Trust me, if you're working on a $70 million movie and you're the last guy, you feel all that weight on your shoulders.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the immense pressure and responsibility that comes with high-stakes projects.
Hans Zimmer highlights the significant burden that rests on individuals involved in large-scale projects, like a major film. This weight of expectation can be overwhelming, especially if you are the last person in the chain, likely responsible for ensuring everything comes together successfully. It underscores the idea that success often comes with high pressure and accountability.
In practice
Using this quote during a film industry panel discussion about the challenges of movie production.
The thing that hasn't changed, and I don't think will ever change, is that the operative word in music is "play." You have to have a playfulness about it. As the world shifts, it's starting to understand more and more that to have a playfulness about any and everything is actually the way of having a better life, or being more creative, or being more productive.
You always hear these stories of how Hollywood is so merciless on composers and how they all get beaten up. Nobody beats me up as much as I beat myself up. This is what I love doing and I have one life to do it in, and I better do it right. I better do it well.
Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting.
What's the point of getting up in the morning unless you're gonna have an adventure? As the moments of our life are ticking away you have to be aware that it needs to be an adventure
I've spent my life trying to make things simpler. Because I find ultimately that complicated doesn't reach the heart.
The writing gets done away from the keyboard and away from the studio in my head, in solitude. And then I come in and hopefully have something, then I wrestle with sounds and picture all day long. But the ideas usually come from a more obscure place, like a conversation with a director, a still somebody shows you, or whatever.
I just wanted to play tennis. It wasn't a job. It was an ambition. I knew I could make money at it. I was 18 - old enough to think I could do it, young enough not to consider the consequences.
In a person's career, well, if you're process-oriented and not totally outcome-oriented, then you're more likely to be success. I often say 'pursue excellence, ignore success.' Success is a by-product of excellence.
The Olympics meant everything to me. Going through them is like nothing else you will ever experience. For those few weeks, you are in another world. At that point, I couldn't see how there could ever be anything better.
One is too small a number to achieve greatness.
If the world couldn't see your results, would you rather be thought of as the world's greatest investor but in reality have the world's worst record? Or be thought of as the world's worst investor when you were actually the best?
The biggest message I have for young women is, Don't start cutting off branches of your career tree unnecessarily early. Sometimes women say, I know I want to have a family or play in the local symphony, and they start pulling themselves out of their career path. You don't have to take yourself out of the running before you even start.
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