I try to communicate with the musicians the way I communicate with the filmmakers. I'm not going to say to them, can we be a little bit more presto here. Hang on, this should be a bit more exciting, or I try to explain the scene to them, or I try to explain the context the notes are supposed to live in.

The rules are: The more playful we get, the more we can get rid of the rules.

I'm a geek and I'm a nerd, and I can listen into any piece of music. I think, I can usually tell you what orchestra it was, I can usually tell you what hall it was in. I can tell you, obviously who the conductor was, and who the composer was.

You always hear these stories of how Hollywood is so merciless on composers and how they all get beaten up. Nobody beats me up as much as I beat myself up. This is what I love doing and I have one life to do it in, and I better do it right. I better do it well.

I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something.

Inspired music arises from an inspired movie which arises from an inspired script.

You're going to fail a few times, because that is the only time you actually learn something.