The Talks
Ludwig Göransson: “I’m building a puzzle”
Ludwig, as a film composer, how do you experiment with sound?
My doors are just completely open. I’m always trying to experiment and combine different instruments you haven’t heard together before, different styles of music you haven’t heard together before and different styles of production — for instance, you take something really old and organic like a flute but then you wind it through a modern production element, creating some effects on it that you haven’t heard before, almost like having a combination of the old world and the new world.
You did that for Black Panther’s Killmonger theme, right? Apparently you used a trap beat over a Senegalese fula flute.
Yeah, and that’s what I love about film scores and film music, because you experiment to find new ways and can have completely different experiences. Black Panther was a journey for me. I had to physically go to places I’d never been before like to Senegal in order to research traditional African music and instruments and meet people and discover instrumentalists that I’d never met before, like Baaba Maal. And then there’s also more of a mental journey.
“There is a thing called discipline. If you really want to do it, you’ve got to put in the work. Work, work, work, work. Practice, practice, practice, practice.”
“It's just so boring listening to false modesty. I've worked for many, many years so I'm really enjoying that my hard work has paid off… I think you should know your worth!”
“My work and my life are the same thing to me. I don’t have a life on one side and work on the other side. My entire life has been my work. I don’t have a family, I am by myself, I have made very strict choices.”
“I have a tattoo that goes around my right wrist that looks like barbed wire, but it’s actually ANDAND linked together, which stands for “A New Dawn, A New Day.” It’s about waking up every day knowing that you have a chance to start again and forgive and be forgiven and to let go of yesterday.”
“I don’t want to be good. I want to be the best. Even in failing that, you’ll hit a higher mark than if you never tried.”
“One of the things that I’m striving for is an authenticity, to do things which feel natural and make choices which feel authentic and real. I think in a way you sort of can’t help sounding like yourself. You can’t help but put yourself into your work.”
“I think it’s so good to try new things and open the window and let some fresh air in and try to eliminate any regrets.”
“Right now we are 40 people working in Osteria Francescana, for 28 or 30 covers a night. So, it’s totally the opposite of a business. You cannot survive with that. But we believe in those kinds of dreams and so I keep investing, and reinvesting, and reinvesting.”
“I have the freedom to express myself. And it doesn’t matter if somebody’s going to pay me or pat me on the back for it. I chose to do things that I embrace, that I feel passionate about for whatever reason and I create my freedom around that.”
“I give my best performances when I am almost snapping. It is like tuning a violin. You want that note from a string so you tune it until it almost breaks – but then you get that note. It is dangerous, but it is also sublime.”
“To be an artist, you must start with a considerable drive; in my case it was a fierce madness, a wildness. I think that’s the mark of an artist, actually, that they are rebellious, unruly… And I was one of them myself.”
“I wouldn’t ever compromise on the essential, on the essence of a project, the ideas or the themes.”
“One of the reasons why I have this much success is because I’m hard on myself. Until now, I never really saw myself as a talented chef! I don’t take the easy way. I put in the time. From the age of 17 until 23, I didn’t take any vacations, I had almost no days off.”
“In your life there’s a moment when the door opens and you need to walk through the door then. You can’t say then, “Well, I’ll go through it two years from now. I’ll do it, I’ll save up some money...” Because by then the door will be closed.”
“Art is something about everyday life. Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”
“I have a moral standard of my own. I know the difference between right and wrong, I know what I feel comfortable with. And if you live up to your own moral standard, you’re going to have a more comfortable life.”
“Belief is very important. It’s like when you are riding a horse and you want it to go to the left, you look to the left first and then pull the horse’s head. As a human being it is the same thing: wherever you put your attention is probably where you are going to find yourself.”
“I think you always have to have risk when you’re creating a piece of art. Without that, I don’t understand really what the drive is to succeed. It’s the risk factor that, weirdly, keeps you feeling safe. It keeps you on your toes.”
“I think all actors have to be dreamers. I think every citizen of every kind of society has to dream. If you stop dreaming, it’s over.”
