Shadan Larki interviews composer Siddartha Khosla about creating a modern. pop-inspired score that echos the empathy and romance of the Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine-starring drama, The Idea of You.
Shadan Larki: The Idea of You is packed with songs. How was scoring for a very music-heavy film different from your typical process?
Siddhartha Khosla: It’s not that much different. Certain parts of the film are now covered musically, so I don’t have to touch them. In terms of finding a thematic thread for the film, it doesn’t change much. I’m still trying to write themes based on the script and the characters I see.
The only time the songs in the film have an impact on [the score] is if one of my themes turns into an original song, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, okay, we’ve been teasing this theme the whole time, and now it’s a song.’
In that sense, the score and songs need to work hand in hand. For this particular film, you do want the song and the score to feel that they exist in the same world. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’d have to be super genre-specific about it, but the songs are modern pop songs, right? So, the score can be a modern-ish score. That’s the throughline between the score and the songs. If I did a classical film score, that would have just orchestra and nothing else. It felt more old-timey, and it would feel weird against the songs that August Moon was performing. My score was synth-y and pop-y, and it had a bit more of a modern edge.
SL: At what point did you enter into the process? Were the songs already written?
SK: The songs were already written when I came in. My job was to now be the film score.
The songs didn’t play into [my process] at all. It was a completely separate idea. The song and the score don’t bleed into each other. There’s maybe one point in the film where I have a piece of score that goes over an August Moon performance, and they’re performing. And I just had to make sure that they blended into each other seamlessly. The songs are written by Savan Kotecha, who did a nice job.
SL: Tell me about your instrumentations. You mentioned the synths, but then there are also times when the music is more melancholic and romantic as we move through Solène and Hayes’ relationship.
SK: Yeah, the core of the score was a very synth-forward score. This amazing singer, Kotomi, sang on the score. You hear female voices in the score that reverb out, creating an ambiance and atmosphere. There was also a live orchestra on the score. We added a live orchestra to the score just to widen it all at the end. So, it was a mix of classic but modern in that sense.
SL: How did your ideas for the score shift as your work on The Idea of You progressed?
SK: Yeah, that always is part of the process. What you write at first time for a certain scene may not be right for that scene, but it could be right for a later scene, and you go through variations.
But there was an arc to the score. As the story unfolded, there were moments when the score got super tense. There’s also a warmth to the score. The main idea [of the score] was that it felt like longing. I wanted it to feel like longing, whatever that meant.
SL: It’s so interesting that you mentioned longing because there’s also a note of hopefulness that runs through the score.
SK: Yeah, it feels hopeful, too, for sure.
SL: The Idea of You stands out amongst your work it’s music-heavy like I mentioned, and feels lighter in tone, too.
SK: Yeah. I mean, I think it just had a very specific perspective. It was more stylish. The synths make it feel a little cooler and interesting, and stylish. It was a more stylized score. The score is all about a feeling, you know.
Sometimes, the combination of those notes and the sounds you’re using creates a vibe. It’s a vibe score. It’s a feeling. I think that’s what this was. You know, this one was like, I wasn’t scoring. I was scoring to the picture, but I wasn’t scoring too tightly to the picture. I was always scoring to the underbelly of this world that they were in, the feeling of the world, the vibe of it all.
SL: Have you gone online to see the reaction? People are going crazy for this movie, and you’re getting many mentions.
SK: Oh, really? I didn’t know I was getting mentioned. I know that there are a lot of great reviews out there, and people are saying great things about the film, but I didn’t know that I was getting mentioned.
SL: Your score is being played a lot with the other songs. People are loving it.
SK: Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, I’ll check it out. That’s good to know.
SL: Let’s talk a little bit about your TV work. Tell me about kind of coming back into Only Murders in the Building. Then you have Elsbeth—doing a spinoff is interesting because you have this pre-existing thing that you’re expanding upon. How do you do it all?
SK: I’m constantly working. I’m busy like hell.
But I also have a great team of people who help me, composers who will work with me sometimes, and great musicians. So, it’s a team effort all around to make all of it happen from a logistical standpoint.
But I feel like the thing that I have a good sense of is the tone for things. That’s, maybe, the thing I do best, I think, is find the tone of something.
Elsbeth had this quirky, fish-out-of-water tone. Only Murders, as you know, is somewhere between comedy and murder and melancholy. It’s all those things. I like to play in that world of not knowing if something is supposed to be funny.
You know, The Idea of You is not a rom-com. It’s not at all. It’s a character study. It’s a drama. It’s an emotional drama. It’s a sexy, emotional drama is what The Idea of You is.
SL: It’s so interesting you mentioned that because as I was listening to your answer, I was thinking about how all of your projects have an emotional core. Your scores always match and elevate that. I’m assuming that’s something you are actively looking for, but how do you tap into that?
SK: I think that’s what I’m always mindful of, “What is the emotional center of these characters, what is that, and what does that sound like.’
Once I find that, I will find Solène’s theme. Her theme is what you see permeating through the whole thing. It’s pretty clear that a lot of it is coming from her perspective. This woman who’s in a position she never imagined she’d find herself in. We also want to respect her position. We don’t want to judge it because she’s not doing anything wrong. We live in this world where if the roles were reversed, men would be high-fiving men who are having affairs with younger women, but the second it gets reversed, and it’s the woman having the affairs, the older woman having an affair with the younger man, our society judges that differently, unfortunately.
So, I thought it was very important for me to acknowledge her sensitivity, emotion, trauma, and the sort of numbness she begins to feel when she’s doing what she’s doing. It was important for the score to acknowledge that her emotions are real and that she should be able to feel them. And try to create a score that also helps sell the fact that the lesson in this is that we should not be judging her for any of this. And I think that’s important. When I found that emotional center, that cue, these themes that you’ll hear for her, it’s almost like it’s giving her the freedom to be who she wants to be in these moments.
And I think the score also helps sell that. It helps push her into the sexual euphoria she feels when she’s with him. There’s the tension she feels. She feels something euphoric and emotional. And the score is doing all those things.
SL: How does the score represent Hayes and his musical journey?
SK: Well, in his case, creating Solène’s theme sort of became their theme throughout the film. It’s sort of like. To me, it almost made it feel like he could feel things, too. You can look at it from his perspective; people of his celebrity are made to feel like their emotions and relationships aren’t real sometimes. They’re like, ‘Oh because you’re a celebrity, you feel like you can go hook up with an older woman.’ It’s not real, ‘you’re still a kid in a band. You don’t know what you’re doing.’ That sort of thing. But he’s like, ‘No, but I do.’ And that’s his struggle too of being like, ‘No, I feel something for this woman.’ He’s teased because he played ‘Closer’ for her at the concert.
He’s not doing what he’s doing with Solène’s for any other reason besides that he deeply cares for her. And I think bringing that thematic score gave credence to her emotions if he was also was colored with that same score, it meant we were also acknowledging that he has real emotions and shouldn’t be judged for having those feelings either.
SL: Earlier we were discussing vibes, what do you think a score set to your life and work would sound like?
SK: What would it sound like? Quirky, probably.
SL: And what about the whole creative genius thing you’ve got going on? [Laughs].
SK: I don’t know; some sort of signature melody running through it. I’m always thinking in terms of melody, so something that was hummable.
SL: And what are you working on right now?
SK: Well. The Idea of You just came out, which is exciting. I have a new Nicole Kidman film called A Family Affair. We’re still early days, but I’m going to be working on Michael Showalter’s next film as well, which he’s shooting now.
With TV, I have a new Dan Fogelman series, Paradise City, with Sterling K. Brown that I’m excited about. Along with Only Murders in the Building, of course.
