Happy Sad Confused - Hans Zimmer

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

We're breaking new ground on the podcast by at long last welcoming a film composer! And if you're going to welcome one, it might as well be Hans Zimmer. His work is nothing short of iconic, from GLADIATOR and THE LION KING to THE DARK KNIGHT trilogy and DUNE. Josh and Hans cover it all, including Zimmer's recent turn towards epic live performances. UPCOMING EVENT! Nathan Lane -- March 20th in New York -- Tickets here SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Quince -- Go to Quince.com/happysadco for 365 day returns and free shipping! Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm kind of surprised the official MCU has never come calling, or if they have, you've said no. They have. They have. Look, I've done the trifecta. I've done Batman, Superman, Spider-Man. That's true. And Wonder Woman, right? Right, okay. So. Where do you go from there? It's hard to, yeah. I mean, what do you want me to do some of the minor characters? Follow me, yes. This is Hans Zimmer, folks. Come on. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now.

Hey guys, it's Josh with another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. And this one, we're breaking new ground after 11 years. Don't tell me I can't learn new tricks. We have a composer on the show today. It's Hans Zimmer, an icon, a legend. If we were going to have a composer, of course, it would have to be someone like Hans Zimmer. He has a new film. It is called Hans Zimmer and Friends, Diamond in the Desert.

It is out in theaters, March 19th, only for a few days. It is a full-on, immersive concert experience. If you love his work, as I do, check it out. It is well worth your hard-earned dollar. All right, before we get to Hans and my conversation, a couple bits and bobs, just to remind you guys. We have a live event coming up. March 20th. It is Nathan Lane and Mwa at Symphony Space in New York City.

If you've never seen me do one of these live events, they are always a blast. and Nathan Lane has never done the podcast and there is certainly a lot to talk about so get your tickets now the link information is in the show notes if you love Happy Say I Confused if you want to support us go over to our Patreon Patreon.com slash Happy Say I Confused

you can get your merch, you can get your discount codes you can get your early access you can get bonus content autograph posters it's all there for you check out our Patreon supporting us over there lets you make more of this for you guys Okay, main event, as I said, Han Zimmer, and kind of an intimidating guy to talk to,

not because he's super engaging and easy, he's super engaging and easy to talk to. It's just that he's done so much. So like, where do you even begin? But we did cover a lot in this, including his collaborations with Denis Vilnov, the Dune films, Christopher Nolan, of course, the Batman films, Inception, Interstellar, Ridley Scott Gladiator. Zach Snyder, Man of Steel. So we actually, now that I'm thinking about it,

we covered quite a bit in our time together. That being said, he's one of those that you could probably have 10 conversations with and it would always be new, unique, and interesting. A very charming man and made it easy for someone like me who's never, you know, how do you have a deep conversation about what it means to score a movie? I don't have that knowledge, but he made it easy

with great stories and putting in into terms that even I could understand. So I hope you guys enjoy this. You're a cinephile like me if you grew up with Hans Zimmer, like I did. I think you're going to get a kick out of this. Check out the movie. It's in theaters, as I said, March 19th, Hans Zimmer and Friends, Diamond in the Desert. And in the meantime, enjoyed this conversation. The one and only, Hans Zimmer.

Here he is. He's already told me to call him Hans, but I can't say it. It's Mr. Hans Zimmer. He is responsible for so much joy in my life as a cinephile. Welcome to the podcast. This is, I will say, sir. I'm saying, sir, I'm sorry in advance. In over 11 years of doing this podcast, every notable filmmaker and actor, I've never

done a composer. I'm a little scared because I don't feel like I know how to speak about music adequately, but I had to make an exception for you. I don't either, you know, two weeks of piano lessons have been making it up ever since. So, you know, you're doing a pretty good job. Except I probably, I'm probably way ahead of you on MTV, so, you know. You know, I was in the first video that you guys ever screened. That's right, you were.

