0:00

M I'm

0:03

Alec Baldwin and you're listening

0:05

to hear the thing. The

0:39

score of a movie has a

0:41

way of enriching a film's

0:43

emotional journey from

0:45

the profound to the playful. It

0:48

is often an unconscious part of why

0:50

the feeling of a movie stays with

0:53

us long after we leave the

0:55

theater. My guest today

0:57

is one of the all time masters of

1:00

film composition, Han Zimmer.

1:02

He scored more than one d

1:05

fifty movies, including Gladiator, Hannibal,

1:08

Sherlock Holmes, The Last Samurai,

1:11

The Thin Red Line, and many

1:13

many more. Pond Zimmer's

1:16

work has earned him an Academy Award

1:18

for The Lion King, two Golden

1:20

Globes, and countless more nominations.

1:24

In two thousand five, han Zimmer

1:27

began working with director Christopher Nolan.

1:30

It's become one of the most celebrated

1:32

partnerships in movie history.

1:35

For Nolan, Zimmer has scored

1:37

the Dark Night Trilogy, Interstellar,

1:40

Dunkirk, and Inception,

1:42

which features this song. Time.

1:46

Hans Zimmer's work spans

1:48

an eclectic range of feature films,

1:51

television, and documentaries. I

1:53

wanted to know whether his scoring process

1:56

is different when he works on animated

1:58

films. All directors

2:01

are different from each other. But once was

2:03

invited to a dinner party and at the end

2:05

of the table sat Terrence Malick

2:07

and Vanna Hartzuk. You know, everybody's

2:10

talking at the long table, and then suddenly

2:12

everybody stops talking and it's just

2:14

the two great artists chatting,

2:17

and they're arguing about which Q in

2:19

Lion King is better. You

2:21

know, these two admirable hoteurs

2:25

are arguing about Lion King,

2:27

you know, about a kid's movie. So

2:30

the weird thing is, you know, I can talk to

2:32

Terry Malick about animation, and

2:35

I can talk to Tom mcglass, our director

2:37

on Boss Baby about Thin

2:39

Red Line, you know, and

2:42

in one way or the other, it's sort

2:44

of the same thing. Other

2:46

than that, you can get away with a lot more

2:49

in animation, I find, you know,

2:51

you and I in a peculiar

2:53

way, we give life to something

2:56

that doesn't have life. I mean, it's it's,

2:58

you know, the whole point about animation, especially

3:00

now a CG, where things

3:03

have gotten so refined and they

3:05

can do such amazing things, but the one

3:07

thing they can't do, they can't really truly

3:10

breathe life in. And so ultimately

3:12

that the only real performances is

3:15

the actors and the musicians. And

3:17

for instance, what we did on the Last Line King

3:19

movie. You know, he did a remake, and I said,

3:21

what am I going to do a remake? And I thought, everybody

3:24

knows the tunes. Everybody in the orchestra knows

3:27

the tunes. All my musicians and know the tunes.

3:29

I'm going to spend a week pretending

3:32

I'm recording little cues, and

3:34

in the last two days, I'm literally

3:36

going to make it about Okay,

3:38

we're going to run the movie from the beginning to

3:41

the end, and you're gonna just hold on for dear

3:43

life, and we're going to record the whole thing as

3:45

a performance because I wanted to have that,

3:47

you know, the thing that you get in a life

3:49

performance, the thing you get in a theater genius

3:52

mixed with sphere and catastrophe.

3:54

Well, we've had people talk to us and

3:57

they have careers in whatever, editing

3:59

or what have you. And I'm curious,

4:02

not in a relationship, let's say with Nolan,

4:05

where you've made a few films with him, or you made a couple

4:07

with Nancy and this his two boss babies and

4:09

so forth, but on your Maiden Voyage

4:11

with Nolan. Does he send you the

4:13

script and you start to get in

4:16

conversation with him the type of score

4:18

he wants and you start to like riff

4:21

little things before or do you only

4:23

really get concretized

4:25

about it until you see cut footage.

4:27

Let's talk about Chris and my working method.

4:30

And I think we start off on the wrong foot

4:32

right away because he wanted

4:34

me to do Batman, and I kept saying I don't

4:36

want to do Batman, and finally

4:38

he said, why don't you do Batman? I said, I

4:41

know how to be the dark Knight, but I

4:43

don't know how to be Bruce

4:45

Wayne. And he said, that's easy. Get

4:47

a friend and to be the other character.

4:49

You don't have to be schizophrenic. So I asked

4:52

my friend Jameson Howard, who is you

4:54

know, one of the most elegant composers in the

4:56

world, to be light and let

4:58

me be my dramatic darctness.

5:01

And then I was working on something in Los

5:03

Angeles Christmas shooting in London, and

5:05

he has a way of being

5:08

very persuasive. He's going, well, yes,

5:10

I got this shot of Batman standing

5:13

on top of a building, and I

5:15

don't quite know how to get him there,

5:17

because I don't want to temper it. But it's

5:19

there something that you can just I mean,

5:21

it doesn't have to be good. Just give me

5:23

something that gets him up there. And

5:26

so the first time James and I saw

5:28

the movie, it had all our

5:30

rotten little demos in it.

5:32

But if you go to something like inception.

5:35

I remember Chris phoning me

5:37

and he's going, hey, do you want to come down to

5:39

the beach with the kids. Is that how

5:41

he puts it? Yeah,

5:43

when he needs some music for his movie, let's go

5:45

down to the beach with the kids. And I

5:48

think that's great. I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna call Spielberg

5:50

and let's go down to the beach with the kids. Got

5:52

it worked. He realized

5:55

that this idea of the different

5:58

times and the different dreams, it was

6:00

very complicated to an audience. And I said, you

6:02

look to a musician. It's the easiest

6:04

thing, because that's what we do all the time.

