Hans Zimmer discusses his music for 'Blitz', a film set in World War II

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with award-winning film composer Hans Zimmer about his latest work for the film "Blitz."

Transcript

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

A renowned composer came to talk to us the other day about his score for a big new movie.

HANS ZIMMER: I think I probably - all together, we've just probably ruined my career forever.

RASCOE: No, no, no, no. We're going to explain the horrendous.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RASCOE: Horrendous is how Hans Zimmer's music for the movie "Blitz" has been described. But that's exactly what he was going for, trying to capture the feel of nightly bombing raids in World War II London.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RASCOE: Hans Zimmer has spent a career making moviegoers feel in the dark of the theater. Like in "Dune," "Interstellar," "The Lion King." As for his work on "Blitz," it came after some pestering from the movie's director Steve McQueen, who won an Oscar for "12 Years A Slave."

ZIMMER: This is confession time more than an interview.

RASCOE: (Laughter).

ZIMMER: I have to go and backtrack a little bit. Steve McQueen and I have been friends for a long time, so he knows a lot about me, and he knows, for instance, that my mother was a refugee during the Blitz in London. And she experienced the whole Blitz, and she would tell me the stories. And they were just stories to me.

And Steve said to me, look, watch the movie because you'll understand your mum better. And he was absolutely right. It gave me the idea that one of the things which was so incredibly important - because it really is about George, who is a little boy who wants to find his mother in the chaos of the bombing of London. I said to Steve, look, the only way I know how to do this is to write maybe probably the most unlistenable, most horrific and terrorizing score possible because I want the grown-ups to feel the way a child would feel.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ZIMMER: And there just came, like, a big smile on Steve's face. I mean, you know, there were two choices, fire me at that moment or give me a big smile. And he said, you know, that's sort of what I was hoping for.

It's very difficult to talk about a movie like this and use the word pleasure. But it was such a pleasure working with Steve and having Steve be around every day as I was re-experiencing the horror of those times.

RASCOE: When you were setting out to compose this, do you start with, like, a single sound, a single instrument?

ZIMMER: I have a band. I just got back from touring across America. And I know these people in the band very well, so there's a very close relationship. They've spent their whole life learning how to make their instruments sound beautiful. And it takes a certain amount of courage to go and then turn all that upside down and me saying, here are the notes, but what I want from you is I want them to be, like, you know, razors running down a piano wire.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RASCOE: Does it take a humility to do that?

ZIMMER: No, it takes an enormous amount of courage and commitment. It takes the commitment of going, OK, I am going to play a note that people will not love me for. In one way or the other, every artist wants to be loved.

(LAUGHTER)

RASCOE: Yes.

ZIMMER: ...You know? But I am going to commit to playing the truth. I am going to commit to showing the dark side of things.

RASCOE: There are some beautiful and hopeful moments throughout the score.

ZIMMER: Absolutely.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RASCOE: One is when George befriends these other young runaways.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLITZ")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Let's play dares.

ELLIOTT HEFFERNAN: (As George) All right.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I dare you, I dare you to come onto the roof of the train.

HEFFERNAN: (As George) Easy.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Go on, then.

ZIMMER: Exactly. But isn't that how kids work? It's like one second the world is collapsing, and the next second, we see a little red car, and we run after the little red car...

RASCOE: (Laughter).

ZIMMER: ...Or there's a puppy there. Our attention span to the beautiful and the horror are equally minimal...

RASCOE: Yeah.

ZIMMER: ...You know? It's like, oh, wow. It's all an adventure. It's all a play.

RASCOE: Yeah.

ZIMMER: And even death, in a funny way, is a play.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLITZ")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Climb up on them boxes.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, laughing).

(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWING)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, cheering).

ZIMMER: People are caught up very much on me using that word, horrendous. But, of course, it's not. It is all of those things because that's what a child's life is - great joy, great terror, great everything. Everything is amplified in a way. I said to Steve when I was writing that piece, how do you want it to sound? He said, make it sound like heaven. And I'm going, oh, yeah. Coming right up. I know exactly how to do that. Yes.

RASCOE: (Laughter) I want to ask you about your live shows, these big productions where you're playing your movie scores. It's not your typical symphony orchestra. I would imagine when you started your composing career, you weren't thinking of stadium tours.

ZIMMER: No, I refused to get on stage. I have stage fright. It was Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr who one day sat me down on the couch, and they said, OK, we have to have a talk with you. All right, 40 years, you've been spending in a dark, windowless room. You need to start looking your audience in the eye. You can't hide behind a screen for the rest of your life. You have to do some things in real time. You have to go out there and play. And this thing has sort of exploded. You know, I don't show a single frame of film. I just play the music. It's working really well.

RASCOE: Yeah. Well, how did you and Pharrell become such good friends?

ZIMMER: I don't know. We've been friends for 15, 20 years. There's stuff we talk about that we can't talk with anybody else because nobody else would get it. For years, we've had this half-finished album on my computer, and one of these days, we'll finish it, but we've been busy. He says he's my little brother, which is complete crap. He's not my little brother. He's my big brother or my equal brother. We indulge in adventures. We have fun coming up with strange ideas and trying them out and making them work. You know, I mean, you know, it's not that we work really well together. We come up with ideas really, really well together.

RASCOE: Well, I want to congratulate you on your Grammy nomination for "Dune: Part Two."

ZIMMER: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANS ZIMMER'S "LISAN AL GAIB")

RASCOE: Variety reported that the score for that film was submitted for an Academy Award consideration, I guess despite some questions over eligibility. Some critics have said that the...

ZIMMER: Well, let me just...

RASCOE: Yeah.

ZIMMER: ...Say something very quickly about that. So their rule is if you're doing a sequel, a certain percentage has to be new music. So I've done a lot of sequels. I've done the "Pirates Of The Caribbean" sequels forever. So the only thing I keep, of course, is the "Jack Sparrow" theme. That's the thing that takes us through these things. But "Dune: Part Two" is not Dune 2. "Dune: Part Two" is the second half of the same story of the same book, and it would be insane if I started changing the thematic material that I'm developing for the characters.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANS ZIMMER'S "LISAN AL GAIB")

ZIMMER: Before I started writing, I knew what the last note was going to be of the second part. Before I started writing the first note of the first part, because there has to be - just like the author had a story arc, the music has to have a story arc. To disqualify us for doing something which is artistically correct seems a little odd if you're trying to actually encourage people to look at movies and be daring about how you make them.

RASCOE: And I am fascinated by the fact that you say from before you write the first note, you know the last note.

ZIMMER: You have to. You have to know what you have to aim for. You have to know where you want the story to go and how you want to go that way.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RASCOE: That is incredible. I have to ask you, because you've been doing this for so long - you have more than 200 composing credits - how do you continue to push yourself creatively? How do you not get burned out or jaded or just tired?

ZIMMER: I'm tired. Oh, trust me, I'm really tired at the moment.

RASCOE: (Laughter).

ZIMMER: I literally got off this tour and the next day had a root canal.

RASCOE: Oh, no (laughter).

ZIMMER: It's been pretty full-on. But, you know, as far as I remember back, I mean, before I could speak, before I had language, I had music. There's so few people whose dreams come true. And with this playfulness, with this playful music, I get to go and communicate with the whole world.

RASCOE: That's Academy Award winner and "Blitz" composer Hans Zimmer. The new film is out in select theaters and streams later this month on Apple TV+. Thank you so much for joining us.

ZIMMER: Thank you for having me. What a good conversation.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.