You predate me. I've done nearly two decades at MTV, so you go back to the beginning. You're starting out, you know, you child you. The problem with chatting with you is you've done so damn much in your career. So we're only going to scratch a tip of the iceberg. But the wonderful excuse that's bringing us here together today is your new film. Hans Zimmer and Friends, Diamond in the Desert. I was telling you before

I've never had the pleasure many haven't had the pleasure and the opportunity to get to see you do your thing in an arena in a giant format but this gave me a sense of what I've been missing Well it really felt important to us

I mean there are places we can't play There are places that don't have the space where we can play there are places that are just too out of the way there are tickets which are too expensive there's all sorts of things that stop people from seeing what we like to do.

And so it seemed like a really good idea. You know, we were shooting Dune sort of over the shoulder on the left side of the screen, if you know what I mean. So we were in the Middle East and it felt like a perfect opportunity to go and grab Paul Dogdale, who's an amazing video director. And, you know, just get up to the... some mischief and actually film one of the shows and then, you know, show it to some of my friends and actually talk to them about it, which sort of makes it slightly different. Yeah, and when some of your friends are, you know, Timi Shalome, Chris Nolan, Denisville Nouve,

Zendaya, Farrell, that adds something to the mix too. Yeah, yeah. Look, it was really Farrell and Johnny Maher, who got me to do any of this. I mean, I was happy just being a film composer and being in this room and just never, ever, ever leaving and, you know, having stage fright and everything. And it was the two of them that sort of sat me down and actually sat a little too close to me so I couldn't get up, you know, on that couch behind me, actually, and went, you know, Hans, there comes a time where you can't hide behind a screen anymore, where you have to go out and look people in the eye and do things in real time. and I said I can't do that I can't do that I got stage fright I can't do that

and they sort of carried on for about an hour at me with different versions of you know you gotta get out there and then stuff gave up and Johnny left the room first and Pharrell was sort of hanging on the door

and he said I'm doing the Grammys this year do you want to come and play guitar for me and I thought only an idiot would say no you know and so that's how that thing started because the oh play guitar the Grammys actually was really joyous you know it was a lot of fun i thought maybe i can do that and um when i when i when we started the band and started doing all this

stuff feral and johnny came along and did it the first few shows with us they did you know they did a show in london with us and they did they did cocella which was you know not bad for somebody who leaving his room, you know. It's quite a start to a, yeah, a concert career. And now, I mean, this is a whole, I mean, this is a crazy kind of new adventure in recent years for your life. And obviously, I mean, what's the point of connection you feel on stage now with an audience? Because it's one thing to hear from folks like me to say, I've been listening to you

for decades and yes, it means a lot. But to see in someone's eyes and to feel that connection on stage must be a whole different thing. You know, since I have absolutely no stagecraft, as you have found out, but what I do have is I have a great desire to communicate with people. And I like, so I say through the audience, you know, look, let's just treat this like a dinner party. And we're just having a chat and we're going to play some music and we're going to go and see how it goes down. And then, you know, we'll take it from there. And we're going to be playing music that, I mean, like, like there were.

that we're breaking all the rules, right? I mean, first of all, I think it's important to say that our orchestra is from Ukraine. So, you know, they're, and we're looking after them very, very, very well. I mean, we've worked with them before the war started properly. And then we got them over two weeks after the war started. And it was very, very, very difficult to actually get them out. And now they can't go back. You know, so we have that. I have an amazing band. I love the idea that we are so international. And the things we were told right from the start was, don't play anything too long. The audience has no attention span. So, you know, Dark Night is like 20 minutes, Pirates is 14 minutes.

I mean, you know, that's the sort of average. I don't even know how long into Stell. I never measured it, you know. But it's, it's, and people, and people hang in there with you, you know, because it's not song form. It's not, you know, verse chorus, verse chorus, guitar solo, goodbye, you know. It goes through changes. And the other thing, which was really important to me was we don't show a single image

from any of the films. Well, that's what I was going to say is like that, what a testament to the, work itself that, look, obviously these pieces are designed for the cinema, to pair with cinema and it's all a marriage together, but that they can stand on their own must be such like, I mean, that's not the, is it part of the goal now? I don't even know. Like, is it just a bonus? No, no, it was always the goal that the piece of music could be, you know, it was, yes, you're obviously right. It was written for a scene and a film, but at the same time it was written to open the doors for

