‘Joker’ Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir on the Magic of the Unsaid and That Stunning Final Scene [Interview]

A great comic book villain isn’t living up to his or her potential without a proper musical theme, and in the case of Joker, he gets one courtesy of composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. Her score for Joker is chillingly good and up there with the best of the genre, with an intensity matching and complimenting Joaquin Pheonix‘s performance.

Again, the Emmy-winning composer behind Chernobyl elicits intense feelings of horror and uneasiness, although she laughs when people – including myself – tell her that her music has a horror quality to it.


“It’s definitely very common that my music is perceived as darker than what I am feeling myself,” she told us, laughing. In her view, her music is more reflective than horrific.

Prior to Joker, Guðnadóttir has produced several albums of her own (which you should listen to on Spotify), performed cello on The Revenant and several other films all movie nerds know, and collaborated frequently with the deeply missed Johan Johansson (Arrival).

After playing cello on Sicario, years later she was composing the music for its sequel, Day of Soldado. Now, she’s scored her first big comic book movie, and she told us all about her experience, her collaboration with director Todd Phillips‘, and the movie’s stunning final piece, “Call Me Joker.”

I read you were composing music before filming even began. Is that common for you?

It’s definitely my preferred way of working, but no, you really don’t always get to come in so early. No, it’s definitely atypical for most projects [Laughs].

So how’d the script and your conversations with Todd Phillips influence your choices before filming?

Basically, Todd called me and told me he was started to work on the film and asked if I was interested in reading the script, and of course, I was. After reading it, he said, “Does it inspire you to make some music based on your feeling of the script?” I was really inspired by reading it and had a strong reaction to how he was telling the story, so I was definitely very excited to start working right away. He didn’t really have much dialogue about the direction he had in mind or what sort of pacing or music he was looking for; he was curious to see how I experienced the story, musically. I sent him those early themes and demos, and he was just really happy I experienced the...

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