Feature Category: Features

Michael Giacchino is an American composer of music for films, television, and video games. In a prolific career, he has provided the music for films including Jurassic World, The Incredibles, Doctor Strange and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and has received and Emmy Award, multiple Grammy Awards, alongside a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar for Up.

In celebration of his 50th birthday, on Friday, October 20th, the Royal Albert Hall is hosting a one-off event, with a concert featuring music and film clips from his most famous works. Michael took some time out from his busy schedule to sit down with Starburst to discuss his career thus far.

STARBURST: It’s day one, you’re sat at your desk, you have a blank screen and a new film commission. What do you do first?

Michael Giacchino: I don’t start at a blank screen. I start with the movie, the knowledge of the story, and in the environment of where I am going to be taken. I am lucky that I often work with directors who have become my friends, so I often know their ideas in advance, and I often think that these ideas marinate and by the time I get the picture to write, I have already been living in this world.

How did you get started as a composer?

I went to film school and was planning on being a director/writer. My first job was in marketing and I ended up at Disney in their marketing department. While working, I started studying composition at Juilliard and then at UCLA when I moved to California. It was the early days of Disney’s Interactive division and I was moved into that department as a producer. I was able to write the music for some of the video games. From there I moved to the same position at Dreamworks where I was asked to write the temp music for a meeting my boss was having with Steven Spielberg for the video game of The Lost World. Steven happened to like it, hired me to write for that game and then for his Medal Of Honor games. I was just doing the best job that I could and fortunately, someone who would end up being a very important part of my career contacted me because he liked my video game music. That person was J.J. Abrams who played Medal Of Honor.  I got an email from him introducing himself and saying that he was developing a new TV show called Alias and was wondering if I would be interested in meeting and talking about the possibility of doing the music. I actually thought it was one of my friends playing a prank, but it wasn’t. We met, and immediately hit it off. I worked on Alias, and then LOST. During that time, J.J. got his first feature directing job, Mission Impossible 3, and I worked with him on that, and so on.

Do you have themes and musical snippets all saved somewhere just for a moment when they might come in handy for a project?

No – I don’t really compile unused music for future use.  I prefer to have the music be born out of the project.

As such a prolific composer, do you instantly know when you’ve hit upon a great theme or piece of music, and is it then a case of matching to right project?

I always write the music after I see the film, not before.

You’ve picked up the composer baton on several recent projects such as Rogue One, Star Trek and Jurassic Park. Is it more daunting or exciting to be presented with the opportunity to incorporate some well-known, and well-loved themes into a new score?

I have been so fortunate because I have worked on so many of the films and TV shows that captured my imagination as a kid. I’ve been able to work with two of the most iconic television themes in history, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible.

For Star Trek, J.J. and I agreed that we wouldn’t use Alexander Courage’s theme until the end credits of the first film, because this film was not about Star Trek as we know it. The crew needed to earn that iconic theme first, and it becomes a bonus at the end for the fans. It worked so well for the first film, we did the same in the second. But getting that main theme right in the first film, Enterprising Young Men, was quite a challenge. I was so caught up in it being a movie about space. It wasn’t until Damon Lindelof, a writer on the film said, just think of it as a story between two friends, it’s not a space film, it’s about two very different men who meet and develop a lifelong friendship. That advice really helped.

For Mission Impossible…I was so nervous. I actually had lunch with Lalo Schifrin when I got the job, who, by the way, wrote the absolute greatest theme ever, to talk about the project. I asked him should I do this, should I do that, do you have any advice? And he just looked up from his salad and said, “just have fun with it.” That made it a whole lot easier!

I always want to pay at least a little homage to the original work. Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams are giants and have created monumental scores for films like Apes and Star Wars.  I feel it is really important to always honour that while creating something entirely new, something that works with the film we are making right now.

In recent years, you’ve moved from action films, to Pixar, and back again very quickly. How easy do you find it to get into the right mindset for each film?

Every film has its own story, its own emotions. It doesn’t matter what the genre, the process is the same. Pixar films have characters and storylines very similar to live action. I watch through a film and see what emotional reaction I have, then try to support the storytelling with my music.

How is it being the first composer to follow the legendary John Williams on Star Wars?

I was incredibly honoured and humbled.

You only had four weeks to complete the Rogue One score – did you have to adapt your way of working given the short time period, or was it a case of “just getting on with it”?