an audience to have an experience an emotional experience and I was never going to go as far as manipulate and say this is the experience you're going to have

so now it's like you know the music is still there the experience that you can find is you know to find your own thing make up your own story if you remember the film

great. You know, if you don't remember the film, it doesn't matter. You know, the other thing which I thought was interesting was, I was I was thinking, how can I, how can I pull this off? You know, I wanted to have an orchestra and I wanted to have a band. I was thinking about orchestral music is usually you're spending an evening watching a guy, guys back, you know, and he's doing this. And then there's a bunch of people dressed in penguin suits reading the newspaper. like a bad marriage on a Sunday morning, right?

So I got rid of the newspapers, I got rid of the penguin suits, and I really got rid of the conductor. Because, you know, with modern technology, I mean, it's easy, it's easy. You can use screens above. You don't have to, you don't have to look. So the focus is for everybody to have an eyesight,

to the audience and to actually be able to make a connection with members in the audience because you can, you know, there's no pieces of paper from you. The, look, your body of work is so extensive. Is it hard to figure out what the set list was? In this film, you know, you have Dune, you have Inception, you have Wonder Woman, you have Man of Steel,

you have Dark Phoenix, which some people might be surprised by. Was it kind of like hard to kind of figure out what to leave out and what to include? Yeah, I mean, it's like putting Lion King in was sort of, hang on a second, I wrote this for children, but wait a second, these children are now our audience, you know, I mean, they've grown up. So it's worth putting back in, you know. I was actually Nile Ma, Johnny Maher's son, who said, you know, Hans, get over yourself, put it in, you know. This is for them, more for you. Yeah. And so most of it is are things that we actually genuinely enjoy playing. You know, yeah, they're successes, but maybe they became successful pieces of music

because we always enjoyed playing them. Sure. I mean, it's a pretty radical show. you know, it's, it's not quite what you, what you'd expect. No, and I've been to some of those, and some of your esteemed colleagues in the business, some of the great composers, I've been to some of those concerts where it's wonderful to sit back and let the memories flow, but this is, this is more like going to, like, you know, you two at the sphere than seeing John Williams at Tanglewood with all due respect,

and I love Mr. Williams. Well, I come from a rock and roll background, you know, so, you know, it's like, I like plugging the guitar in, you know, I, I, I like that, you know. I celebrate my two weeks of piano lists. Making the most out of it. Yeah, making the most out of it. I think they have my money's worse.

Yeah, I think so. We all have. We're taping this right after the Oscars. I'm curious, you know, if you've been nominated many times, you've won two Oscars. The first time you were nominated, I believe, was for Rain Man. Yeah, my first Hollywood movie. And I always marvel at, you know, I've watched the Oscars since I was a kid. And I always love, like, when they play a little bit of the music as every time, like, you know, a participant from that movie wins an award.

And that, I think, Rain Man won eight awards that night. You were nominated. Do you recall, like, hearing your music as Dustin Hoffman and so many send it to the stage? Yes, yes. And, you know, I wrote Rain Man on a synthesizer with weird sounds, and there's an orchestra trying to play my music. So that was Actually, it's really interesting that you say this because I'm only just realizing as you're saying it

It was the beginning of orchestras having to adapt To like, there's this new guy in town And he works with weird electronic instruments and et cetera So we better have some stuff in the orchestra as well That can go and do that, you know So yes, yes, it was incredibly weird. You know, the following year, I wasn't up,

but driving with Stacey was Best Picture. So they kept playing that tune over and over again, you know. And then Gladiator was Best Picture. And I was nominated, but again, it was like they played the tune over and over and over again. So by that point, you know, they got it. They were ready for the Zimmer repertoire. already yeah yeah yeah and then and then and then winning for dune part one um i was so grumpy about

the whole affair we were touring i was in amsterdam uh i said to my partner i don't want to have anything to do with it we got a show tomorrow i want to go to bed you know um she said you sure you don't want to watch it and i phr people and said don't don't bother me i i want to go to sleep so I had my kids with me, and they were downstairs doing whatever they were doing. And then the phone rings, and it's my publicist, going, it's your cat. And I'm going, I told you, I don't want to be disturbed, you know, right? And then, like, two minutes later, the phone rings again. And I'm going, I told you.

