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It\u2019s over 24 years since Ridley Scott first gave the world\u00a0Gladiator<\/em>, one of the most popular films of all time. The music for that 2000 film, starring Russell Crowe as a Roman general who found himself out of favour, hurled into slavery and having to, quite literally, fight for his life, was by Hans Zimmer<\/a>.<\/p> Flash forward to 2024 and Scott\u2019s long-awaited sequel,\u00a0Gladiator II<\/em>, is finally on the big screen. This new story features at least a couple of familiar characters, and a little of Zimmer\u2019s iconic music. The lion\u2019s share of the music for\u00a0Gladiator II<\/em>\u00a0is by Hollywood-based British composer Harry Gregson-Williams. He cut his teeth working with Hans Zimmer in the 1990s, going on to form an early creative partnership with fellow composer John Powell. Together they scored animated classics like\u00a0Antz<\/em>,\u00a0Chicken Run<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Shrek<\/em>. Gregson-Williams soon went solo, and has become a go-to composer for big-budget, big-action films over the years. Ridley Scott has called on the composer a number of times over the years, with the pair working together on\u00a0Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>,\u00a0The Martian, Prometheus<\/em>,\u00a0House of Gucci<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Last Duel<\/em>, among other things.<\/p> For\u00a0Gladiator II<\/em>, Gregson-Williams works with an enourmous palette of sounds, instruments, players and singers, drawn together from across the globe. I sat down with him to discuss what it takes to deliver a film score of this size, and the ingredients he came up with to help tell this epic story.<\/p> Did you feel any pressure in taking on the sequel to what is an iconic film?<\/strong><\/p> I was suffering from quite a lot of anxiety to begin with, considering who did the first film and my relationship to him. I called Hans to tell him I was doing it and told him how anxious I was, but he told me to just enjoy myself and make him proud, so he was very encouraging.\u00a0<\/p> What\u2019s the starting point for you on a film of this scale?<\/strong><\/p> I think the first thing I did with this movie, and have done with other epic things, like\u00a0Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>, is to try and lay out my sonic template. That helps and inspires me to go onto the next stage which is themes. I lay out a wishlist of instruments I could have at my fingertips, that I could put into my samplers in my studio, but which I could then have played by real people.\u00a0<\/p> You incorporate a few unusual, ancient instruments in the score. How did you go about making those choices?<\/strong><\/p> There were some things that came very quickly to me, and you might think are pretty obvious places to go, things like big blown sea shells, instruments that might have been played at that time. Judging from pictures and literature, one can see that there were some brassy instruments being played, some sort of horn-type instruments. So I searched on the internet and came across this chap, Abraham Cupeiro, who was in a field in Spain as far as I could work out. He\u2019s a multi-instrumentalist and builder of \u2018ancient\u2019 instruments that might have been played. So I contacted him and said, \u2018if I were to show up in your field with some recording equipment, would you be up for playing on this thing?\u2019\u00a0<\/p> I didn\u2019t really know what I was going to find, but I found him in his barn studio and there were some beautiful instruments that he had made, especially the Carnyx, which is a very florid-looking instrument that looks as if it could double as a weapon, actually. It\u2019s a long, straight tube with a kind of serpent\u2019s head on top, and it made a pretty foul sound, I have to say, just in its rawness. But Abraham ran me through the instruments and showed me what they could do. There\u2019s no point writing anything too chromatic for a Carnyx I can tell you.<\/p> And you\u2019ve brought back\u00a0Gladiator<\/em>\u2019s original vocalist, Lisa Gerrard\u2026<\/strong><\/p> There were various vocalists who I felt I wanted to work with on the score; I didn\u2019t sample them, I just listed them and asked them if they\u2019d be interested. Among them was, of course, Lisa Gerrard and I knew I wanted to use her in a couple of spots. Ridley had also mentioned that he might want to use \u2018Now We Are Free\u2019 at the very end as the End Title, but that wasn\u2019t really my concern, as that was an exisisting song. My challenge was how I would incorporate Lisa into my score in an original way, but still give the audience a warm, fuzzy feeling of recogniton.<\/p> Were there any non-negotiables from Ridley about what music or themes you might need to bring in from Hans Zimmer\u2019s first score? Or was it up to you?<\/strong><\/p> Not at all; in fact he called me and asked whether I thought we needed to tap into the first score, or Hans\u2019s theme. Together we decided that there were two spots in the theme; an early spot when Lucius arrives in a cell complex and finds Macrinus\u2019s shield and sword and takes them into himself, and then at the very end of the movie. Ridley was keen that we should not be distracted by that, but the inherent DNA of the spiritual essence of the first movie should be carried over into the score, without thematic material needing to be carried over. One of the first things I wrote, actually, away from the picture, was as a result of listening to Hans\u2019s main theme from\u00a0Gladiator<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p> I was seeing what I liked about it and whether I could find anything unusual about it, and what I liked was this descending seventh, so I thought what if I were to make that descending seventh a part of a fresh, new theme for Lucius? By the time we get to the end of the movie where Lucius\u00a0becomes<\/em>\u00a0Maximus, Lucius\u2019s theme becomes Maximus\u2019s theme from the first movie. So that was a concept and you\u2019ll have to judge whether I got that right, but I really liked that idea. You can hear that in the track \u2018Strength and Honour\u2019. That was great fun to do and it was the first thing I sent to Ridley and he hopped up and down, and when Ridley hops up and down you know he likes it.