Alexandre Desplat

“Musicals are made of several climaxes that keep growing and growing; when you think it's over, it still continues growing up in plateaus.”

“That's the main lesson I've learned from working in the theater: respect the dramaturgy. I don't want to overwhelm everything with music.”

“I guess the passion I have for cinema is as strong as the one that I have for music. And I've always tried to be a character in the film, not just a composer that throws his music to the film. That's the main element that connects me with directors.”

“I've loved Japanese culture for a long, long time, from doing martial arts, to the block prints, to the music. It's a country that I love, and a culture that I love.”

“I don't know if I would write an opera, maybe because of the words. But yes, I would be really excited to do it. I would certainly write a ballet or... I've done a lot of stage before.”

“I've been very lucky early on to be surrounded when I was a child by music from various countries. My parents would listen to a lot of music coming from other universes.”

“I always try to approach a film from the point of view of the director.”

“When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.”

“I always say that to compose is to think. Playing is good, it's useful, but it's how your intellect puts the ideas together that will bring hands to write or to play. So, it's really a combination of many things; hearing sounds, hearing layers of counterpoints, of chords.”

“I started piano like my sisters. After one year or two, I didn't like it anymore. Then, because I like trumpet, I played the cornet. When you are 7, you can't play trumpet - you play cornet. And something didn't go well. The teacher was too hard. Too rough. Suddenly, there was this instrument, the flute, that I could immediately play.”

“When Wes has a new a project, you know that it's going to be something as different as the previous was from the previous one. Each time, he tries to take you to a country, or a land that is unknown for you and for him, and reinvent this land. That's what he did with 'Darjeeling,' with 'Mr. Fox,' with 'Moonrise Kingdom.'”

“French horn can be very epic, and at the same time, very dark and moving.”

“As a child brought up in Paris, I dreamed of America, that lost world my parents had left behind - it was in my genes. Plus, American music has always been close to my own aesthetic, because of the mix of symphonic music with jazz.”

“My training in music has been very eclectic - as first a flute player from classical chamber music to jazz, Greek, Brazilian and African music to contemporary concert music.”

“It's not easy to write an understated score over a loud one.”

“Godzilla' took two months because it required a two-hour-plus score. 'Imitation Game' was three weeks.”

“Because I work so much, people think that I have a team writing for me, but that's not why I chose to write music for films. I chose to write music because I like to write music. So every single note that comes out of my studio is written by me, and I wouldn't be able to do two movies at the same time.”

“Certainly 'Zero Dark Thirty' is not for children!”

“My education as a film composer, you can't not - if you like the orchestra like I do, if you are a symphonist like I am - you can't not listen to John Williams' work.”

“In my early teens, I started collecting soundtrack albums.”