Words by Amon Warmann

Has any composer had a more prolific last 12 months than Michael Giacchino?

Not only has he scored multiple blockbuster behemoths – including The Batman and Thor: Love and Thunder – he has also directed one, helming Marvel Studios’ first ‘Special Presentation’ movie Werewolf By Night. The reason that each project has managed to sound both distinct and memorable is why Giacchino is widely regarded as one of the best artists working today, and why his envious list of credits just keeps growing.

When I hop on a call with Giacchino – him in his LA home with his cat Walter, me on my couch in London silently asking myself why I don’t have a furry companion to call my own – it soon becomes clear that it’s the composer’s kid-like enthusiasm for his work that has powered him to this stage in his career. His ridiculous recent output makes for fun topics of conversation and leads to substantive answers. But our chat also takes in his partnership with The Batman director Matt Reeves, crediting his collaborators, nostalgia, and much more.

I look at your 2022 output, and I see The Batman, Lightyear, Thor: Love and Thunder, Jurassic World: Dominion, and Werewolf By Night. A question comes to mind: When do you sleep? 

[Laughs] It's been very difficult the last year. I'm very organised, and luckily a lot of the people that I work with are people that I've known for a long time. The different studios were very good at helping me organise the scoring aspect of everything. I scored six movies this past year, and then I directed Werewolf By Night as well. So it was crazy. When I was shooting in Atlanta on Werewolf, on the weekends I would be working on Thor: Love and Thunder. It was nuts. It's not something I would recommend to anybody. But COVID sort of screwed up all of the schedules. Then when everyone was ready to get back, it just all happened at once. And they were not small movies. They were giant movies.

I don't work all night long. There's a certain point of the day when I'm just done, and I go and have a normal life after that. I go to dinner with friends, all of those things. So I keep some semblance of normalcy attached to the chaos because it feels like that's the only way it's going to keep me sane and allow me to continue doing what I'm doing. If I just live in the work, that's not going to work. That's a nightmare.

If you have invented the secret of splitting yourself into two, I need you to tell me that. I could really use that.

I'll let you know those secrets in the text window. I can't let that out to everyone. [Laughs]

You're now at the stage of your career when you can have a year like this. At what point did you sense that things started to change for you to put you on the path that led you here?

When I look back at the last 20 years, it's filled with so many movies that if you told me that I was going to be involved with films when I was a kid, my head would have exploded. So that's amazing to me, to think that I've been able to just continue what I was doing as a kid into what I was doing as an adult — and also feeling like I haven't properly grown up yet. And with some luck, hopefully, I never will. I only will work on things that I know I feel some sort of kinship with. I could never take on a project that I didn't feel connected to. So that means there are a lot more no’s than there are yes’s. I tend to stick with the people that I really love to work with.

I've had so much fun working with people like J.J. Abrams over the years, Matt Reeves and Brad Bird. These are amazing storytellers who allow me to just be me, and who are just themselves as well. I know there are people out there that can just take one job and be like, alright, what job is next I'll take it whatever it is… I envy that. But I can't do that. It has to be something I really am attached to and care about for me to jump on board.

Part of the reason I love your theme for The Batman is that it’s simple enough to remember and complex enough that you can play with it and present it in a multitude of different ways. Did you have to whittle it down to what it became, or did it more or less come out fully formed?

It came out fully formed. It was written two years before they were shooting, and I wrote it based on some conversations Matt and I had had and from reading the script. I was so inspired by what he wanted to do with the character that I felt this need to just write something early. You don't always have the time to do that. But I just had an idea, and I wanted to follow through with it. I recorded it with an orchestra and gave it to Matt, and Matt had that theme before the screen test with Robert Pattinson happened. So he was able to bring that in and play it for the screen test. Matt was so detailed in what he felt this character was going through, and I wanted to create a piece of music that if you listened to it with headphones on, you would really understand what it was to be Batman. And it didn't only mean the darker sides of Batman it also meant the sadness he carries with him in his life and the difficulties he has. Emotionally, I wanted you to be able to understand everything about him. Not just Batman, but Bruce Wayne as well. To treat it not as a separate split down the centre character, but as one whole being.

When you start to add Batman’s theme – dun, dun-dun, dun – it's very simple. But in my head, I imagined just standing on some building and looking out at the city and just feeling what's happening in front of you. I imagined that that's just what it felt like to be him at that moment. And then it has the more intimate moments as well – his struggle to connect to his family, who he is as a person, and what he is doing with his life. All of that is equally important. To have it early was really a gift. We were able to play it on the set for the actors. Everyone was on board with what the tone of this film was going to be, including everyone in marketing. We started using it in all the trailers. Normally, that's not how it all works out.