I had been planning a vacation following Dr. Strange, after having finished Book Of Henry, Zootopia and Star Trek Beyond. But this was STAR WARS! And that original trilogy is one of the main reasons I am in the business that I am in today. As a kid, I was inspired not only by the adventures of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, but by John Williams and his fantastic score. I knew back then that I was going to work in film, and here was my chance to be a part of the Star Wars universe. I had to make it work, time crunch or not.  I basically sat down and went to work as I normally do, creating themes for characters. Looking back, I think my adrenaline shot up so quickly, all I was thinking of was getting it done, and getting it done at a level that I would be happy with if I, as a fan, saw it in a theatre. I talked to my brother about it, and he said, “Come on, you’ve been writing this since you were 10 years old.” The magnitude of it didn’t really hit me until the first day of the recording sessions. We were at Fox, and we used the original Star Wars main title as a warm-up, to have some fun and test our mics. When those musicians started playing that music, I thought, “This is absolutely insane that I get to be doing this.” And then I got really scared. But everyone at Lucasfilm was so supportive, and we really ended up having a lot of fun during the sessions.

How was it joining the Marvel Universe with Doctor Strange and did you feel this was specifically the film for you to get involved with?

It was a combination of things. Or course, first and foremost, I have always been intrigued by the Marvel Universe. I used to go down to the local 7-11 convenience store to buy my comics – many of the Marvel Comics.  Second, I remembered Dr. Strange from when I was young, and I liked that he was an unusual, not often seen, character from the Marvel World. I was completely fascinated by the supernatural world the character lived in.  I also loved writing for Benedict Cumberbatch during Star Trek Into Darkness, so that was the perfect storm that I couldn’t pass up.

How involved are you in a project generally, as in do you visit the set or studios often to get a feel for the tone and atmosphere?

If I have the time, I really enjoy visiting the set, but that’s more about my love of the filmmaking process than going there to be inspired for tone or atmosphere. But it is always mind boggling when you are on set to acknowledge the sheer number of people that it takes to make these films. Since I work with many of the same directors over and over, I often have been speaking to them about their script a lot earlier than the usual time a composer would come in on the project. So, these ideas begin marinating in my brain and by the time I see the first cut, I have a good sense of what the story is that the director wants to tell. Then I watch the movie, and see what emotions come up for me, and explore what is happening in these characters minds. I then usually sit down and write a 10-minute suite that will encompass the various themes that were evoked for me. I share it with the director, we sit down and discuss and come to a common ground about where the film should go musically.

You have a penchant for puns in your score titles, “Close Encounters Of The Furred Kind” being one of our favourites. Do these just occur to you during composition?

Yeah, it’s become somewhat of a thing, and it is a group effort. It actually started when I was working on Alias with my music editor, Stephen Davis.  We would have these little contests about who could come up with the best title for the cue.  He won most of the time, because he is really great at it. When I started working on other films with different music editors, they wanted to keep it up. It became a little contest between all of us, and it’s something we continue to this day. Some people love them, and some consider it the lowest of humour.

For the Albert Hall event, how do you go about deciding which pieces to include, and in what order? There will be fan’s favourites, but also some of the best piece are hidden away in the score.

My sister and producer Maria (Giacchino) is shepherding the whole project so that I might have some surprises. But I know that she is trying to have a pretty complete retrospective of my work so far. Obviously due to time constraints we can’t have everything and we have created a couple of premiere pieces specifically for the show. I am going to share some of the conducting duties with my good friend Ludwig Wicki.  In terms of getting those pieces that are hidden in the score—over the last few years, I have been creating full suites that touch on all the important elements of every film, so hopefully you will get to hear and recognize some of those as well.

How exciting is it to have your music played at such an iconic venue, with some pieces performed in front of a live audience for the first time?

We played the Royal Albert Hall in May of 2014, doing two shows of Star Trek and two shows of Star Trek Into Darkness live to picture. It was insane. We had many representatives of the production team in the audience because they were in town filming The Force Awakens. Being in that hall was a surreal experience, you walk through the corridors and see all the legends that have played there. The building is stunning, the ambience and seating is wonderful. There really isn’t any place like it. To be having my 50th Birthday there is a little unbelievable. The last retrospective of my music was back in 2012, and there have been a few more films since then.

Do you have anything special planned you can tell us about or are you keeping things secret until the night?

Some things are secret of course, I do want the element of surprise. A number of my filmmaking friends are joining me, I think the audience will enjoy that. Adam Savage, a good friend and former host of Myth Busters as our MC.

Thank you for your time and we’re looking forward to the concert.

Thank you. I am looking forward to being back in London, one of my favourite places!

