Composer Ludwig Göransson (‘Oppenheimer’) Can Hear the Music

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

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Summary

For over a decade, composer and record producer Ludwig Göransson has created some of the defining music of our time. This week, he sits with Sam to discuss his latest work in Oppenheimer.

At the top, Göransson describes the collaborative process with director Christopher Nolan (6:48), the instrument at the heart of the film (9:30) and its hauntingly beautiful theme (11:06). Then, we walk through Ludwig’s instinctive approach to making music (13:07), his coming of age in Sweden (15:20), and the influence of Metallica and Danny Elfman (18:51).

On the back-half, Ludwig reflects on his early years in Los Angeles (24:56), finding kinship with director Ryan Coogler (27:55) and polymath Donald Glover (34:53), and how he slowly began to understand his voice (38:21). To close, he shares how his process has evolved from Black Panther to Oppenheimer (42:30), the potential impact of AI on the music industry (44:58), and what he hopes for in the years ahead (49:15).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin. This is talk easy.
0:13.0	I'm San Frigoso. Welcome to the show. Today I'm joined by a renowned music producer and composer Ludwig Goranson.
0:46.2	Over the past decade he's won three Grammys, two Emmys, and one Academy Award
0:51.8	for Best Original Score for the film Black Panther, directed by Ryan Kugler.
0:57.0	In fact, he scored all of Kugler's films dating back to Fruitville Station. When he's not working as a composer, he's
1:05.2	producing records and writing hit songs for some of the most beloved musicians today.
1:10.1	Hyam, Rihanna, Adele, and most consistently Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino.
1:19.1	But his latest collaboration might be his most ambitious to date, creating the score for
1:25.0	Christopher Nolan's newest epic, Oppenheimer. The film tells the story of the
1:30.3	complex and controversial American scientist J Robert Oppenheimer as he races against
1:36.7	the clock to develop the atomic bomb.
1:39.8	While each of the performances from a cast that includes Killian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. are Electric.
1:46.0	It's Ludwig's singular composition that I think both pushes the film forward and holds it all together. Nolan himself has called the work deeply
1:55.8	personal and historically expansive, drawing the audience into the emotional
2:01.1	dilemmas of the characters while they each grapple with the vast geopolitical issues at play.
2:08.0	Having seen the film twice now, it's Ludwig's score that has most stayed with me. It's
2:14.5	powerful but not overpowering.
2:16.2	Tender but not sacrin.
2:18.4	If you haven't seen the film, you'll hear some of what I'm talking about in this episode.
2:24.0	We also discuss his musical childhood in Sweden, coming to America in his early 20s,
2:29.7	the building blocks of his decade-long collaborations with Kugler and Glover, respectively, and how his work on Oppenheimer
2:37.4	marks a new chapter in the composer's varied illustrious career.
	...

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