And she goes, but you won, but you won. You know, at that moment, the sort of door burst open, and I realized that my partner had not actually locked the door. There was a devious plot between her and my children, and they sort of flew in, and there was a big party going on downstairs with the whole band. And look, they didn't care if I won or lost. They just wanted a great big party.

And so we had a party regardless. It was just a bonus you want. Absolutely. So, you know, that was good. Actually, that was the best Oscars I ever had. Yeah, just with friends and family. Yeah, just enjoying. Yeah, exactly.

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the selections you have for this concert film is you let me go into some of these selections and talk about sort of the history. Let's talk a little bit about your amazing collaborations with Ridley Scott. Gladiator, obviously. I mean, one of the joys of working with Ridley is he mixes it up every single time. He can do a gladiator film or a drama. Well, I can do a quick rundown for you. We can, we gladiator sounds nothing like Blackhawk downside. Right. Nothing like Thelman Louise. nothing like Black Rain

sounds nothing like Matt Stickman I'm forgetting a few I mean and and so when you when you when you

when you the thing that I love is I love working with inquisitive people you know I mean I just somebody just asked asked me to describe myself and

all I could come up with was restlessly inquisitive. It's like, I don't sleep much, and the people that I work with don't get to sleep much either. I'm going, oh, and there's another idea, and we can probably do it like this, and, you know,

why don't we, you know, I mean, for all I once did the Oscars. You know, we were the music and directors at the Oscars. Afterwards, there was a, what do you call that, an intervention by both of our teams who said they would leave us

if we ever had an idea like that again. Just too much, too many ideas flowing at them? So when you work with someone like Ridley, like on something like Gladiator, does he give you any guidance or does he say, this is the script, this is the idea I have, I want to see what you come up with? What's the working relationship there?

You didn't really have a script, but the room you see behind me was the Gladiator Cutting Room. so we were in the same building and we're just working together very closely and Ridley is a man of few words I mean I remember playing him like my ideas for Hannibal oh there's another movie there he's just sitting there completely stoically without expression listening to it and then I remember there that came the sort of horror shock bit You know, and I'm thinking, should I turn it down? Should I turn?

I'm playing in a fair volume, you know. And this thing, you know, this thing occurs, you know, this terrifying thing occurs. And I, and I really very slowly turns his head towards me and just raises one eyebrow, you know. And then back to listening. And at the end, I go, well, what do you think? It's going, yeah, go. You know, good. gladiator

I took so long to write it because I sort of I knew what it was going to what it was supposed to be like and those pesky notes you know I just I kept finding always the nearly good notes

and I knew it could be better and so everybody was I mean you know Stephen Spieverick was our producer so that's a different sort of a producer so when he's says maybe you should

actually go and write the film now as opposed to trying to battle with this theme. But Ridley kept, he really protected me. He really protected me and realized I was hunting something down. Yeah.

So you need a director who is your best friend. You know, is your comrade in arms. Is it surreal? were strange when, like, obviously, you followed through on some film series, but then something like Gladiator, they do the sequel, and another composer uses some of your work, obviously,

in honoring those themes. Like, is that odd to go back and see a sequel using some of your own work? Well, it's Harry Gregson Williams, who, you know, is one of my oldest friends. We started together in London, and I actually brought Harry over to Los Angeles. And when Ridley was shooting Kingdom of Heaven, I just went, I can't do that. I mean, it's two things. similar to Gladiator. I can't do it. But Ridley, I know a guy who can. So Harry did what I was supposed to do on Kingdom of Heaven. And then Harry phoned me up and he said, how do you feel about me during Gladiator 2? And I, to be really honest, I felt I was just setting myself up for bad criticism. You know, even if I had written the best score in the world for Gladiator 2,

There would have been enough people who would have said, it's not as good as the old one, you know, not because it was, because how can you judge music? I mean, music isn't good, you know, it doesn't work like this, but it works how people remember things, you know. Totally. I love the moment in the documentary. I want to segue into talking about the Dark Night films

because Timothy Chalemi talking about sort of like what, you know, your interpretation of the Joker, Joker's music, meant to him and how it inspired him as an actor. And I mean, that's, and I've heard you talk about this a little bit. That's, again, you're always taking risks. And Dark Knight, what you did with the Joker is such like a, you know, seemingly abrasive, discordant, upsetting set of sounds. Was Chris all in on that from the start?