Michael Giacchino at 50 – a special concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall – takes place on October 20th. Tickets are available here.

Canadian actress KATHARINE ISABELLE  s a favourite of many a genre fan and STARBURST reader. Having been involved in the entertainment business from an early age, it was with 2000’s GINGER SNAPS where she really made her mark in the world of horror. That film spawned into a trilogy, although Isabelle has also appeared in many a genre movie, such as FREDDY VS. JASON, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS, headlined the stunning AMERICAN MARY, and has more recently had roles in HANNIBAL and SEE NO EVIL 2. We were lucky enough to grab some time with this delightful icon of modern-day horror to discuss her latest film, TORMENT, as well as her experiences in the genre, her dislike of horror films, the reaction to AMERICAN MARY, how her roles have changed over the years, and a whole host more…

STARBURST: With Torment, it seems to touch on various horror subgenres, with parts coming of as like a slasher, parts like a home invasion film, the twisted sense of family, etc. How would you actually describe the film to somebody?

Katharine Isabelle: Oh god, I don’t know. I’m terrible at that. It definitely ticks thriller and terror. Movies, they are what they are. And when you’re producing that amount of fear and tension, you’re hoping that people are feeling it. I guess it falls into all of those categories, so I don’t really know how to describe it other than that.

Genre fans have seen you so much in so many roles over so many years, but this time out you play a mother figure. How was that for you?

It’s definitely a little bit different from what role genre fans are used to seeing me in. The three of us, Robin is just a great kid, so it wasn’t difficult to jump into that role at all. It was difficult to keep up, for all of us, the energy that was needed; to keep that level of terror, that level of tension up for the whole time. That’s hard for everybody. You’re drinking a lot of coke and eating a lot of sugar.

At one point you were seen as teen fodder for creepy killers in horror films, but now you’re playing the mother figure. How has that progression been for you?

I’m a working actor, so I do what comes along and what I like. I’m always drawn to darker, more interesting characters as opposed to the sweet girl next door. I always want my girls to sort of kill everyone and win at the end, regardless of whether she’s a fucked up doctor, a mother, or whatever. You want your girl to win. Playing a mom, it’s not a whole other kettle of fish or anything but it’s definitely… I like to do what I like. Whatever form that takes, it’s hard to describe or plot out. It’s not like I planned my career, it’s most about whatever comes along and I’d like to do. It’s kind of just going with the flow, wherever that takes you and whatever that evolves into. It’s still evolving, so it’s hard to say really.

We spoke to the Soska sisters last year and they mentioned how they were approached several times after that movie to do films which focussed on a sexy surgeon played by Katharine Isabelle. Did you get that from your angle as well, people approaching you to do a film similar to American Mary?

I think any time that you do something that’s like Ginger Snaps or American May, people come out of the woodwork and they want you to do another one that’s similar to that. It’s a ‘what’s successful will be successful again’ type formula. Being an actor in the genre, I float around and it’s definitely good to be wary of doing the same thing over and over again. People are going to get sick of you and stop caring after a while. Within the genre that we’re talking about, definitely there’s a purposeful, mindful thought process to not just say the same things over and over again. I mean, it’s boring anyway. It’d be boring to do another American Mary. It’s been done, it was super fun, then we move on, we grow, we evolve and do different things.

You touched on the Soskas there, and including Tristen Risk in the conversation, you seem to have some good friends in the genre. How is it when you guys get together?

Oh, when we’re together it’s a complete shit-show – it’s hysterical! Get us all together in a room and there’s screaming and laughing hysterically and crying. We’re all great friends. It’s a good time.

You’re seen as a bit of a modern-day horror ‘scream queen’ by many fans. How is it to be so synonymous with the genre?

It’s interesting because that was never a purposeful intention of mine. I just want to do good work that I like. It turns out I’m attracted to the darker stuff, not necessarily the sweet girl next door – and I wouldn’t wanna be, that’d be boring. It just so happens that these interesting characters are more prevalent and popping up in genre stuff. Even playing Margot Verger in Hannibal, that’s a dark fucking show that is in the horror genre. I’m equally drawn to hilarious characters and comedy. Instead of playing women in westerns or whatever, I happened to do a few horror movies that were well received and the characters were generally loved. Horror movies and the horror genre is probably less than a quarter of my entire body of work but when a character reaches out and touches people, that’s the most important thing about what we’re all doing here. If it’s horror, it’s horror – and it’s awesome. I love the characters of Ginger and Mary and Margot that have affected people so strongly. I totally get it; I love those characters too. They are my favourites, that’s why I do them. I’ll continue to do whatever work that I like, regardless of whether it’s in the horror genre or any other genre, I just want to do some shit that I like.

