Gustavo Santaolalla

“I grew up listening to everything. You know, from Argentinean folk music, tango, jazz, rock, just everything.”

“I have a very strong identity that connects me to Argentina and to Latin America, but at the same time, I have a deep connection to the music from the United States and music from Europe, too.”

“The fact that I do so many things, it really nurtures me.”

“It's a deliberate choice. I am a fervent supporter of the idea that you don't have to have wall-to-wall music in good films.”

“Film is something I've always loved since I was very young. In fact, I actually wanted to study to be a filmmaker when I was younger.”

“With bad movies, I have this image in my head of the director and the editor in the editing room watching a scene that is not happening, looking at each other and saying, 'Put some music in there.'”

“My parents were very musical in the sense that they were, you know, music lovers and avid buyers of records, but none of them actually play an instrument.”

“One of the things that was a blessing for me is my parents were music lovers. Neither of my parents played an instrument, but they were avid record buyers. And I grew up at every age listening to all kinds of music.”

“My first band was an Argentinian folk group when I was 10. When I was 12 I had my electric guitar, and by the time I was 13, the Beatles came into the scene, and that was over. So I have a mixture of all these traditions, and I think that's who I am, a mixture of everything.”

“I love to get involved with projects that take me out of my comfort zone. I try to do things that are not necessarily what I'm used to. I always wanted to do a big animation movie and stick to the codes that this genre sometimes implies.”

“In the film work, I love to work mainly from the script and from talking to the directors, so a lot of the music, big portions of the scores that I've made, have been composed before the movies were even shot.”

“I love playing instruments that I don't know how to play or am not familiar with. I like the idea of danger and innocence that comes from it. As an artist, I feel I should be able to do something with anything I get my hands on. The music becomes minimalist because of my limited knowledge.”

“I think my mom always wanted to play the guitar, and somehow she projected that to me. So I started learning to play guitar when I was five years old, but actually I'd never managed to get the academic side of it. So even up to today, I don't know how to read or write music.”