Was the studio all in on that? Did you have the confidence that that was going to work for the Joker's theme, for lack of a better term? I had so many ideas for the Joker, all in that vein, you know, all in that way, that I, Chris had to finish shooting the movie in Hong Kong. There's a Hong Kong scene. And so I said, Chris, I got all these ideas. So I'm going to buy you an iPod and you get that long flight ahead of you and then you flight there to London. So you have enough time, you know, 10,000 bars, you know.

it's like, you know. And he dutifully listened to it all. And I said, well, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Because it's in there somewhere, but you know something,

it hasn't made me a better human being. Well, you know, I mean, look, look, there are two ways of writing film music. You know, you can stay outside the character and, you know, you can say, oh, it's tension. You know, you're sort of blanketing it, you know, with tension, he's going to come, you know, whatever, and mayhem's going to come. And what I was trying to do is, I was just trying to do. It's like, you know, this sort of this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this bow being pulled inside this guy, you know, this, this bow of anarchy. So, so I wanted the tension to always come from within him.

Right. So the music is always inside the character as opposed to describing them from the outside. But sometimes it doesn't, of course. In that case, was that inspiration from the script? Had you been seeing footage of what Heath was doing? Or was it simply based on what you were reading in the material? It came from a painting that, okay,

a friend of mine had stuck a very bad Xerox copy of Francis Bacon's painting of the Pope on my computer. And I remember Chris coming into my room and seeing that. And he said, oh, can I have that? And the next thing I see the Joker. and there might be some inspiration there. So we were all, you know, we were all sort of working from this. I very often work from painters or architects. It's not from music that I work.

I look at, you know, what Gerhard Richter has just painted, you know, and there's far more inspiration in that for me than in other people's notes. And similarly, that segues well into Man of Steel, which, I mean, talk about a tall order. I mean, it doesn't get any better than John Williams and what he did. Okay, look, look, I'll be very honest about that. For three months, I was just freaking out and not writing a thing. And then Zach said that Chris Nolan had told him nothing will happen unless he comes down with a firm deadline. And he phoned me up and, you know, very cheerful, he said,

I'm coming down on Tuesday. And I said, I got nothing. I mean, I got maybe something, you know, like a post-it, you know, that you put on the fridge, you know, of some scribbles. He goes, I love post-ins and scribbles. So he came down. I played him a little theme, you know. And he loved it, you know.

And he said the wisest words to me. He said, Hans, you've done so many months. movies. It's just another movie. Stop freaking out. But it's Superman. Yes, I know, but it is just another movie, which is actually correct, you know. Do you have those same? I was respectful. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm curious, like, do you have those same goosebumps moments that we do as an audience, like in your career when you're seeing it all married together? No, you're too connected, too close to it. Unfortunately, I know, it's so annoying. I know. It's not. It's so annoying. I know. It's don't, I get them with other people's movies.

Right, right. We talked a little bit about Dune, and I know that was as personal it is to Deney. That book meant a lot to you as well. Obviously, hell of an accomplishment on Dune Part 2. We can litigate that with the Academy later. I'm sure that's a sore point, but it is what it is. You know, something, it's not really a sore point. It's just so stupid point.

How can it be a sore point? I mean, it's like, it's, what was like, I got disqualified because I was using material from the first movie in the second movie. But it's not a sequel. It is the completion. It's the arc. Both movies are one arc. So was I supposed to go and take all the character themes away and write new character themes or develop them?

So it's just, it's just a stupid rule. You know, and I really didn't, what I didn't want to do is I didn't want to go and bitch about it. Right. Are you thinking to Deney? I mean, it seems like Dune Messiah is happening sooner than later. I talked to Deney every day, you know. Yes, it's happening sooner rather than later. Has much work on your end been done yet?