The Batman marks the fifth time you’ve worked with Matt Reeves. Do you remember when you first realised you work really well together? 

I first met Matt around the time of Cloverfield. I would go hang out on set, I would watch him film. He had known J.J. for many years, and J.J. was like ‘oh, you're going to love Matt, you have to meet Matt.’ So Matt and I would just see each other at Bad Robot, or I'd go to the set and visit and we started becoming friends at that point. When I was thinking about Cloverfield, I was like, oh, man, this would be a fun movie to score because I love monster movies and I remember J.J. saying ‘oh, yeah, there's no music in this movie.’ I was like, what do you mean?

He goes, ‘it's a found footage thing and so there wouldn't really be a score.’ I thought about it, and I had an idea. Why don't I write an End Credit suite? If this movie did have music, this is what the music would be, J.J. agreed. So I wrote the whole ‘Roar! Overture.’ It was an ode to monster movies that I loved, and it just seemed to fit perfectly for this. And that's how Matt and I really connected — it was through that piece of music.

Matt will never say, ‘make sure the trombones are in this’, or whatever. He might have an idea of something sonically, but generally, the discussions are about feelings and emotions. That's what they should be about. As we got our language together, there would be certain things where I would use timpani, and he would be like, ‘remember when you used the timpani on x, let’s use that here, I love that sound.’ The majority of our communication was about the story, how the characters were feeling and what was going on in there. That's the way I like to approach it. I need to understand what's happening emotionally for these characters, so I can put the audience in their mindset.

For Spider-Man: No Way Home, you combined your Spidey theme with your Doctor Strange theme – how much of a fun challenge was that?

That was amazing. Through everything else going on at the time I was not able to be a part of Doctor Strange 2. So part of me was bummed out about that because I love that character so much and I loved working on the first film with Scott Derrickson. Then when I saw what was happening with No Way Home I was like, “Oh, I get to score a Doctor Strange movie, after all, this is great!” Because he was such a big part of that, I was able to bring that in. I don't like creating a theme for something and then just abandoning it wholesale.

That one big chase through all that crazy multiverse stuff is just a huge orchestral battle between Spider-Man thematics and Dr. Strange dramatics, and it was just so fun to do. But then on top of that, the other great thing about that was being able to figure out when, how to use Tobey's [Maguire] theme, and how to use Andrew’s [Garfield] theme, as well. When you're doing these things, people have a tendency to just plaster the old themes everywhere, and it's just fan service. I'm not really interested in fan service. I always want whatever I'm doing to be truthful to the story we're telling. It's about finding the right moments to actually bring those themes out, and not just then use them wholesale. You can't forget what the story is; it is really Peter's story, so it needs always to stay surrounded by him. But it was so great to use those themes in those moments. This is the legacy of Spider-Man, and we have all three of them together. To weave that all into one thing was a real joy.

As Spider-Man has matured, so too has his theme. I love how you reflect that evolution in the music from movie to movie. 

It was a slow evolution from a 3-4 metre to a 4-4 metre to suggest his growth. The treatment of the melody became a little more heroic as he got older and got more experience. In the beginning, it's very simple. But the idea was to evolve it over time so that by the end, it really felt like he grew into the hero that he was destined to be. To be able to do three of something is rare these days, but I've been so lucky. I was able to do it on Star Trek, I was able to do it with Spider-Man, and I got to do two Planet of the Apes. It's nice because it keeps it grounded in the same world. 

Switching gears again to Thor: Love and Thunder. ‘Mama’s Got a Brand New Hammer’ is one of my favourite tracks of the year.

I wrote that very early on in the process. I remember playing it for Taika Waititi when he came over to my studio. I played it for him for the first time, and while we were playing it he just jumped out of his seat when that guitar solo came in. He was air guitaring through the whole thing and he was just like “yes, yes, yes!” having so much fun.

You collaborated with Nami Melumad on Thor: Love and Thunder and An American Pickle. She’s since gone on to do great work in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and other projects. What was your experience working with her like and how important is it for you and others to use your platforms to help up-and-comers?

It's important for us to do that. A lot of times what happens is that people will use other people to help them get their work done, but then not credit them properly. For me, if they did the work, they get the credit. I don't care if that means I share the screen with them. I always have these conversations with my agent about how the truth is important. So whatever the truth is, that's what we do on the credits. Because if they can't get that credit on screen, then there's almost no way for them to then build their own career, right? You have to be willing to do that. It's not going to hurt anybody. If you share credit with somebody, nobody is going to think any less of me if I do that. So I'm always a little weary-eyed about that when that doesn't happen. 

