Quotes

[about his friend, Jerry Goldsmith] His chameleon adaptability was a prerequisite to longevity and success in Hollywood. We used to call him Gorgeous. He was the golden boy, a beautiful presence. His music had a freshness, and he had a freshness.

I work very much in what some would consider old school, in front of the keyboard with pencil and paper. The piano is my favorite tool. Over the decades there has been so much amazing technological change in the music business, but I've been so busy I've never retooled.

[on the musical scoring of films] In the future, I think serious composers will become ever more interested. Changes in technology Eli change aesthetic approaches. More connections between the audio and visual world would also open possibilities that young composers find increasingly intriguing.

The idea of becoming a professional film composer, never mind writing nine Stars Wars' scores over forty years, was not a consciously sought-after goal. It simply happened. All of this has been the result of a beneficent randomness, which often produces the best things in life.

Film requires you to adapt your style to every project that comes along: Home Alone can't be in the same idiom as Saving Private Ryan or Jurassic Park, but perhaps we all have many parts to our characters. Somewhere in all of my film scores there must be some kind of 'me'. But I leave that to others to identify.

About Steven Spielberg: "Well, Steven is a lot of things. He's a director, he's a producer, he's a studio head, he's a writer, he's a philanthropist, he's an educator. One thing he isn't is a man you can say no to."