Like, do you already have in your mind what you're going to play around with there? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. No, yeah, Denise on a plane as we speak back to Canada. It's curious that you know his whereabouts so well. You must be in it. I know him about so well.

Right. Back to Mr. Nolan for a second. Inception, another amazing score. How much does it, I mean, your influence is obviously everywhere. But every time you hear that, for lack of a better way of putting it the in a trailer. Well, that's the point. That's the point. You see, I didn't write the brim.

I made the sound, but Chris had it in his script. It's a story point. Right. You know, because the movie deals with time. And for him, how do you show that time has slowed down? Well, you slow the music down, you know? And when you slow the music down, you get br-brm, right? But all the trailers, the trailer houses or the trailer editors suddenly realized that, you know, if you use a nonsensical sound, you know, because trailers are very hard to cut, because you're forever cutting from one bit that doesn't fit to the next bit.

And if you hide that cut with some big other, you know, three nonsensical things somehow seemed to be making an epic forward motion. So, but we were a story point. They were not a story point. So there's my answer. I can tell you hear that in the trailer, a little, little moment. Yeah, we really have to. Did you, could you not think of something else?

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a one-page fable asked you to write something. You didn't know what this was going to be. And then the rest is kind of history. My question, yeah, I was going to say my question related to that is so you, you compose something. He does find it inspirational. He says, let's get to work. I'm going to get to work.

When you learned what it was, in fact, going to be how big a story this was going to be I'll give you that bit. So it was a letter. He sent me the letter. It was a very heartfelt fable about what it meant to be a parent. And I was writing a very heartfelt piece about my son. Because in Chris's letter, he was a boy because Chris knows my son very well. It's only when I looked very carefully, and it was typewritten, right?

He originally had written her, and he had whited out the R. Because, of course, he had written it for his daughter. But so I finished it to like 10 o'clock at night and phoneed Chris's house. Emma, his wife, answered, and I said, well, I finished it. Do you want me to send it over? And she said, actually, he's really rather antsy. Can he come over? And, well, sure, absolutely.

You know, we're a walk and roll us. 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. That's still early for us. So he came over and I played it to him. And I said, well, you know, it was this fragile love story for my child. And I said, well, what do you think? He goes, well, I better make the movie now. And I said, what is the movie?

And he started talking about space and science and time travel and space travel and giant black holes, et cetera, et cetera. I said, wait, wait, wait, so this little theme, how is this little theme going to survive that? And he said, no, I now know where the heart of the story is. so we went from there you know we went forward from there and then we got some proper rocket boosts in because if you if you think what the big organ pipes look like

they just look like you know rockets can you not help again like again we talked about John Williams in the specter of that Superman theme but you know the only analogy I can think to interstellar is something like 2001 and obviously what Kubrick did the juxtaposition of classical music with the images there.

Is that something that's even in conversation that you and Chris are acknowledging and talking about? We watched 2001, you know, again. Marveled that it went, well, we don't know how to do that. You know? So I had to do that. But, yeah. it is probably my most classical piece you know i mean it uses all the devices

bach was using so you know nothing wrong with that no definitely so obviously in recent years you know because of both by the way i'm asking you something since you saw the film yeah did you Did you like it in the film? Yes, I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's transcendent. It feels, yeah, it feels like you're in a church. It's like you're, yeah. It's pretty.

It's epic. It's a little epic. Yeah. Your relationship, obviously, you and Chris, there's no love loss considering. You had to kind of bow out and let Ludwig kind of have some fun the last couple of films. I think that's really good, you know. It's like occasionally you just need to refresh

the human palate, you know? No, I mean, if you see, I mean, Chris is in this film, you know, and, you know, we go, we've done too much. We go back too far. You know, the friendship is strong. It has to. You know, but so is my. friendship with Deni, you know. So one of the truly fabulous things, I don't know if it comes

across in the film, is just the playing music, you know, the playfulness of it, you know, is wonderful. And the other part that's wonderful is you're surrounded by really interesting people. And they're your friends. You know, you get to spend your life with really interesting people who are really good at what they do. That's, yeah, I mean, again, the company you keep. I mean, all these great artists, all these great filmmakers, you talk about Ridley, you talk about Chris. Part of the secret sauce is their geniuses, but they surround themselves with geniuses, too,