6:07

You know, you have a bar and you're divided

6:09

into four quarter notes, and you

6:11

can divide that time of the four

6:13

quarter notes into eight

6:16

notes, etcetera. And you just keep dividing down

6:18

and and and play. You're always playing

6:20

with time. So I think

6:22

at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if

6:25

the audience never gets the

6:28

intellectual conceit of the

6:30

movie. But just think

6:32

of me like a river and the audience

6:34

is on a little boat, and I take

6:36

you downstream with the story. And

6:38

sometimes it's going to get a little rocky, and sometimes

6:41

it's gonna get a little boring, but you sort of

6:43

know you can trust the river to take you

6:45

on this journey and take you to the end. So

6:48

Chris loved that, and we do think very

6:51

similarly. I mean, I remember him phoning me

6:53

from Iceland, so I hadn't

6:55

seen any footage, right, I just

6:57

about read the script he phoned

6:59

me from. So he's explaining the

7:02

scene, which is and then you have to hit this shot,

7:04

and then this is this, and this is the most important

7:06

scene in the movie. Our lead character

7:09

is basically seeing his whole family through

7:11

the years, and he's starting to cry at a certain

7:14

moment. You know, I had to be pointing,

7:16

and I finally said to Chris, Chris, I don't think

7:18

I can just do this.

7:20

I don't think I can wing it without some footage.

7:23

And I remember all these cuts in my head,

7:26

and he says, our sense of time,

7:28

our sense of aesthetics seems to be very similar.

7:31

Just write it, send it to me. If

7:34

it doesn't work, i'll send you the picture. Well,

7:36

unfortunately it works, I said. I

7:38

found him. I said, how how is it? He goes, well,

7:41

it's within two frames, but I can go and

7:43

adjust that. So then he finished

7:45

the shooting and I'm going, okay, show me

7:47

the movie. He's going, you

7:50

know, it's going really rather well.

7:52

You know, you imagining my

7:55

movie and writing freely. At

7:58

which point I started to just say, in term

8:00

pieces of music, without telling

8:02

him what they were for, I wouldn't

8:05

write anything on them. I just send the music.

8:07

But I very strongly,

8:10

having read the script, knew what

8:12

they were for. And I was praying and hoping. There's

8:14

a shot in there where Mario Kotia is

8:16

on a on a ledge and her shoe

8:19

drops just so, and I

8:21

was so hoping that this piece I sent for

8:23

him was going to end up in that spot.

8:25

And then months down the road, when I first

8:27

saw it, there it was,

8:30

and he absolutely got it. So we

8:32

have this language without

8:34

words, because I think what is

8:37

really important with music is that

8:39

to me it's an autonomous language.

8:42

I am speaking to you in English,

8:44

which obviously is not my mother tongue, as

8:46

you might detect from the horrible

8:49

accent. But if I were to speak to

8:51

you in a couple of cords, I feel

8:53

unsafer ground and I feel more articulate.

8:56

So that's how Chris and I kept working.

8:58

We kept coming up with crazy you

9:00

know. We did a list, for instance, for interstella,

9:03

of what other things we haven't

9:05

done, you know, and we would cross

9:08

off big drums, I did

9:10

that one, big halls. Oh, we did

9:12

that one. And then Chris said, what about pipe

9:14

organ? And that became

9:17

that, you know, because, as he said

9:19

it, this is a movie about space

9:22

and rockets and all that stuff. I mean, I

9:25

saw the shape of the pipe organ, and at the

9:27

same time I saw the afterburner

9:29

of rockets, and I thought both are fabulous

9:32

pieces of technology. Now with Nolan,

9:34

do you feel that your task is

9:36

to help them understand and help

9:38

yourself understand what they want? Have

9:41

you ever had conflicts with director where

9:43

you said, I don't agree. How

9:45

much truth would you like? Well, I mean, when

9:48

my rule on this show was I don't want to

9:50

ruin my career, your your Your

9:52

career can't be ruined. What I'm asking

9:54

is are you there to perform what they

9:56

want or do you consult with them? The director

9:59

has to trust composer, and ultimately

10:02

the composer needs to go and buy

10:04

into the director's vision. But music

10:07

is indefensible. I can write you something

10:10

and play it to you and I think

10:12

it is the greatest fucking thing. And I just

10:14

answered every question you ever

10:16

had about your character, whatever, and

10:18

you don't get it and it doesn't resonate.

10:21

So there's no way I

10:23

can sit there and explain to you why

10:25

you should like it, and other resonates

10:27

or doesn't. That's someone. The other

10:30

thing is I like working with directors

10:32

who spend a minimum of time talking

10:35

to me about what music they want, because

10:37

as soon as they start talking to me about what music

10:39

they want, my mind goes off

10:41

into that thing of going

10:44

My job is to do something that they

10:46

can't even imagine. My

10:48

job is to knock their socks off. My

10:51

job is to do something that is so

10:53

beyond anything that they could

10:55

do because otherwise said to it themselves.

10:57

And you know, and it makes me rather done.

11:00

It makes me a musical secretary. Do

11:02

you think that someone to use a you

11:04

know, a more celebrated example,

11:07

because everyone knows the story about Alex north

11:09

composition for Space Hotessey. Do

11:12

you think that someone like Kubrick lunged

11:15

in the direction of the classical repertoire because

11:17

he knew what the music was, He didn't have to

11:19

wait for somebody to write it. There it is

11:21

extant, it's real, I know, I

11:24

want, you know, fun Carreon with

11:26

the with the vienna and this and that, just

11:28

play the Blue Danube and he doesn't

11:30

have to rely on anybody. Do you find that

11:32

there were some directors who they just don't want

11:34

to give that control? Well, well,

11:36

it's such a sad you know. I mean, first

11:39

of all, I should let you know that Sally Kubrick

11:41

was the first director that ever fired me.

11:44

What the full metal Jacket,

11:46

and Vivian has started took over, but

11:49

but it became this weird, strange

11:51

thing. So I was really I mean I was maybe

11:53

eighteen nineteen and us

11:56

but as soon as I was fired

11:58

in other words, because I didn't know how

12:00

to do what he wanted me to do.

12:02

Because Stanny koper knew everything. He

12:04

had studied drumming with Jeane Kruper. He

12:07

just wanted me to be his musical secretary,

12:09

and I'm not very good at that. Take dictation,

12:12

absolutely, take dictation. I mean I would

12:14

get these tape sent drumming with ten

12:16

fingers on his tabletop and go,

12:18

well, get a drummer to do exactly

12:21

that, and you know, so that

12:23

didn't work. But then once I was

12:25

officially fired, I

12:27

would get these phone calls where

12:29

he would go, I think Vivian's

12:31

in a bit of trouble. Can you go up there

12:33

and see if she's all right? Oh, he'd go,

12:36

what do you think of Dolby Stereo? I'm

12:39

eighteen years old, you know, I have

12:41

no idea. I'm talking to Stanley Cooper.

