has also taken home a Golden Globe and a host of other state and international film association awards since the film’s release at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Simmons was born in Detroit to Don and Pat Simmons. He began his college education at Ohio State University, but transferred to the University of Montana in Missoula when his father accepted a teaching position in the music department there.

Simmons got his musical beginnings from his parents. He said he took piano lessons growing up and wishes he had stuck with it. Instead he went on to pursue other musical endeavors.

“I was playing cheesy guitar in coffee houses when I was a teenager, and then sort of segued into classical music and followed in my father’s footsteps in that regard,” Simmons said.

According to a press release from the University of Montana, Don Simmons served as the chairman of the music department there for many years and both he and Pat were “longtime civic and arts leaders in Missoula.”

In Simmons’ Oscar acceptance speech, he made a sentimental plug for parents everywhere. He ended his speech by thanking his own parents, who are deceased.

“If you’re lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet, call ‘em. Don’t text. Don’t email. Call them on the phone. Tell ‘em you love ‘em, and thank them, and listen to them for as long as they want to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you, mom and dad.”

Entertainment editor Stefanie Johnson can be reached at 758-4439 or ThisWeek@dailyinterlake.com.