“When you walk into a room and it’s pink – what does that sound like?”
That was the question presented to composer John Powell, who is partly responsible for the music in Universal’s blockbuster adaptation of “Wicked.” You can watch a new featurette about his score below. Yes, he is wearing a T-shirt that says “My Dog Thinks I’m Cool.” And yes, that is amazing.
Powell, whose previous work includes “The Bourne Identity,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” admits in the video that he never saw the original stage version of “Wicked.” “I asked if this was a problem,” he recounts in the featurette. “But we all agreed that maybe it wasn’t. As I started to write new things, I absorbed all of [original composer] Stephen [Schwartz]’s material into my muscles. It’s very much a cinematic version of his language.”
Director Jon M. Chu further shared that Powell didn’t want to watch the movie with any music at all. “That helps him wrap his mind around what the movie can be without music, so he can build on that and help enhance those things,” he adds.
Among other things, the composer was tasked with creating “the sound of pink.” “Jon kept saying, ‘You walk into a room and it’s pink. What does it sound like?’” Powell said. “Getting that right was quite hard.”
Learn more about the mixture of old and new, a cue that Powell came up with that is reprised with a startling emotional complex and much more in the featurette.
“Wicked,” which just won a Golden Globe and is poised as one of the big contenders for Oscars later this year, is currently in theaters and available on digital. Powell will return for the second part of the story, “Wicked: For Good,” out Nov. 25.
