Alexandre Desplat

“Some directors can become concerned when it comes to music, because it's the end of the process and they're tired. They're worried that the music will intrude or waste something, that a composer will overwhelm the story.”

“It's not unusual to have only three weeks to score a picture. And that's three weeks from signing on to finishing the last recording session. That's how I did 'The Queen' and, more recently, it's how I did 'The Imitation Game.'”

“In a time when directors did not fear composers with a strong voice, Morricone wrote scores like operas or symphonies, with passion, scope, bravura and intelligence.”

“It's most difficult to score a comedy. Where are the limits? When does music become gimmicky or stupidly funny?”

“It's not about what's a good or bad score at the Oscars, rather what's exposed to the ears more.”

“Some films that I love, I love them also because of the music. 'Vertigo,' for example, is a movie where the music is doing 70 percent of the job.”

“I lived in the Caribbean when I was a teenager, so I learned about Salsa and Cha-Cha and all these Latin Afro-Cuban music like Gillespie and Duke Ellington, also bridged with Jazz. But my mother is Greek, and so I've also listened a lot to Greek music. And through the years to Balcanic music to Arabic music because my father loved music from Egypt.”

“I can't watch a movie where the actors are great and the photography sucks.”

“For me, comic scores always have to have some melancholy in the background.”

“Without fear you can't explore or push yourself beyond what you've done.”

“It was quite frightening to be asked to write the music of a Western because there are so many things that you can refer to that can be cliche, and that could really poison your mind, from Morricone, to Bernstein, to Neil Young. So much music has been written for Westerns, that you wonder how you're going to find a new or different idea.”

“I saw the finished version of 'The French Dispatch' quite a while ago, and it's just amazing. It's so incredibly strong and different... the way that Wes is expanding his talents to another dimension with each film is just wow.”

“My parents had a lot of movie soundtracks that they brought back from the States. So very early on I heard film music at home.”

“When I was 15, I was not living with my parents anymore. They were on an island in the Caribbean and I was back in Paris, where I lived with my sisters between 15 and 19.”

“Even when he transposes Roald Dahl's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox,' he injects so much of his own personality and his own world that it becomes a Wes Anderson story, and you forget that Roald Dahl is behind the story. That's the proof of great directors to be able to digest and recreate sometimes a classic.”

“I've always loved mixing Middle Eastern instruments into a classical orchestra.”

“Music has to deal with silence. Music has to deal with time.”

“On 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' I must insist that the sounds of the instrumentation are crucial to reflect what the movie should convey in terms of energy and emotion. It's not just the melody or the tune.”

“I'm scared each time I start a movie, believe me. There's always a moment of panic when you're not sure if you're going to be able to meet the deadline.”

“I've always been a film lover - that's why I've always wanted to write music for films.”