and they make them look amazing. You obviously have done, we talked about the Batman films. You've done Amazing Spider-Man, too. You came back to the superhero genre with Dark Phoenix. Are you yourself kind of superheroed out? I'm kind of surprised the official MCU has never come calling, or if they have, you've said no. They have, they have. They have. And it was always, timing wasn't great. And really, quite honestly, I mean, I'm looking for other things right now. You know, I mean, look, I've done the trifecta. I've done Batman, Superman, Spider-Man. That's true. And Wonder Woman, right?

Right. Okay. So. Where do you go from there? It's hard to, yeah. I mean, what do you want me to do? Do some of the minor characters? Probably, yes. This is Hans Zimmer, folks. Come on. No, no, but, you know, but you know, and for better or for worse. So, I mean, that was very arrogant on me to say that, but actually, Kevin Feigey said that to me. That's what you're complaining about. What about Star Wars? I mean, obviously, we've talked, we've talked about Mr. John Williams, but like if that opportunity came around to dabble in that

sandbox, is that intriguing at all? No. No. No. No. I think John masterful. I mean, just so masterful has done that. And, you know, I think the Superman thing,

I know it sounds really simple of what I did, because it had to be, because there was no way I could, I mean, that's not true. I can go into that very orchestral territory, but that's not what, what, that's not why you hire me, right? But I think the Star Wars thing, you know, I think Ludwig is doing some really interesting things, you know, but, and how many interesting things do you want to go and, and, how many interesting things do you want to go and

hold onto this you know onto this thing before it falls apart and isn't Star Wars anymore. Right. Because the only way I would see myself doing it is if I could do

if I could reinvent it. Yeah, it'd be radical. Of course. That's what you do. Yeah, that makes sense. And part of it is look, Dune, I never saw the original movie because

when I was a I loved the book. And I made a movie in my head. And I was the first person, Diny Hyatt, which was sort of a coincidence because we were standing there waiting for a cab

and he said, have you ever heard of a book called You'd? And I sort of went, you know, a little insane and with him, because I knew it so well. So that was a good thing. And I tell you the remarkable thing that happened was It was good that we needed to wait this long

Because he was the same way He was a teenager where he read it It was good that we had to wait this long Before making it Because we had the craft You know, we had to learn the craft Of how to make a movie You know

Right, yeah He's talked about Blade Runner 2049 Kind of like he had to kind of go through that trial by fire Yeah, ready for Dune yes absolutely and and but at the same time our spirit our I don't know you know our head was sort of we were teenagers again you know we had the enthusiasm and the and the daringness of a teenager you know the the the recklessness of a teenager while making dune and but the experience and the knowledge of some

who's done a couple of movies. Right. As we're careening towards the end, but I want to ask a couple of random things. What's the feeling you have when you've created what you know in your heart, you're actually very satisfied with a great score and you see the movie

and you know the movie's not that great. I mean, that must have happened in the 100 plus movies that you've composed for where people probably aren't ever going to like enjoy this or see much of this because unfortunately, the movie isn't up to, we don't need to name names, but it happens.

Yes, I sometimes name names, but I shall not at this moment. Just because it's a crap movie doesn't let you off the hook. You still have to write your best music, you know. In a funny way, if the movie is, if they are at the stage where they have realized that the movie is unsolvent, actually something really great happens because you as the composer can do whatever you want because whatever you do is just going to make it a little bit more whatever you know so so it's actually very liberating and there's one other thing that people forget because inevitably it will turn into a failure. And a failure means no more than that nobody has seen it. So in a funny way,

your slate is still quite clean, you know? Nobody, very few people will have seen your pratfalls. Right. What's the greatest fear at this point? Is it waking up one day and just not having any ideas? Like, do you still live in fear of like running out of inspiration? No, I mean, I'll tell you exactly what the greatest fears right now. There's so many ideas, so many projects, so many things going on. I have no idea how to get the, how to,

there's not enough time to actually. I need 28 hours in a day. Let's start there, you know? I mean, I start, things. I start a letter. I get halfway through and then I realize, oh my God, I need to do this other thing. And then that letter sits there, you know,

weeks, you know, and then I come back to it. But, you know, by this point, it's not relevant anymore. So, ideas are, you know, as Chris said, you know, what's, you know,

what's the greatest idea? It's, you know, it's a virus in your head, you know, it's like, It's in there and you're dying to, you know, get it out, you know. Yeah. It happens all the time. I mean, I'm designing the next show at the moment, and it's so radical. You know, I'll see if I can pull it off, you know.