“It’s important to say no – especially earlier in your career – because life is short and you want to be proud of things that you have done, not ashamed of them.”
“Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”
“I believe that you’re a result of the choices that you make. Each action has a reaction. Somehow it’s just all connected and I wouldn’t change any of it.”
“The more experience you have, the more time you’ve spent on this earth, the more regrets you accumulate. It’s normal. You can’t do everything right, nobody’s perfect. But if you think too much about that, you’re not here. You have to make some efforts to stay open-minded.”
“There is something quite beautiful with the art thing, that you can only hold it back for so long and then you have to do it.”
“If you have to defend something that you like, it makes you to like it even more. My parents hated the comic strips, they hated rock ‘n’ roll, and when they found out what movies I was going to they also were against that. So everything I loved I had to defend.”
“I think the key to having a successful career is to find the thing you do well and do it again and again for the rest of your life. But I’m interested in expanding my language as an artist and as a composer. And I try to expand it with every project.”
“I would say that a strong work ethic is a vital ingredient for success. That’s something I was born with, I’m convinced of it; it was nothing that I acquired. If you take on anything, you try to do it your best.”
“I have to free myself from my creation, I have to send it off, I have to give it up. And that is also the beauty, that you pass on something, that you let something live, that you allow it to confront. To get in contact with others.”
“I think that when you’re a creator, you set out to create the perfect thing, but the idea of reaching that kind of creative nirvana — that’s something that you should never quite reach.”
“Follow the things you love! Follow the things that you are intensely passionate about. Follow the things that you like to do, which often to others might seem unimportant.”
“Having come out as a gay man and the self-confidence that gives you is huge! It affects every aspect of your life, including my work. People like honesty. They respect honesty. And my film career took off once I came out.”
“I think the final circle in being an artist is connecting, making some conversation to the world you’re in. I think if you have that feeling of why you need to do something, you’ll find a way. And I think that really takes you forward! If you’re feeling that, maybe other people need that to.”
“You have to open yourself. Just as in life you have to be open to other people, to other perspectives — it’s the same thing when you write. That’s what religion’s about, that’s what literature’s about, it’s what life’s about: the stories that you build.”
“Failure is just something you have to go through on your own. Nothing can prepare you for it, just like a broken heart. I thought about folding, but I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to quit.”
“I am tireless, I’m relatively fearless. It’s hard to hear “no” all the time. It can be tough; you have to have the stomach for it.”
“The truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. And that’s it! May it be ugly, may it be beautiful, may it be perverse, may it be all of those things. That’s it, I can’t lie; it is what it is, unabashed, naked. I expect that of myself, that’s for sure.”
“I used to tease the other kids because I played better than them. Then my father said, ‘Come here. Don’t do this with the kids, because God gave you the gift to play football. You didn’t do anything. You have to respect people, be a good person. From now on, you must be this example.’”
“You’re always looking for a second chance. You’re always looking to do a little bit better than you did the last time. And you hope that the readers will stay with you.”
“My work is integrated completely into my life and vice-versa – I’ve been working since I was sixteen and my work is my life and my life is my work. It made me who I am.”
“If I knew that tomorrow a meteorite would destroy our planet, I would start shooting a new film today.”
Pedro Almodóvar: “Keep it on the rails”
Mr. Almodovar, which part of the filmmaking process interests you the most?
The part during the writing when things appear from the emptiness. You need to write a lot and you need to write every day, but you can get hooked on that experience. The exciting thing for me I always part from reality right when I start writing, like the first page or the first two pages. If I am interested enough, then it’s like a novel, and I keep on writing to discover what happens next. It’s like a big adventure that if you want to know and if I want to know what happens after these two pages, I need to write them. you discover and write at the same time, and this is an experience that I am looking for all the time.
Is the rest of the process just as exciting?
I mean, after that and this is a big period where you start shooting, anything can change because when you write, even about things that you know, the script is something abstract: perhaps I don’t describe this kind of table, this kind of place, the glass, the light, the vistas, there are many things that are not put in the lines. Then immediately it’s like reality; the reality of shooting, in which everything is real, material, physical — and it’s a kind of shock.
