“F1” wasn’t Hans Zimmer’s first time around the racetrack. The famed composer, who created the iconic scores that define “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Dark Knight,” “Dune” and many more, has a history with racing movies that predates Joseph Kosinski’s latest hit. Back in 1990, less than a decade into Zimmer’s career, he composed the music for Tony Scott’s “Days of Thunder,” starring Tom Cruise as a NASCAR driver. More than 20 years later, Zimmer tackled “Rush,” the Chris Hemsworth Formula One movie directed by Ron Howard. (The composer joked that he counts 1993’s “Cool Runnings” as a third racing movie, though that film features bobsleds rather than race cars.)
So when Zimmer approached “F1,” he intended to make something different. Mainly, he wanted to feel like a kid again. “The one thing I was really watching out for was not to go too dark, because I have a tendency to go really dark,” he said, laughing. “I think they should name a color chart after me: Zimmer Black. It was just fun, doing something that was sort of masculine and technical. I got to drag out all the synthesizers and be a teenager again, play with that stuff and make loud noises and make everything a little bit too fast.”
Raised in Germany, which was turned on to Formula One far before it became popular in the United States, Zimmer has long been a fan of the sport. He “grew up in a household that stank of gasoline” with a “race-car nut” of a father who took the family to the tracks on holidays. Though Zimmer admitted to being a NASCAR newbie when he scored “Days of Thunder,” his upbringing made “Rush” and “F1” feel like home.
This childhood connection freed Zimmer up to get playful with the “F1” score, creating something more high-energy and rave-like than many of his moodier soundtracks, without losing the intensity and scope that characterizes his music. Zimmer noted that “F1” is his first score to include a disco beat. (“I’m just gonna do it,” he said, hyping himself up before promising to “apologize for it later.”) He strove to avoid his “typical Sturm und Drang Germanness” to match the energy Kosinski and his crew poured into the racing sequences.
“The F1 teams are teams, and they’re working really, really closely together, an extraordinary sort of ballet of working together—they’re getting the tires off, they’re getting the tires back on, getting out of the gate. It’s not dissimilar to working with people you’ve done many films with before. So there wasn’t a lot of discussion about what it’s going to sound like. It’s going to sound like the way Hans wants it to sound. We live in times where it’s important for people, if they go to the cinema, let’s put a smile on their face. Let’s make it exciting for them, you know?
“This sounds really stupid, but I work really hard at finding the right tempos for things,” Zimmer added. “Most film music is just a little bit too slow for a race car. Most scores seem to still be done for horses. This wasn’t about horses.”
This story first ran in the Below-the-Line issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