12:43

How did you end up in? I mean, you're eighteen years old.

12:46

How does an eighteen year old Hans Zimmer

12:48

wind up within fifty miles

12:50

of Stanley Cooper? How did that happen? Anton

12:53

first, his designer, who

12:55

knew me. They were shooting for Metal Jacket

12:58

in the docklands of London, and

13:00

I knew Vivian, who then took over,

13:02

and so I was really helping Vivian, and soon and

13:05

then years later I ran into Vivian

13:07

and I was just on my way to London. She said,

13:09

oh, we really should go and see that. I'm

13:12

going. Why would I see

13:14

if he goes no, no, no. He's

13:16

always talking about you. Whenever movie

13:19

comes on television that you did, He's

13:21

always saying I found him. I was

13:23

the first one who gets. He forgets the other

13:25

part. But you know, it's really busy

13:27

and I had to go down to Australia from London,

13:30

so I didn't go and see him because

13:32

I thought that Stanley Kubrick is

13:34

beyond He's immortal,

13:37

you know, because he was Stanley Kubrid. Sure.

13:40

And I get to Australia, I get to Sydney

13:42

and the guy who's picking me up from the airport

13:44

coincidentally was

13:47

a chap who who had met on Full Metal

13:49

Tracket and he's got a really sad face.

13:52

And I realized that, you know,

13:54

Stanley had died, which was inconceivable

13:56

to nature. And I learned,

13:59

don't say no. If somebody says,

14:01

hey, come on over, interesting, you

14:04

come over. And I learned a lot

14:06

from him. I learned vast thanks for

14:08

that. You know, this

14:11

is music from the film Chappie. Han

14:30

Zimmer discovered his musical talent

14:32

very early in life. Another

14:35

one of our guests who took music

14:37

seriously at a very young age is

14:40

classical pianist Long Long. He

14:43

was a musical prodigy, winning

14:45

his first competition when he was five.

14:48

Long Long and I spoke before a live

14:51

audience in New York City in two thousand nineteen.

14:54

He talked about his father's skepticism

14:57

of playing in competitions.

15:00

He discouraged me to do competitions

15:02

and I was like, wow, did

15:04

he say why? Yeah? He said, then you're

15:07

too crazy about being number one and you're

15:09

not really focus on what you should

15:11

be, you know, learning the repertoire and too.

15:14

He said, do you want to become a great musician

15:16

or you want to just win?

15:20

And I said, oh, I said, is that not the

15:22

same? I said, well, what was the difference? I said,

15:24

If I don't win a prize, how I'm going to become

15:26

a great musician. Here

15:29

the rest of my conversation with celebrated

15:31

pianist Long Long that here's

15:33

the thing dot org. After

15:36

the break, Hans Zimmer talks

15:38

about how he went from playing dingy

15:41

clubs around England and making

15:43

coffee for composer Stanley Myers

15:45

to realizing what he wanted to do for

15:48

the rest of his life.

15:59

If

16:06

you're enjoying this conversation, tell

16:09

a friend and be sure to follow

16:11

Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app,

16:13

Apple Podcasts or wherever you

16:15

get your podcasts. I'm

16:19

Alec Baldwin and you're listening to

16:21

Here's the Thing. This

16:24

piece is from the film Twelve Years

16:26

a Slave. Hans

16:36

Zimmer was born in Frankfurt, Germany.

16:39

He's largely self taught, and

16:42

even as a child, understood a

16:44

strong connection between music and

16:46

mood. But

16:50

my father died when I was six and I already

16:53

played the piano. I enjoyed playing the piano,

16:55

but my father died and

16:57

I realized the only thing that made

16:59

my mother happy, that put a smile on her

17:01

face was when I played the piano. So

17:04

I sort of took on that burden, which

17:06

then, of course backfired because at

17:09

school I was appalling and everything

17:11

other than playing music. I got thrown

17:13

out of nine schools. Ultimately I

17:16

ended up in school in England, fabulous

17:19

school called Heartwood House. You

17:21

know, it was a choice to go back to

17:23

Germany or hang out in Swinging

17:25

London. So by the time of eighteen,

17:28

I was in the back of a Ford transit van

17:30

going up and down the end one playing every working

17:33

men's club and every citty pub. That's

17:35

the eighties. It was crazy,

17:37

it was amazing. There was a company called

17:39

Working Title that they were making

17:42

music videos and one day channel

17:44

for new television station came about and

17:47

Working Title decided, since we don't

17:49

know how to make movies, that's okay,

17:51

they don't really know that, but we'll do something

17:53

called My Beautiful Laundrette, which

17:56

was a young Daniel day Lewis, and

17:58

it was an extra honory anti

18:01

Thatcher right, gay Cross

18:03

everything, you know, amazingly

18:06

sort of just mind blowing

18:08

when nobody saw it coming. And Daniel

18:11

kisses this Indian boy and

18:13

you could feel the jaws of the audience

18:16

hitting the floor. And I loved it.

18:20

So Kubrick and that introduction

18:22

through full Metal. When you're eighteen

18:25

years old, had you worked on

18:27

any films who you've been close to any film

18:29

sets or studios before that? Yes?

