Michael Giacchino

“The 'Jonny Quest' theme had a huge influence on me while I was growing up.”

“Without my experiences on the likes of 'Lost' and 'Alias,' I don't know if I would have survived 'Rogue One.'”

“When I was 10, I had a group of friends that I used to love to make movies with, and we made them growing up; we did it all through high school.”

“When artists find other artists that they love to work with, they more than likely will continue to work with them throughout their career.”

“If you listen to a score from beginning to end, you should envision the entire film in your head.”

“I loved writing 'Lost.' It was like a never-ending opera, in a way.”

“There was a time that I did 'Up,' 'Star Trek' and 'Land of the Lost,' and I was working on 'Lost,' at the same time, and that was really hard.”

“I feel like I'll be writing World War 2 music the rest of my life.”

“I like the sounds of real, living, breathing musicians. When a real person plays something, there's a soul. They're giving you their emotions.”

“I think Mozart, with all his impatience in writing, would have loved it. It would have allowed him to write twice as much. He would have loved a Mac. If he'd had a laptop, he would have been unstoppable.”

“We're all inspired by what has come before us, but hope to use the inspiration to create our own. That's the artist's journey. It's a pretty amazing path.”

“You've all seen movies where the music isn't working with the story. And it's either because... the story isn't working itself. Or the composer kinda just wants to write whatever they want to write, not paying attention to the thing.”

“I loved 'Planet of the Apes,' and I loved 'Star Wars,' and I loved 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' and to me, the goal always was to work on something as cool as that.”

“For some reason, as a kid, I felt outwardly embarrassed to say that I liked rock music. I don't know where that came from. For me, it just wasn't cool - orchestral music was cool.”

“As an audience member, everyone I talk to is like, 'I'm so excited to see 'Super 8.' I'm so excited to see it.' And part of that is because of his drive to make sure that it stays hidden until the last minute.”

“Music helps immensely with math skills, and math skills help immensely with music skills.”

“For me, growing-up music was always about telling stories.”

“I always loved movies like 'King Kong' and 'Planet of the Apes,' monster movies, Ray Harryhausen films, all of that stuff. I always loved the music in them, too.”

“My parents loved music, but they weren't musicians. So my musical training as a young kid was limited to piano lessons. I was not the best student; I was awful, never practiced. But I was always interested in just messing around on the piano.”

“I love classic animation, and I especially love classic cartoon music.”