It is a rare privilege to be able to sit down with composer John Williams and discuss his latest project. I was honored that he agreed to talk about his 42-year history with the Star Wars franchise and especially the long-awaited finale, The Rise of Skywalker, which opens this week. In this piece for Variety — believed to be the composer’s only print interview for the new film — Williams talks not only about the movie but about how it all came about back in 1976. Director J.J. Abrams chimes in with some thoughtful historical perspective. The print version was truncated; the online version, which you can read here, contains considerably more information of interest to every Star Wars fan. A few weeks ago, I discussed his latest Grammy nominations, which now bring his total to 71 (including 24 wins)!
Tag Archives: J.J. Abrams
Michael Giacchino, profiled in Variety
I’ve written a number of pieces about Giacchino over the years but this was one of my favorites. Another in Variety‘s series of “Billion Dollar Composer” sections, it offered a chance to place his career in a bigger context; the main story recounts his own background and sprinkles in quotes from directors J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird (and adds 10 favorite career moments as chosen by the composer). There are sidebars about scoring video games and theme-park rides, and a really fun piece in which frequent collaborators Abrams, Matt Reeves and Damon Lindelof talk about his contributions to their films and TV shows. Incidentally, here is a 2009 Variety story focused specifically on his music for Lost and my 2011 visit to the scoring stage for Giacchino’s Super 8 (when Steven Spielberg happened to show up).
A big summer for Giacchino
The summer of 2009 was a big one for composer Michael Giacchino: He had already done Up (which would later win him an Academy Award) and Star Trek and he was still doing TV’s Lost. This was a profile for the L.A. Times. And here’s Michael and me some years later at the Hollywood Bowl.
Giacchino does “Mission: Impossible”
Another fun story for The New York Times: Hanging out at the Sony scoring stage while Michael Giacchino records his score for Mission: Impossible 3. J.J. Abrams and original Mission composer Lalo Schifrin also talked to me for the story.