18:31

Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I had a mentor

18:34

Stanley Meyers that the man who wrote

18:36

the music for The Deer Hunter a brilliant

18:38

man. And so Stanley had

18:41

this coffee machine. He loved his Italian

18:43

espresso. He had bought an unbelievably

18:46

complicated coffee machine, and

18:49

so my job was to work the coffee

18:51

machine and Stanley would showed me how

18:54

to write for orchestra. And

18:57

the first day was Stanley

18:59

Meyers and Nicholas Rogue sitting

19:01

there looking at a scene. In the morning,

19:03

I was making coffee and

19:06

they're both going, we have no idea

19:08

what to do. And by the evening they

19:10

had come up with a mind blowing, beautiful

19:13

solution, musical solution. And

19:16

I realized that this idea

19:18

of that you have nothing and that you make

19:20

something out of nothing, and that it's just a

19:22

conversation and you just you just breathed

19:25

the picture in and turn it into

19:27

notes. That was a fantastic

19:29

adventure. And

19:31

then Standing I had a little studio,

19:34

and Standing was very good friends with the producer

19:36

Jeremy Thomas, who phoned

19:38

me up one day and said, would I mind coming

19:40

in on Saturday because he had a Reti

19:43

Sakamotive and Bernardo better Lucci

19:45

coming in to have a look at what

19:47

we act had done on the Last Emperor,

19:51

and would I just go and round the tape machines

19:53

for them. So they piled

19:55

into my little studio, and

19:57

it turned out that there was a

20:00

found lack of communication and

20:03

Bato Lucci had re cut the Last Emperor

20:05

as in a flashback, while Sakamoto

20:08

had scored the previous version, which

20:10

was all in chronological

20:13

order. And the other thing was Sako

20:15

Moto's idea was that he was going

20:17

to play Bernardo the stuff

20:20

half his friend could recorded

20:22

at Abbey Road, and he was gone because he had

20:25

him tour starting the following day,

20:27

and so nothing fit. So

20:30

David Byrne from the Talking Heads was

20:32

the other composer, and Kong Su,

20:34

who was a Chinese composer but had studied

20:37

in Berlin, was another composer

20:39

on it. So the Chinese

20:41

composer could only speak German,

20:43

so I was useful in

20:46

this case. And Jeremy said,

20:48

can you just go up to Appy Roden

20:50

just sort of sort this out, you

20:52

know, we called the orchestra, and

20:55

I had no idea what four

20:57

m you know, fifty one whatever

20:59

something. There was a real four was not a real

21:02

too, but I never heard and I didn't even know what

21:04

scene it was supposed to go. And

21:06

Bernardo would go, why is it getting quiet

21:09

in the middle of a shot, and I'm like,

21:11

tap down things, furiously coming up

21:13

with excuses to sort of

21:15

not put the blame on reality Sacermoto.

21:18

It really wasn't his fault. So that was really

21:20

my other introduction.

21:23

Yeah, and it was like these people

21:25

are crazy, these people are

21:27

genuinely crazy and that. And there was one day

21:29

where Bernar I was working out at Pinewood and

21:31

there was something had gotten and things

21:34

kept getting lost, are things kept

21:36

not happening or whatever? And he

21:38

felt me up with most of you because where are the

21:41

Chinese death belts. I

21:43

didn't know that we're going to be Chinese less

21:45

belt, nor did I even know that there is

21:47

such a thing as Chinese death bells.

21:49

So I said, well, okay, I'm really sorry. I'll

21:51

come right over with that Chinese death

21:53

bells. So I made up something on the

21:55

synthesizer because I thought if I don't

21:58

know what they sound like, he won't know what they sound

22:00

like. And I came over and as

22:02

I got to Pinewood, Bernado's walking

22:05

up and down at the gates to the

22:07

studio and he's like he's got his hands behind

22:09

his back, and I get out of the column saying,

22:11

look, I'm really sorry. It wasn't my fault, by

22:13

the way, It really wasn't, you know. But I wasn't gonna

22:15

blame anybody. It just went it. I'll

22:17

do it, and Bernano went, look,

22:19

I'm really sorry. I shouted at you, and

22:22

he handed me a box of chocolates and he said,

22:24

look, even though I'm the director and

22:26

I'm paying you, I realized

22:28

that the seconds of your life are going by

22:31

and I should be more gracious.

22:34

That taught me something. I mean, the more I

22:36

worked within the film business at these

22:39

early days, and mostly it was in Soho

22:41

and mostly like Working Title, all

22:44

our cutting rooms were either above a strip

22:46

club or a pawn shop, and you know,

22:48

and I would run up the stairs with my little

22:50

piece of music and singer up to the picture

22:53

and hold my breath because if

22:55

the director didn't like it. But at the same time

22:57

I realized it was all entertainment,

23:00

and should it go wrong upstairs,

23:02

maybe I could get a job downstairs at the

23:04

pond, you know, or

23:07

the strip club for that matter, all the strip

23:09

club for that matter. Absolutely. And

23:11

then Working Title offered

23:13

me, like the twentie movie

23:16

or something like this, that it was

23:18

about the anti apartheit movement in

23:20

South Africa called a world

23:22

apart beauty

23:25

Beautiful film, Beautiful film.

23:27

Chris Mingers. So We're sitting

23:29

at the Groucho Club and I'm I'm getting so

23:31

what's the budget? And Tim Bevan

23:34

says, we're not telling you

23:36

what the budget is. Your wife is pregnant,

23:39

and we know what you do. You take

23:41

all the money that you're supposed to

23:43

go and take home with you and you just spend

23:45

it on making the movie sound good. So

23:47

we're not telling you what the budget is

23:49

this time. So you go and do the movie

23:52

and it's going to be all right. So I did

23:54

the movie and it turned out my daughter

23:57

was born on the first day of working

24:00

in the film, and they opened an account

24:02

in her name and put the money in there. So,

24:05

you know, whatever you say about the death things

24:08

about filmmaking, the you know, how

24:10

synature do you want to be? There are people

24:12

who are genuinely have a hard gentleman,

24:15

gentlemen. You know. The other thing which

24:17

I think is so vital is

24:19

Hollywood, with all its cheapness

24:23

and vulgarity, what have you.

24:25

It's the last place on earth that commissions

24:28

orchestral music on a daily basis.

24:31

And if we don't have that, the orchestras

24:33

will just die. At what point

24:36

were you immerged in the

24:38

classic Bernard Herman era

24:41

of film scoring. Did you listen to a lot of film

24:43

scores? And no, no, not

24:46

at all. I come from one of those snobby

24:48

European families where we went to the opera

24:50

once a week and we

24:53

had no television because television was considered

24:55

the end of culture as

24:57

we know it. And I remember

25:00

I snuck into the little

25:02

local cinema where they were

25:04

playing Once upon a Time in the West,

25:07

and it was just like Ennio Morriconi,

25:10

Sergio Leone those

25:12

shots, and I'm going, that's

25:14

it, that's it, That's what I want

25:16

to do, and there was nothing that could

25:19

stop me from doing this. Did you feel

25:22

at any point that you needed to study film

25:24

itself in order to do your job better.

