All language subtitles for 14 - Character - Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring

And you?

You can get to know the characters
in the film in two ways.

And one I think is the wrong way.

When I read the script,

I make up, you know,

obviously I read the writer's words
and the character does come across, but

I'm actually

I am suddenly becoming the actor.

I'm suddenly becoming the character.

And so

usually my interpretation is wrong.

you know, having Sherlock

Holmes or Jack Sparrow or

any of us, The Lion King, any,
any of the characters

I have worked with constantly
have a German accent.

Might be inappropriate to begin with.

So the way the, the way
I get to sneak up on it is partly talking

to the director, who sometimes has a has
a better sense of who the character is

even than the actor himself.

I mean,

because

by the time the character of the actor
inhabits the character,

if you talk with great actors,
they are so inside

that character
that they can't, that they can't describe,

describe it in an objective way anymore.

so again, I mean,
I usually come back to this

very clumsy method,

which is asking the director,
you know, tell me the story.

Does this character have a past,
you know, did some tragedy

befall him in his youth
or something like this?

I mean, the what drives the character,
you know,

what is what is hidden.

You know what's hidden from us
that we don't know about the character

that makes him behave in a certain way,
that sets that whole thing into motion.

an interesting

characters do have a backstory,
and sometimes you have to go

and make one up, you know, for yourself,
you know?

I remember sitting with

Ron Howard and Peter Morgan on,

when we were doing rush,
you know, and the James Hunt character.

I mean, James Hunt, obviously,
he existed in real life.

and this is shot.

The camera travels past a cage with two
in England.

They're called batteries.

You know, these little canaries,
and James Hunt, actually,

after he quit racing, he started a.

Battery farm.

You know,
he was breeding these these birds.

And there's a
there's a weird thing about these birds

that you always have to have two
in a cage, one is by themselves.

They die from loneliness.

You always have to have a pair.

And I just thought that was that.

James Hunt, who

was so

gregarious and so social,
but in a, in a in a weird way,

he was so isolated from the world,
you know, that, that

the thing that he was drawn to
and the thing that he truly loved

were these, these birds
that couldn't be in isolation.

That was such a symbol of, companionship,
you know?

So I kept writing about, you know,
what else can I get out of?

we're going to hear another tune
about the budgies.

You know, but that's what I was.

That's why I kept writing about
that was stuff my way

into it.

All that happens in the movie,

usually you're just in a snapshot,
you know?

You know,
it's usually a fully formed human being

unless it's some original
story or it's, you know, like

a biographical story.

It starts off with a baby
and all that stuff up.

You're in this in this moment in time

where something happens
that sets all sorts of things into motion,

you know,
and you have conflict and you have,

so why is the character
dealing with the conflict or whatever

obstacles are being put into his way
in that way?

And the other part of it is,
why is the character going on this journey

in the first place, you know, is it
because he needs to rob the bank

because you know that
that you know he needs and you know

he needs to get an operation
for his puppy dog at home?

this is because he needs to
get the girl or what is it?

You know, what is the thing?

So that the the make their
the mechanics of why

the, you know, why this character goes on,
whatever the journey is.

And I'm not talking about a road movie
necessarily,

but then what is it

that's inherent in that specific character

that makes him react in the way
he's react?

And so that must be something in the past.

What brought him to this point?

What's the part we don't see and we don't

we aren't given the information
clearly either.

You know, very often you don't you don't.

The you don't get the Indianapolis scene
and jaws and every movie

where the guy's talking about the,
you know,

the the experience from his past
that made him into this weird,

quirky character.

You don't necessarily get that one, but

it'd be nice

if the music was informed
by something like that

so that there was some,

that it felt purposeful, that it felt

you knew what you were talking about.

Lion King is like a tricky subject,
because you know that

it's,

Didn't want to do the movie.

Didn't, you know, I didn't want,
you know, I didn't want to do an animated

movie.

didn't know how to write for fussy
animals.

didn't want to do Broadway, you know?

So I was just fabricating.

No, no, no, I don't want to do this.

And then out of one reason or the other,
I did get into it.

And it became

incredibly personal because,
my father died

when I was six years old, and suddenly
I'm presented with the story of

a child losing his father.

you know, it's I.

I never had to deal with it.
I never had to talk about it.

Never had to deal with it. Just.

I mean, especially in the self-driving
culture where we have a, you know,

we don't have a motion for the.

But, so,

so I poured a lot of stuff into that movie

that that was actually really about me.

And at the end of the day,
I suppose everything

I write is a version of me.

I have no idea.

I, you know, really honestly,
I have no idea how

the character feels, truly feels.

You know, I can guess
that I can put myself into a situation

and I can imagine it.

And I suppose that's where

this thing comes in.

You know,
you're supposed to write from imagination.

You know, I,

you you try to figure out some sort

of an emotional truth
which is not based on fact.

And I can figure out something.

I can figure out something in the
that might not be,

but the but the writer was figuring out.

But I can figure out my corner
of the experience that I can

that resonates within me
and that I can make something out of.