I'll definitely be there. Talk to me briefly just, is F1 the next time I'm going to hear a score of yours on the big screen? Yes. Re-teaming with Joe Kaczynski? Yes. Nearly done, you know, again, too many ideas. A long way all from Days of Thunder. There's no symmetry there, I assume.

This is... No, no, hang on. You know, I'm the guy that doesn't ride, right? I've done Days of Thunder and Rush and now F1. And you know something? The teams, love me like every time i would turn up at a race you know the Mercedes team would win you know and so much so that they said you're going to come to the races because you're our good luck

it was a coincidence that drivers and their cars were very good all right we're going to end with this the happy second fuse profoundly random questions for hans zimmer uh dogs or cats sir which are you oh dogs I mean, I had a big brown Labrador, and I would come home, you know, at like 2 o'clock in the morning, my usual time. And, you know, nobody would be awake other than the lab who would be sitting in front of me because actually he wanted to have some of the food I was eating. But I would, you know, tell him about my day and I have a conversation and, you know, and he was a great listener. The best. Do you collect anything?

What do you collect? That's a dangerous one to. answer. I collect synthesizers. I mean, it's acceptable, given your chosen profession. That's okay. I think I've I think I've surpassed the threshold of acceptable. So, well, you know it at least in your head. You've accepted it. That's the first step towards getting through it. What's the wallpaper on your phone?

my partner very nice what's the lovely very sweet what's the what's the word I usually ask this of actors but it's apropos I think for you

what's the worst note a director has ever given you what's totally unhelpful what's like that's just not going to help the cause I know us doing commercials somebody said it's not sounding green enough as in money as in nature what does that even mean

avocado and in the spirit of happy say I confuse an actor who always makes you happy you see them on screen you're in a better mood immediately oh uh should grow out in his grumpiness i love that same uh a movie that makes you sad always

always makes me sad. Oh, this is weird. This is personal. Amadeus. Amadeus kills me because I grew up with his music, you know, and the stories about his life and et cetera. I mean, it's just an astonishingly great movie. But just the end, you know, the...

Yeah. I mean, oh. It's an all-timer. That's a top time. Having a hard time with that. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm with you. And a food that makes you confuse, sir.

A food that makes me confused. You don't get it. Why do people eat that? American cheese. Well, I bother. I mean, there's so much greater cheese out there. What are we doing here? Absolutely.

Right. This is the correct answer. Well done, sir. I hope I haven't gushed too much. But I'll say this for the record. You've got just enough. Well, I'm going to go overboard on the last minute. I'm just going to say, before the advent of the DVD and rewatching movies,

it was listening to soundtracks like yours, like John Williams, like James Horner, like Ina Morricone, that made me the cinephile that I am. It was my way to relive and fall in love over and over again with cinema. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that and the fact that you're still doing it and evolving and now doing it in this fantastic live events, which I will have to go to one of these days. just thank you for everything and I hope everybody checks out

this is in theaters very soon Hans Zimmer and Friends Diamond in the desert no and remember we are little you know so we have a very limited

engagement you know when they say limited engagement this is for real we're two days or three days you know

I mean so don't wait till the next weekend because the next weekend it's going to be Star Wars it's now or never March 19th

and a couple days after that. Check your local listings. Right. No, thank you, sir. This has been a true honor. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was fun.

And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressure to do this by Josh. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from The League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like, Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude, too, is overrated. It is. Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspool. a podcast where you talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and case you misdums. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone.

From Greece to the Dark Night. We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look. And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of like Ganges and Hess. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast.

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