25:27

No. I felt I needed to study

25:29

mythology. I needed to study fairy

25:31

tales. I needed to study psychology.

25:35

I needed to read like

25:37

crazy, and I needed

25:39

to sit down and talk to as many

25:41

d piece as I possibly could, because

25:44

if I was the years, they were the eyes.

25:47

I was the guy who would never go home. I was

25:49

always the kid who was still hanging around

25:51

in the cutting room, you know, just badgering

25:54

the editor, going well, why why are you doing that?

25:56

Why are you doing this cut? And why? And how

25:58

does this work? And you know, talking

26:00

to the DP what colors are you going

26:03

to use? What the tone of this film?

26:05

Tell me what the color palette is going

26:07

to be? Like knowing as

26:09

we do now that you know, I might watch

26:11

The Crown in bed on my

26:14

computer and my wife is asleep next

26:16

to me, and then if it's Gladiator,

26:19

you think, let's just blow the fucking roof

26:21

off the theater and let's just blow it out. You know,

26:23

that's forty ft why twenty ft

26:25

high? Is there a difference between

26:27

scoring for TV and for film?

26:29

Not? That should be?

26:32

That should be, But I don't make a difference.

26:34

I just I just feel there's

26:36

a right path if somebody has a compelling

26:39

story. If Peter Martin comes to me

26:41

and he goes, I've given up on doing movies.

26:43

I want to do The Crown. You

26:45

take that very serious. And Peter's

26:48

vision as vast and what a juggernaut

26:50

that's been. Oh my god, absolutely,

26:53

I love Peter. I've known him, I've known Peter. I

26:56

want to say, I've known Peter all my life. Peter

26:58

and I speak to German. He speaks better German

27:01

than I do. You know, we come from that working

27:03

title camp European cinema.

27:05

It's really different. I mean I came to Hollywood

27:08

expecting it to be technologically

27:11

far more advanced than Europe, and

27:14

I expected it to be far more collaborative.

27:17

And it wasn't. The composer

27:19

worked alone, and he had a ghost writer

27:21

who would never get a credit. You know, It's

27:24

like an army of ghostwriters

27:27

who never saw their names

27:29

up in light. And I thought, how that's poor bus

27:31

is going to get their career. You know. Stanley

27:34

Myers my mentor. I

27:36

mean he gave me credits straight away. I

27:38

mean it wasn't a big deal and we would all

27:40

be in the room together. So I

27:43

learned from Stephen Fierce, I learned from Nick Work,

27:45

I learned from John's Lessenger. I learned from Terry

27:47

Mallock. You did Pacific Heights. We did

27:49

Pacific Heights. I have auditioned

27:51

for that movie. I remember I was involved. And he

27:53

did a movie The Believers, Yes

27:56

that Marty Sheen did, and I was

27:58

I was going to do that movie Allen Barkin and

28:00

I think we're pretty close to getting those jobs,

28:03

and then the casting director cut our throats

28:05

and get rid of us because they felt we were

28:07

too young. I remember, I was just overwhelmed

28:10

with a passion to work with Sleshinger. What

28:12

was he like? Same with me? Any director

28:15

who in the middle of scoring says, I'm

28:17

so sorry, but I have to take a few

28:19

days off because I'm directing an opera

28:22

and sales books. Okay with

28:24

me? Do you know what I mean? It's like at

28:26

the end of all the scoring sessions he

28:29

made a list of all the quotes

28:31

of classical music I'd used, which

28:34

was it was great, it was a game. But

28:36

again, knowing that writing music and

28:39

performing music, what happened when

28:41

you go and record it and you here and you go it's

28:44

not right. Well, one of

28:46

the things is to be absolutely clear

28:48

we are making a recording. We're

28:51

not doing a concert. You

28:53

don't have the free say of a life

28:55

performance going on. So I I try

28:57

to have a bit of that going on. For instance,

29:00

I tell directors before I start working with

29:02

them, and they all get it. I will

29:04

not make a change during the scoring

29:07

session in front of the orchestra. We'll take

29:09

it off the stands, I'll go home. I'll

29:11

rewrite it whatever you want, but I will not

29:13

do it in front of the orchestra, because when

29:16

the orchestra is playing, it's about a performance,

29:19

and we don't want to stop, and we don't want to bore them,

29:21

and we certainly don't want to show any insecurity.

29:24

The lion taming and film composing

29:26

seem to have a close link. You

29:29

know, both can kill you. I mean, the

29:31

director will eat your life. And if it's not the

29:33

directors, there's there's a whole bunch

29:35

of guys in the brass section who are

29:37

just looking at you, going, okay, kid, let's

29:40

see what happens. Let's see

29:43

you had some of that early on. Yeah, absolutely,

29:45

and now we're fine. Now. I

29:47

actually had one of the greatest compliments

29:49

recently. There's a percussionist in

29:51

London who's played on everything from you know,

29:53

Star Wars plus all the classics, and

29:56

I saw him the other day and he goes hamps.

29:59

We were worried about you when you went to Hollywood

30:01

because we thought you're just going to become

30:03

one of those prats. But you know

30:05

something, you came back You're still

30:08

one of us. You're still a complete music

30:10

bastard, and we love you for that.

30:13

So I thought that was like the best compliment

30:15

I could have, and it meant

30:18

whatever we were doing was going to be okay

30:21

because I was still part of them.

30:23

Now, when you see footage, does a performance

30:26

every motivate you? Really?

30:29

What's an example of our performance by an actor

30:31

in a film you did? They really helped lift

30:34

you to the level you wanted to go In terms

30:36

of your score, Jack Nicholson

30:39

in as good as it gets. Really, I

30:41

didn't know what to do. I was really

30:43

struggling, and finally I said to Jim

30:46

Brook's, Jim, what are you doing at the weekend?

