Justin Hurwitz, who is nominated for two Golden Globes, talks about how the soundtrack came together and if there's life on Broadway.
Composer Justin Hurwitz has no problem talking about the
making of La La Land, which is great
considering that he’ll be doing it all awards season now that the movie musical
had the strongest limited theatrical opening of the year and garnered seven
Golden Globe nominations, setting the course for increasingly likely Academy
Award wins in February.
“I can talk about the movie all day long,” Hurwitz says
happily to ET over the phone, less than a day after the Critics’ Choice Awards,
where La La Land took home eight
awards, including Best Director for Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) and two for the composer.
In a brief conversation with ET, Hurwitz talks about the effect the cast had on the songs’ lyrics and what it was like to see the music
realized on screen.
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ET: You’ve talked quite a bit about the creation of the
film’s music, but I was curious if there was an “a-ha” moment while writing?
Justin Hurwitz: I don't think there was an “a-ha”
moment for the whole thing in general. There were those little moments along
the way, for certain scenes. The biggest relief, and well, I guess “a-ha”
moment, was when I finally came upon the main theme of the movie. That was the
first piece of material that Damien wanted me tackling and it took a very long
time to find it. It's so important for the movie. It's so important emotionally
for the movie. I would send Damien piano demo after piano demo and some of
those were really bad and some of those were really good, but not quite good
enough or not quite right. But when I finally came up with what is now the
theme, Damien flipped for it. I could see immediately that it was the one. That
was about six years ago and it never changed.
The music was written long before the movie was cast. Did
you ever worry about who was cast in the role, like Miles Teller or Ryan
Gosling?
Yeah, the music was written before the casting, but the
lyrics were changing. The lyrics were written after the music for the songs and
the lyrics were still changing toward the end. There were a couple of instances
where the casting actually informed the lyrics, like when Ryan Gosling and Emma
Stone came aboard. The lyrics for the duet they sing up on the hill ("A
Lovely Night") changed quite a bit with their feedback, partly because
they were older than Miles and Emma Watson and that sort of affected the tone
of the lyrics. They had really good ideas for what it should feel like: they
wanted it a little bit more romantic and little less based in insults, which is
what the original lyric was. And it was a great original lyric, it's very
funny. I think Ryan and Emma steered that one a little bit. And then Benj Pasek
and Justin Paul, the lyricists, rewrote it and made it great.
I know you did some shopping around to find the right
lyricists. What was it about Benj and Justin -- the pair co-wrote the music and
lyrics for Broadway’s Dear Evan Hansen -- that you connected with?
Well, they just immediately got what we wanted to do. We had
scheduled a session to hear a lyric they'd written on spec for the movie. They
sang their lyrics for "City of Stars” based on the piano demo I had sent
them and it was a revelation.
Something Damien was looking for in particular was a certain
balance between poetry and literalism and I think they instinctively got that.
There's a certain amount of poetry to "City of Stars" but it's also
specific to the narrative and the story and this movie. That's a tricky balance.
You don't want the songs to be so specific that you can't listen to them
outside of the movie. You don't want people singing about what's right then and
there. That's not what Damien wanted for this musical. They had to be broad
enough that there would be some sort of thematic relevance outside the movie
and that people could potentially listen to it outside the movie and that it
would mean something to them. But it also had to work with the story and the
characters and where it is in the movie. Benj and Justin nailed that from the
very first lyric they wrote.
I read that “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” is your
favorite number, in large part due to Emma’s performance on screen. Were there
any other songs’ onscreen transformations that surprised you?
Yeah, particularly with something like “Audition,” which was
sang live on set, or the “City of Stars” duet, which was also live on set. It's
a new experience for me shooting because you haven't seen it performed that way
and it takes on a whole new life and shape.
There were other songs that were, on a musical level, demoed
and locked in before we shot it. But obviously, you get to the freeway and you
have all these cars and dancers, it comes alive in a new way. I remember before
we even got to the freeway, coming out to the parking lot where the production
offices were, where Damien and the choreographer were rehearsing the number in
the parking lot. I remember getting goosebumps when I saw that. That was the
first physical realization of any of the numbers. And after spending so much
time at my piano and spending so much time orchestrating these mock-ups -- to
see it come alive like that, with so many people contributing to it, that was a
really special moment.
The New York Times wrote that La La Land
makes musicals matter again. I was curious how you felt about the movie musical
genre.
I love musicals. It's one of my favorite genres. Many of my
favorite movies are musicals. I hope more totally original musicals will get
made. If our movie has an effect on the industry, that would be great and
flattering. Just as a fan of musicals and as a consumer, I would just want to
watch new musicals.
Is it too early to talk about La La Land on
Broadway?
I don't know. I'm sure there will be conversations about
that. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. That's something, where I'll
obviously discuss it with Damien and I'll probably seek and value the advice of
one of our producers, Marc Platt, because he's had an amazing career both in
film and on Broadway. We'll talk about it. I'm not sure how I feel about it
yet.
The 74th Golden Globes, hosted Jimmy Fallon, will be handed
out live on Sunday, Jan. 8, starting at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.