Nami is so talented, and one of the best orchestral writers I've seen in a long time. She's amazing with melody, harmony, and the structure of the orchestra. She just knows what she's doing there. To work with her on An American Pickle was such a fun experience. She is such a nerd in the best way, and her love of it comes through. That's what I'm always looking for when I'm wanting to work with somebody – that love of writing film scores. It is a very different job than just writing music for the concert hall or something like that. If you're writing a film score, you're there as part of a whole group of people trying to make a thing.

On Thor, that schedule got really messed up because of COVID. So that was now being pushed on top of shooting Werewolf By Night. I was like, I'm going to need someone to help me on this and Nami was the perfect choice. I had written about half of it at that point, but it was going to be very hard for me to do the other half. So she jumped in, grabbed my themes, and just went for it. She did such a great job. I love working with her.

Let’s talk about Werewolf By Night. What is composer Michael Giacchino’s assessment of director Michael Giacchino? 

It's a hassle. He's a know-it-all. He wouldn't take any notes from me. He was just like, no, let me do my thing [Laughs]. It was an interesting thing. That was actually something I was concerned about – this idea of doing both and not having the checks and balances that you get when you have a director-composer relationship. I found that person in my editor, Jeff Ford. He and I had done five movies together already, and he was the one that I was able to put things in front of and say ‘what do you think?’ He would be very honest with feedback because he's such a great storyteller himself. He's incredible. Having him there helped keep me honest.

You’ve worked on a number of highly anticipated movies, which means you get to see a lot of scenes before they’ve added the music. When a scene like that really excites you, does the music come quickly or is it actually more daunting because you want the music to match the quality of what you see onscreen? 

I always have fun doing it. When I get a big scene that I have to do, it's like getting handed a puzzle you're being asked, what's the best way to tell this story with music? It's a challenge, and I never shy away from it. I welcome it. I like the feeling that it's not going to be easy. It's going to be hard to figure out. But those are fun things to do for me. I enjoy that process. So there's not a lot of fear involved. It's more like rolling up my sleeves and going, okay, what can we do with this? As a composer, and as a filmmaker, everything is based on your best guess as to what would work. That's up and down the line when you’re making movies and in any artistic venture. If you're a painter, every stroke is your best guess at that moment. If you're a writer, every word you type is your best guess at that moment. As a composer, every note I write is my best guess. You have to trust yourself, and if you sit there second-guessing things over and over, you're never going to get the work done.

These things have deadlines. That film has to come out and be on a screen at some point because they made an advertisement and said it was going to be so you better get your work done in time for that to happen. The only way to do that is to divorce yourself from the fear of it, and just do the best work you can and jump in. Luckily, the things I choose to do are things that I love. So it's always fun. I do wonder sometimes if my guesses are what the audience wants. You never know. But if you can live with that uncertainty, then I feel like you can survive this business and enjoy the process as well.

Some composers like to switch it up in really big ways so that it keeps their audience guessing and others are so prolific that fans will probably know pretty quickly whether they have scored something or not. If someone listens to something and says “oh, that’s a Giacchino score,” how does that make you feel?

I try to mix it up with everything. You're not going to be able to use the music from Up and put it in Spider-Man. I try to create something that really only works best with that particular movie. I'm sure there are certain things you can interchange if you want to. But for me, whether it's in a melody or instrumentation or in the setup of the orchestra, I always try to find some unique thing that marries that music to that movie eternally. 

But I'm sure that there are certain aspects to what I do that thread through everything. To a certain degree, you can listen to my music and go, ‘oh, that's Michael.’ And I’m okay with that. That means that's part of me in there. You can look at Van Gogh's work and go, ‘oh my God, there's a Van Gogh.’ But there are some things that he does which are so different that you're like, ‘I don't know, maybe it could be his.’ I'm certainly not comparing myself to somebody as amazing as him. But when you look at the greats, there's always something unique. So even though John Williams may have similar orchestration styles throughout all of his projects, thematically he is doing very different things within a template.

I was always inspired by that. I love how everything had a different theme. Raiders of the Lost Ark feel different from Star Wars or The Witches of Eastwick, a brilliant score which is one of my favourites of his. That's a score that has bigger moments, but also it's very intimate and beautiful too. So if you look hard enough, I think you can see the artists really trying to make things unique for a particular project. And the ones that don't? There are people that approach this from an artistic standpoint, and people that approach this from a business standpoint, and I think you can feel the difference between the two.

Do you ever feel nostalgic for any of your past work? 

I don't. I like seeing what’s next. What came before is there, and will always be there and it was created through all the various struggles that you go through to create something. I don't want to do that again. Having said that, Lost, to me, is one of the things that I always feel the most attached to. I love that show so much. I love the freedom I had in writing music for it. So that's why I will do a Lost concert every once in a while. It was a special experience.

Werewolf By Night is available to stream on Disney+, and Michael's OST can be heard here.

The Batman is available now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download.