30:48

Do you mind sitting on my couch

30:50

and let me just look at Jack. Look

30:53

at what he's doing. I mean, there's

30:55

a history. Before Jack started

30:57

filming the movie, I was at

30:59

his how going over like

31:01

he's going to play the piano. He didn't want to play

31:03

the piano. I'm going it's easy. I can go and

31:05

replace anything that's wrong. No,

31:09

Jack didn't want to play the piano, didn't

31:11

more to play the piano. I think he just wanted to talk

31:13

to him a bit. But so Jim

31:15

sitting there and we just started

31:18

to work out together what this

31:20

character would be like. It's

31:22

the way his legs moved.

31:25

It's just just a little something in

31:27

the shoulder. It's never something he says.

31:29

It's body language. It's a

31:32

ballet, and literally it was. It was

31:34

two days of just experimenting. Jim sitting

31:36

there and we worked the whole thing out. And so

31:38

you know, I totally understood what Jack was

31:40

trying to do. Helen Hunt. She wanted

31:42

to ask you for I love that film. He did too. He

31:45

did too, He did too. And what I love is there's

31:47

an almost pugilistic quality

31:49

too when he says his lines the woman that

31:51

the legendary line when he's at the elevator

31:54

and the woman says, how do you write those female? You write

31:56

those women so well? I I think of a

31:58

man and I take away reason

32:00

and accountability right, one of the

32:02

greatest lines in Hollywood history. There's

32:05

another bit in it at the end when he doesn't

32:07

know how to go and see the Hell and Hunt character,

32:10

and Greg Canea says to him,

32:13

but you already have an advantage, You already

32:15

prepared to humiliate yourself and

32:18

in a funny way. I've made that sort

32:20

of my litmotif

32:23

of how I'm going to go and play

32:25

a piece of music to a director or anybody

32:28

for that matter. I'm sure, I'm sure that these

32:30

examples have been There might

32:33

be none or certainly few and far

32:35

between. But if you ever just pushed

32:37

out your best effort and you thought I

32:39

can't save this movie, yes,

32:41

and and being wrong at the same time,

32:44

thinking this is terrible, and then the

32:46

audience loved it, you know, don't try

32:48

to predict anything. That's a very good point,

32:50

you know, to their own self. Be true.

32:53

I mean, look, you and I we did a movie.

32:57

There's a line and girl and boy

32:59

met forty five minutes ago

33:02

in the story and they're sitting next

33:04

to each other and she says to him, if I have one

33:06

more night to live, I want to spend it with you. And

33:08

I said to Michael. By Michael,

33:11

you gotta get rid of that line. I learned

33:13

from Bridley Scott. Bridley Scott always would

33:15

say sentimentality, that's

33:17

unearned emotion. And he said, yeah, yeah, don't

33:19

worry, I'll get rid of it. He never got rid of

33:22

it. It's the favorite line in the movie

33:24

by teenage girls. God,

33:28

Hans Zimmer, this

33:31

is to every captive soul from the

33:33

motion picture Hannibal m

34:00

Yeah, when

34:13

we return. Hans Zimmer talks

34:16

about how an invitation from

34:18

musician Pharrell Williams helped

34:20

him overcome stage fright. I'm

34:41

Alec Baldwin and this is here's

34:43

the thing. In two thousand

34:45

sixteen, Hans Zimmer did

34:47

something he hadn't done in decades, played

34:50

in front of an audience. The

34:53

result was Hans Zimmer Live

34:55

and arena style concert series,

34:58

which wouldn't have happened with encouragement

35:01

from his friends. There was like

35:03

a cabal ganging up on me. There

35:05

was Farrell Williams, Jolly mar and

35:08

my friend Anne Marie Simpson, great

35:10

violinist, and they're all sitting here and they're

35:12

going you know, and you can't hide

35:15

behind the screen for the rest of your life.

35:18

Sometimes it is your duty

35:20

to look an audience in the eye, especially

35:22

after you've done so much. I'm gonna

35:25

a terrible idea. I think I should just stay

35:27

in this room. I mean, And so

35:29

this goes on and I keep saying no,

35:32

and they get up and they're walking out of my

35:34

room, and right at the end, Farrell

35:36

turns around and he says, Hey,

35:38

I'm going to play the Grammys. Do you want to play

35:40

guitar for me? And I thought

35:43

only an idiot would say no. So

35:47

it was his show. The Grammys were his show.

35:49

I'm playing guitar. Through the whole performance,

35:53

he kept his eyes on me. He just to make

35:55

sure that I was okay, that was safe,

35:57

which was such an act of kindness, and

36:00

I was going, Oh, it's not so bad. This

36:03

is actually good fun. So

36:05

I phoned. I thought,

36:07

my friend Harvey Goldsmith, who promoted

36:09

the original Live Aid and everything else.

36:11

I mean, he brought Springsteen to to

36:13

England, etcetera. And I was saying, how if

36:16

I did a concert, I mean, do you think

36:18

anybody would come? Yeah?

36:20

I think so. So in fourteen

36:23

we did two nights in London and a

36:25

rock and roll venue, and I thought it

36:28

was important. Number one, it was important to be

36:30

a rock and roll venue, and it would be fun

36:32

to pon orchestra into it, or we can

36:34

go more extreme, because then we went and did

36:37

Cotella and I thought, oh, we have

36:39

to do Cotella because we've got to have an orchestra

36:41

in the middle of the desert and acquire. And

36:44

secondly, I want to change the

36:46

way people perceive orchestras

36:49

and choirs because I can

36:52

understand that going to a classical concert,

36:54

unless it's an amazing conductor,

36:57

seeing a guy with his back to you

36:59

all night while there's a whole bunch of

37:01

guys and girls reading the

37:03

paper is like a bad marriage on a Sunday

37:06

morning. So I

37:08

said to the orchestra, if I get rid of the conductor,

37:10

I mean, we have enough technology, we can go and

37:13

show things up on the conducting, up

37:15

on the screen. You know, it doesn't have

37:17

to be in the sideline. You will have an

37:19

autonomous sideline to the audience.

