Quotes by Alexandre Desplat

It's most difficult to score a comedy. Where are the limits? When does music become gimmicky or stupidly funny?

It's not easy to write an understated score over a loud one.

When I was 15, I was not living with my parents anymore. They were on an island in the Caribbean and I was back in Paris, where I lived with my sisters between 15 and 19.

You do movies because you love movies and you write music because you love writing music, and sometimes there's this magic combination.

There are some moments in your life and in your career when you meet a movie and the director that suddenly just turns you to another dimension.

I'm being offered great movies by great directors and that's what I love, that's what I've dreamed to do, and that's what I do all day long. So I have to do it.

When a theme is beautiful, it's a pleasure to rearrange it or to interweave it with your own music.

Mozart for me is the No. 1 composer. His music is not just joy or sadness. It's deep emotion with a touch of lightness, which is the most difficult thing to do.

My training in music has been very eclectic - as first a flute player from classical chamber music to jazz, Greek, Brazilian and African music to contemporary concert music.

My parents had a lot of movie soundtracks that they brought back from the States. So very early on I heard film music at home.