104 Quotes by Alexandre Desplat

I remember my sisters, they loved a movie called 'The Naked Island.' And the flute was actually playing the main theme. A Japanese movie. A beautiful movie from 1961. I remember hearing this music with a flute many, many times a day at home.

I have no favorite museum, but it could be the National Gallery in London; it could be the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Every city has a great museum.

In my early teens, I started collecting soundtrack albums.

It's not unusual to have only three weeks to score a picture. And that's three weeks from signing on to finishing the last recording session. That's how I did 'The Queen' and, more recently, it's how I did 'The Imitation Game.'

Some films that I love, I love them also because of the music. 'Vertigo,' for example, is a movie where the music is doing 70 percent of the job.

Berlin was the first, the very first to give me an award. I am eternally grateful to them. It sits on my desk - the Silver Bear. All the others are stored away. It's the only one I look at. It watches me while I work.

French horn can be very epic, and at the same time, very dark and moving.

Composing is to think. It is to have your mind trying to find what is the best sound that the movie is going for: the best melody, the best texture, the best structure and dramaturgic arc for the film. Then you discuss that with the director. He's the leader. He's the one showing you the path to follow to find the soul of the film.

Well I never play back my music, just so you know, it's there sitting in my drawers and what I remember is that, what I can say is that there are steps, you know, moments in my life where I know that one score was a new chapter. I can say that 'Read My Lips,' by Jacques Audiard, 'Sur Mes Levres' was a chapter.