Your career isn’t just about horror or the creepy stuff, but were you a fan of darker films when you were growing up?

No, I don’t watch horror movies. They’re scary and I don’t watch them.

Not even your own horror films?

Oh no, I watch my own and reminisce. No, other horror movies are scary. I’m too easily affected. I’ve already been fully traumatised. I can’t walk through a parking lot at night with heels clicking. I’m like, “Damn, this is how movies that I star in start!” So I don’t really watch horror movies. Sylv is always so disappointed. She’s like, “You remember that time in Audition?” and I’m just, “Nope!” They talk about that stuff and I just have no idea what they’re talking about. I go blank and start talking about ponies and The LEGO Movie.

In fairness, the Soskas are like an encyclopaedia when it comes to horror movies…

They know so much, they’re so hardcore!

On the topic of watching your own films back, are you a harsh critic on your own performances?

I think I used to be, when I was growing up and was younger. I remember watching a 20-minute rough-cut of Ginger Snaps and thinking to myself that this was horrible. I probably locked myself away and cried or something. It’s very different how you become when you’re working and where you’re on set. If in real life someone wanted me to throw a scene in a restaurant, I’d be mortified. Out in public, I’m so shy and apologetic for existing. On set, in character, you go into another almost altered state. To watch it out there, I’ve always wanted to see if it worked out, if what I intended came through. I’m also interested in viewing what the point of the movie is. It’s such a panic – we’re losing time and light and money, it’s a shit-show. Then you come out and it’s all just, “What happened? Did I come across as I intended to?” It’s very sort of haphazard. I can watch stuff now but I wanna go back and do them all over again.

You briefly mentioned Ginger Snaps there. From what you were aware, was that always planned to be a trilogy?

No, it wasn’t until 2 years later, I was at a premiere for some other movie and a fan was like, “Can’t wait for the sequel.” I said, “Yeah, right! I dunno what you’re talking about!” It was successful and it was good, and people wanted to see more of that when it happened.

More recently fans will have seen you in See No Evil 2…

And I was proud of that, too. I was like, “Jesus! How am I going to dry-hump the dead body of WWE wrestling sensation Kane?” There’s some fucking terrible things in that and it’s totally over the top.

How was Glenn Jacobs, aka Kane, with that?

Oh, he was lovely. I apologised to him, like, 300 times that day. I was like, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” He was just, “No, you can just pretend I’m dead.” He’s a really nice guy, this southern gentleman. I was like, “I’m sorry for humping you.”

Do you feel at the moment, with the likes of Soskas, James Wan, Leigh Whannell and fellow Canadians like Lowell Dean and Jason Eisner, that there’s maybe a resurgence in the horror genre?

I guess so. Because I’m not tapped into that whole genre in general, it’s hard for me to say where it was before compared to where it is now. I think definitely in culture in general it’s becoming more mainstream. Like Hannibal, how dark and fucked up it is, that’s part of network television. It’s crazy! I watched American Horror Story, I started watching that the other day. It’s come up in popular culture and is no longer relegated to this dirty side genre. But there’s a face in the world – fear is what’s drawn humanity to do everything forever. I think it’ll always be interesting and valuable to people.

How did you get on with American Horror Story?

I watched the Coven one. I’m reluctant to watch the new one because there’s scary clowns. I really, really, really do not like scary clowns. I watched Coven and I really enjoyed that, I thought that was really good. I think I’m going to skip the scary clowns. That’s me done with that. I already had to fast forward the credits sequence. The opening credits sequence is scary.

From our chat with the Soskas, they were singing your praises as literally the perfect person for them to work with. It sounded almost like a Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck relationship or a Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro dynamic. Do you have any plans to work with the sisters again any time soon?

I would in a heartbeat! Anything they are doing that they need me or call me for, I would do. Absolutely. They’re best friends of mine. I think they’re amazing and it’s been amazing watching them in their journey thus far. I’ll be the Johnny Depp to their Tim Burton any day.

And what else is coming up next for you?

There’s the third season of Hannibal. I’ve just finished a movie called How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town. I’ve got a movie called 88 coming out later this year that’s really, really cool. It’s a girl who witnesses a traumatic event. Christopher Lloyd plays the bad guy – it’s really exciting, he’s doing coke and banging hookers! Sometime this year I’ll be going to Ireland to do a cool post-apocalyptic movie called Origami.

TORMENT is out now on DVD and Blu-ray.