37:21

Will that work? And they said, yeah,

37:23

absolutely, we'll have We'll have a go at it, and

37:26

that basically became the basis of

37:28

that tour and the idea of

37:30

being surrounded by not

37:33

only great orchestral players, but great

37:36

rock and roll players, because great musicians are

37:38

great musicians. You either move me or

37:40

you don't move me. You know, it's interesting

37:42

how when you write music. I want

37:44

to tee this up with the story which

37:46

was I was haunted by

37:49

the sequence in Cold Blood

37:51

where Robert Blake is watching Scott

37:53

Wilson have sex with the prostitute, and

37:56

he's sitting on the bed, and then that transforms

37:58

into his mother with a job on, and the

38:00

father comes in, and it's this horribly

38:03

painful, traumatic thing for

38:05

the Robert Blake character. And he's sitting there with

38:07

tears running down his eyes and

38:10

the rain behind him in the window, running

38:12

down the window, and they played this Mexican

38:15

ballot and I

38:17

drove myself to the brink of insanity

38:19

trying to find out what the name of the song was, who

38:21

the singer was, and of course who wrote it. And

38:23

I couldn't take it anymore. So you know, when you're

38:25

with C A A as an agency, they can

38:27

get you on the phone with anybody. So

38:29

the next thing you know, I'm on the phone with Quincy.

38:33

I said, now this song in this

38:35

thing? He said, yeah, yeah, Man, Nina the

38:37

song of Nina Baby. That's the name is sell Nina.

38:40

And and and I go who wrote the song? And suppose

38:42

he goes, I wrote a baby. I wrote

38:44

it. What you're talking about?

38:47

Man? I wrote the song like I write all

38:49

the songs. Did you feel

38:51

that there were parts of your career we want

38:53

to learn to write music? You thought you couldn't write

38:55

whether you know, from the culture, Yeah, I

38:57

mean absolutely. I mean I had

38:59

to from Penny Marshall. When she comes to me

39:01

and she goes, forties girls

39:05

baseball leader. Though I'm

39:07

going I know nothing about

39:09

being a girl. I know nothing about

39:11

the forties. I don't know anything about

39:14

jazz, you know, And

39:16

she goes, don't worry about it, just

39:18

do it, and oh yeah, And I say I know nothing

39:20

about baseball. She goes, when they

39:22

hit it, that's good. You

39:25

know. That was basically my brief. It took

39:27

me a while to figure out how I could

39:29

solve this because I really don't know

39:32

anything about jazz. You felt, you

39:34

didn't know anything about jazz. You want a jazz

39:36

fan, yes, But I didn't know how

39:38

to do it, you know. And

39:40

I thought, well, hang on, everybody's got

39:43

like some crazy uncle that when

39:45

drunk will play boogie boogie

39:47

on the piano. So I thought, well,

39:50

I can be that guy playing boogie boogie

39:52

and the piano and just orchestrated and shove

39:54

it in front of a bunch of very good

39:56

players. So that's how

39:58

that score came about. Here's the thing.

40:01

Penny was a huge influence because

40:04

she loved having a chat, especially between

40:07

the hours of three am and seven and

40:09

the more I had some chats with Penny.

40:11

Okay, so so since I

40:13

was one of the few Parsan session, therefore

40:15

I was up and I would

40:17

use those charts. I remember one

40:20

Penny, how do you make a good movie? Because

40:23

that's easy. All you have to

40:25

do is protect your

40:27

star. And by that I don't mean

40:30

the actor, I mean your main

40:32

character. Don't let him say anything

40:34

that's out of character coming off his mask, don't

40:36

let him wear anything that's not in character,

40:39

don't have his hair be stupid. Because

40:41

when you know what your main character is,

40:44

then the rest of the story will group

40:46

around it. And I thought that

40:48

makes perfect sense. Now,

40:50

what about with ron Howard? You mean, the Frost Nixon

40:53

thing is obviously a very dry, very

40:55

powdery kind of a drama, you know, I mean,

40:57

oh man, that was a tough

41:00

I mean, o'shean and Frank, I mean,

41:02

Frank is just such a wonderful malvolio

41:05

esque, you know, kind of presence and everything

41:07

he does it just drips with a kind of danger.

41:10

You know, what did Ronnie tell you he wanted for that

41:12

film? We all loved the play

41:14

and you know that's back to Peter Martin in the Crown.

41:16

I mean, that's a Peter Martin thing. So

41:19

ostensibly we had a meeting

41:21

every day for two weeks before he went outituding

41:24

to talk about the songs, to

41:27

make the songs to be the right thing for the

41:29

era. And I don't think we actually got any

41:31

songs in it. You know, I would go, well,

41:33

if you give me this close up, I can give you

41:36

this piece of music, I can do something

41:38

like this, and la la la la. You know. So

41:41

for two weeks we we sort of worked out

41:43

camera moves and we worked out how

41:46

to transform a play into

41:48

a movie. Now. One of the

41:50

junctures in which I intersected with your

41:52

movie was a documentary

41:55

series called Evidence of Revision.

41:58

It's considered the citizen pane

42:00

of JFK conspiracy

42:02

films. It's nine hours long,

42:04

divided into five parts. I'm

42:07

listening to this and this music

42:09

comes on and I'm going, oh

42:12

man, this music is so fucking

42:14

beautiful and it's the last

42:17

Samurai. Now, he sampled a

42:19

couple of your pieces for this thing,

42:22

Hannibal. He plays to every

42:24

captive soul, oh yes, and

42:27

oh my god, you just

42:29

the tears start rolling down your

42:31

face. There's a big story involved

42:33

for piece why it's

42:36

worth making movies. To me, Ridley

42:39

had just come back from Florence,

42:42

I think, to finished shooting the movie at Sunday

42:45

night, eleven o'clock in the evening

42:48

at Fox in the cutting room, and it's

42:50

Ridley, it's Pietro Scarlia, the editor,

42:52

and me and the

42:55

picture on the abbott is parked on

42:57

a tear running down Clary Style

43:00

Link's face and

43:02

I say to him, to both of them,

43:04

I say, well, she's crying because

43:06

she's in love with him and she has to betray him

43:08

now, and really goes no, no, no no, it's

43:11

a tear of disgust. It's disgusted

43:13

at this monster when he has her up

43:15

against the refrigerator. Yeah, exactly,

43:18

exactly right. So this goes on,

43:20

so so it gets more and more heated at this

43:22

conversation, and finally we're standing

43:25

and three grown men at eleven o'clock at nine

43:27

on a Sunday are shouting at each other about

43:30

the meaning of a tear on a woman's

43:32

face. And I had one of those we had

43:34

moments, you know, where the camera pulls back and

43:36

I see us all. I thought, what

43:39

a great ful job we are

43:41

discussing Julia, and

43:45

I'm going, this is the most important

43:47

thing to us at this moment. And that's what this piece

43:49

is about. Because I said, Okay,

43:52

Retty, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm going

43:54

to write the whole

43:56

score is going to be a

43:58

romantic comedy. And

44:01

he's okay, fine, all right if you can pull

44:03

that off. Five romantic comedy.