<\/p> Does Ridley Scott have a musical sensibility as a director?<\/strong><\/p> He absolutely knows the power of music in his movies, and funnily enough I think I\u2019ve written more music for his scores, in terms of total volume. Like in\u00a0Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>\u00a0I think it was three hours of music; the one that ended up in theatres was less than three hours, but not the version that I scored. I\u2019ve also written the\u00a0least<\/em>\u00a0for Ridley;\u00a0House of Gucci<\/em>, that was about six notes of score I think! He had a lot of \u2018needle drops\u2019 there, or songs of the day. But then with something like\u00a0Gladiator II<\/em>\u00a0I think there\u2019s about 100 minutes of score, and only four or five minutes of that are direct thematic links to the first movie.\u00a0<\/p> Tell us about some of the other elements in your score\u2026 who else is playing?<\/strong><\/p> Together with these ancient flutes and wotnot of Abraham was able to play, I managed to sneak in a viol consort called Fretwork, who I first used on\u00a0Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>. They\u2019re amazing, playing very difficult instruments.\u00a0Kingdom of Heaven<\/em>\u00a0was set during The Crusades and the viol wasn\u2019t invented. The violin, viola and cello are much later, but there\u2019s something about a viol consort that gives you the feeling that it must be much more ancient than it actually is. I also used The Bach Choir, as I have done on several movies. They\u2019re like an ocean liner of a choir \u2013 you have to give them about ten minutes\u2019 notice if you want them to slow down or speed up! They\u2019re brilliantly directed by Richard Hill, and I\u2019ve loved using them. The gravitas of 80-100 people, and their enthusiasm is unequalled.\u00a0<\/p> There are some other solo vocalists, too?<\/strong><\/p> I was also able to use Grace Davidson again, she\u2019s an outstanding soprano<\/a>; I used her on\u00a0The Last Duel<\/em>, also for Ridley. She has a beautiful voice; just put her with a single microphone in the middle of Abbey Road Studio 1 and it\u2019s amazing.\u00a0<\/p> There is one other vocalist I\u2019d love to point out, and you\u2019re going to be hard pushed to hear him in the film, because we chose, in the final analysis, not to use his vocal too much in the body of the film, but you\u2019ll hear him quite a lot in the end of the film. I was looking for a very unusual female voice and I was actually pointed toward this chap Lior Attar who was, on the face of it, an Australian singer-songwriter. I wasn\u2019t sure I needed that on\u00a0Gladiator II<\/em>, but my friend had just been to a concert of his in Australia and said he had performed one piece\u00a0falsetto<\/em>\u00a0and in hebrew. I thought that sounded interesting. I had used a countertenor<\/a> before \u2013 Iestyn Davies, who is outstanding, so I investigated Lior. I had this emotional, muted string theme for Lucilla, the mother of Lucius, but I felt I wanted a vocal over it. So I got in touch with Lior and sent him my music and he sent back some exquisite, very unusual lower motifs above my track. I was able to edit those and, in some places, detune them to fit the music with a little delay and a little reverb, and I just absolutely loved it. I was so happy with it and I sent it to Ridley; he adored it, but said he thought it might be pushing the emotions too much to have it over Lucilla. He liked what I\u2019d written originally, but said if I like the vocal version I should make sure it goes into the End Credits. So you\u2019ll hear it there.\u00a0<\/p> These sorts of things are trade-offs and Ridley will be really direct and tell me, \u2018It\u2019s great, but\u2026\u2019 He\u2019s very encouraging, and I\u2019ve worked with some directors who don\u2019t come in with, \u2018great, but..\u2019 they come in with the \u2018but\u2019 straight away. Working with Ridley is pretty special and I count myself very fortunate to have done this.<\/p> When you are visualising those more unusual instruments in the score, are you just dealing in sounds or timbres and waiting to hear what the performer can do?<\/strong><\/p> In some ways. For instance, for Denzel Washington\u2019s character, Macronus; looking at him, reading the script and seeing the first cut of the movie, this guy is plotting and scheming, and we\u2019re not quite sure if we like or trust him. We decided not to give him a conventional, long theme; he weaves his way in and out of the movie in quite a slippery way, and Ridley and I discussed that. I mentioned the electric string instruments earlier, the electric cello and the electric baritone violin, so I know these two players very well and know what they can do. So I wrote this motif which can\u2019t make up its mind if it\u2019s major or minor; it\u2019s kind of an open fifth coming to a diminished fifth (or augmented fourth), so it\u2019s a \u00be note pattern that\u2019s wavering between major and minor and I thought that would describe this character quite well. I also knew that I wanted it to be played in a slippery, slidey way. So if I\u2019m imagining some of these colours, I\u2019ll go as far as I can with imagining how to direct them to do that.\u00a0<\/p>