44:05

So that is my big love theme.

44:08

What's the movie of yours? You watch when

44:10

you sit there when it's screens and you go, you

44:12

know, it's not that bad. Actually it's pretty good. It

44:14

really does work. Yeah,

44:16

I know I'm Buyingary. It's ship. It's not ship.

44:19

I think they could all do with a bit of a

44:21

do over and implease, But I

44:25

tell you the opening

44:27

to the Lion King, I mean it was really

44:29

important to me. I wanted that African

44:31

voice. My friend Lebo, who had discovered

44:34

at a car wash he was a political

44:36

refugee, he was working at a car wash.

44:40

I said, come and just come and do

44:42

this thing. And you know, like that, like within the

44:44

first notes, you know you're now not

44:46

in Kansas anymore. What advice

44:49

do you have for people who you're working with who are young

44:51

people who want to because I'm assuming that

44:53

actors can come and go. They have their

44:55

healthy on period, writers, directors,

44:58

But it seems like compos users,

45:01

when you hit it, you can stay there for a

45:03

very long time. Your career has been a

45:05

very long time now and

45:07

you've stayed at the top of this business for a very

45:09

long time. What advice do you have for people who

45:11

want to get into that part of the business? Just

45:14

say yes, you know, like when Penny

45:16

Marshall says, do you not do a movie about

45:19

baseball and swing? Yes?

45:22

I know nothing about it. Just be honest,

45:24

I know nothing about it, but sounds interesting,

45:27

right, you know, old

45:29

Yes. I remember being on the phone

45:31

with Ron just out of courtesy right

45:34

at the end. I thought I should say, well,

45:36

what are you working on? And he said the

45:39

Da Vinci Code, and I'm going, oh my

45:41

god, it's like run on monologue.

45:44

It's totally uncinematic. How

45:46

can you, I mean, how are you gonna do that? And

45:48

it's a phenomena. How are you going to deal

45:50

with the phenomena? And he goes,

45:53

yeah, I know, And ten

45:55

minutes later my agent goes, what

45:57

did you say to Ron always, I'm

46:00

sorry. I know he's setting

46:02

off on this journey and I just probably

46:04

really, like, you know, made

46:06

it even worse for him. He goes, O, no, no, he

46:08

wants you to do the film. He wants you

46:10

to solve it for him,

46:12

you know. And it gave me a

46:15

year of being able

46:17

to immerse myself in art and

46:19

in literature and to

46:21

hang out at the Louver at night. This

46:24

is why people say to me, why

46:26

am I on the board of the Philharmonic? I said, the

46:29

movies often disappoint me, The

46:31

theater sometimes disappoint me. The

46:34

symphony never disappoints

46:36

me. Right when now I go see the New York Philharmonic

46:38

play, I'm never disappointed. Absolutely

46:41

your music. Is there a joint ownership

46:43

of that movie and the publishing rights and so forth

46:46

for the soundtrack, album and so forth. Do you

46:48

have some control or did the studio? Is it a buy

46:50

out and they own it? They own it. But

46:54

there's a law that says you

46:56

are allowed to perform anything you

46:59

want to perform, right, so

47:01

I think it would be keenous to

47:04

not be able to own my

47:07

life. Wow, you know, because that's really

47:09

what it is. Isn't it. I mean, you

47:11

know that thing Bernardo said to me. You

47:13

know, as the seconds of life are taking away,

47:16

we are creating these things. You know. Manon

47:18

an actor turned to me once. He said to me, you're

47:21

gonna go back to your trailer, I said, He goes, Why

47:23

do you go to your trailer? He said, the sets where

47:25

you want to be even when you're not shooting, he

47:27

said, pull up a chair, he goes. Just be a part of it,

47:30

absolutely, just watch them

47:32

shoot. And as I've gotten older, when

47:34

I read a script, I say to myself, could

47:36

I stay on the set during the entire

47:38

shooting process of this movie and just be

47:40

a witness and watch them do this movie?

47:43

Is do? I love it that much? And that's

47:45

become a metric for me. Actually, and I spend

47:47

far more time on the set now than I used

47:49

to. I never go to my trailer anymore. It's too boring.

47:52

I think my whole career is based on I

47:54

would always hang around and be the

47:57

guy asking the stupid questions.

47:59

You know, not be afraid. Why

48:01

are you doing it like that? You know, tell me explain

48:04

this part to me or whatever. You know,

48:06

everything informs everything, but

48:08

you nailed it when you said

48:11

this is our lives. We spent our

48:13

lives doing this. It is our lives.

48:15

And that's what Farrell and Johnny Mark were so

48:17

right about that I should stop

48:19

hiding and then I should do things in

48:22

real time, be on a stage.

48:24

If I'm going to have a platfall, Yes,

48:26

if I go hello Oslo in Stockholm,

48:29

they will forgive me. Let

48:31

me just finish by saying this as you're scoring

48:34

the sequel to Boce Baby, please make

48:36

me look funny, made me look smart, made me

48:38

look powerful. Okay, when you're writing the music,

48:41

just have that in mind. If you don't mind made

48:43

me look powerful. We have not

48:45

only have we fulfilled that brief

48:47

but you know you getting away

48:49

with that line, Um, I have

48:52

a beautiful voice. I mean just

48:54

that, and pausing just

48:56

to have your voice just

48:58

let it lay there and let them all be and

49:01

thrilled. Well, listen, thank you.

49:03

You're one of the greats man. I mean, your movie

49:05

scores are just I mean, these

49:07

people that you work with, they're lucky to have you. Boy,

49:10

what a difference you make. It has been a

49:12

pleasure. Composer

49:17

Hans Zimmer. This is

49:19

from the motion picture The Last Samurai.

49:22

I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's

49:24

the thing from my Heart Radio

50:20

M