Foundation Interview: Ramin Djawadi

Composer Ramin Djawadi doesn't just hear music in his head; he visualizes it as well. That ability to "see" sounds in his mind's eye, known as synesthesia, has allowed him to create evocative melodies for a long list of film and television projects, including Game of Thrones and its prequel House of the Dragon, as well as Fallout, 3 Body Problem, Westworld and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, among many others.

Game of Thrones was primed to be a massive success from its very first episode in 2011, aided by a theme song that managed to be both momentous and catchy. Djawadi explains that the theme embodies the epic journey the show will take viewers on: "The whole show was based on backstabbing and lying and cheating. You don’t know who you can trust. I wanted to establish that with the main title immediately — before you settle into a key, there is this slight turn into a different key, and then it brings you back — it doesn’t settle down for you just yet."

Born in Germany, Djawadi graduated from Boston’s Berklee College of Music and started working at Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions soon after. His film work includes scores for Iron Man, Pacific Rim, A Wrinkle in Time and many more, and he has also scored video games. He has been nominated for an Emmy seven times, and he won for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score) twice, in 2018 and 2019, for Game of Thrones. In 2017, he embarked on the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, an arena tour of highlights from the series’ musical score. The tour traveled across North America and Europe, with Djawadi conducting a 60-piece orchestra and choir.

Djawadi was interviewed in September 2023 by Adrienne Faillace, producer for The Interviews: An Oral History of Television, a program of the Television Academy Foundation. The interview was a coproduction with the Film Music Foundation, and the following is an edited excerpt of the conversation. The entire interview can be screened at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.

How old were you when you started playing an instrument?

I was 4 years old. As the story goes, there was a movie on TV, and after it was over, I walked up to the piano and played back the theme. My parents said, "Well, maybe we should get this kid some lessons."  started on the organ. I was so little that I couldn’t even reach the pedal, so I had to play standing up.

What do you think you liked about it?

There was something about being able to express your emotions with music. I had lessons, but I pick things up by ear. Even just pop songs on the radio, I would sit down and try to play them back, or I would just sit there and improvise. I enjoyed how you can express yourself with music.

Growing up, were you thinking about a career in music?

As a teenager, I knew I wanted to be a musician or play in a band and then do film music. That's when I really started to practice and work hard. There was a time when my dad almost had me convinced to become a doctor like him. And then I convinced my parents to let me go into music.

You went to Berklee College of Music? 

Correct. As a kid, I wanted to go into music, and I also always wanted to live in the States. I discovered Berklee College of Music and went there for a five-week program over the summer. I absolutely loved it. Then once I finished high school, I wound up going to Berklee.

What did you concentrate in?

I was a dual major — film music and guitar performance. At that point, I was still very much set on playing in bands and even doing session work. But I always thought eventually I wanted to get into film music.

What brought you out to Los Angeles? 

That was pure coincidence. My dad used to take me to a guitar store in Cologne, about 45 minutes away from where I grew up in Duisburg. We became really good friends with the owner. The year after I graduated college I went back to Germany, and he asked me, "What do you want to do?" And I said, “Well, I’m playing in a band, I’m working, but eventually I want to do film music and go to Los Angeles." And he said, "I know somebody that knows somebody that knows Hans Zimmer." Two weeks later I was on a plane to Los Angeles to start at Remote Control [Productions] as an intern.

What did that entail? 

Working 24 hours was the main job. It was a little bit of everything — everything but writing music. It was very technical. When I walked into Hans's studio, my jaw dropped, because he had so much equipment. He's known as always pushing technology to the limits. I think if they had set me down at the keyboard and said, "Okay, write a piece of music," I wouldn't have been able to, because I didn't know what all the buttons did. As an intern, and then an assistant, I had to make sure that all that equipment was working. I had to learn about all of it. I had to be there in the morning before everybody and leave last at night. It was a ton of work, but a ton of fun. A great learning experience.

How long were you an assistant before you got to write some music?

It was about a three-year gradual transition period. The person that I actually worked for was another German composer named Klaus Badelt. With him, I was able to start helping on arrangements. He would write his pieces, and I would be allowed to do the percussion programming. From there I learned more and more about the art of arranging and sequencing on the computer. And then it went to, "Here’s a piano map. Can you fill this out with more elaborate orchestration?" Then, "Take the love theme and write a piece to picture." He would talk me through how to write it, and then I would write the piece. I became familiar with the process of writing to picture and utilizing all the tools.

What do you consider your big break?

Pirates of the Caribbean [The Curse of the Black Pearl] was probably my big break. There was very little time to write the score. Hans and Klaus were working on the project; there were multiple arrangers involved. And there was one scene that was pretty tricky — the scene with Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom fighting in the blacksmith shop. One night at like 11, they said, “What are we gonna do with the scene?” I raised my hand and said, "Can I have a go?" I was never very pushy with anything. I believe in hard work, and I would just stay in the background and do my work. But somehow that night I said, "Can I try?" And they said, "Sure."

So I worked through the night and wrote the piece. The next day it was accepted to be finalized for the recording into the film. After that I got a room at Remote Control — my own studio — and I went from there.

Around that time — early 2000s — you began to work in television. How did you get your start?

That came through my agent. The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency has been incredibly helpful in my career. My first big television project was Prison Break — I demoed for the opening scene in the pilot. That got me the gig and into television.

You've worked on many projects with Jonathan [aka Jonah] Nolan. How did you two first meet?

On Batman Begins. Even though I was already doing a lot of my own projects when Hans and James Newton Howard worked on Batman Begins, because I was such a Batman fan, I said to Hans, "I would love to be involved in this." I ended up working on the whole project, and that's how I met Chris Nolan, the director of Batman Begins. And then I met his brother, Jonathan.

What were your very frist impressions of Jonathan?

Unbelievably creative person, just like his brother. I was flattered when he asked me to work on his upcoming show, Person of Interest.

While you were still working on Person of Interest, did Jonathan start to talk to you about Westworld?

He did. It was toward the end of one of the seasons when he pulled me aside and said, "I'm working on another show that I would love you to be involved with. It’s Westworld." I got super excited, because the Westworld film was one of my favorites as a kid.

What were some of your early conversations with Jonathan and [cocreator] Lisa Joy Nolan about the score for the series?

Jonah had a great idea: There were many scenes where you see the player piano playing in the saloon, and music's playing. And he said, "Instead of having music of the time, because it’s a theme park controlled by humans, what if the piano is like their jukebox? Why don’t we use contemporary songs? You’ll arrange them on the player piano." It was super fun. It became this thing where every episode would be like, "What song can we use this time?" It was a blast.

And the main title sequence?

They were talking about using a song, and because I love main titles so much, just like on Pirates of the Caribbean, I raised my hand and said, "Hey Jonah, do you mind if I have a go at this?" And he said, "Sure." With a score, you can really shape it to how you want it. Jonah's idea was to create a piece that represents the idea of an assembly. So it starts out small, with a single piano, and then the orchestration comes in more and more and gets bigger toward the end.

You have synesthesia. Could you talk a little bit about what that is, and how you learned that you have it?

Yeah, I was not aware of it. My wife figured that out, actually. She's not a musician — she's very good with producing music. One day she asked me how I write my music: "What do you hear? What do you see?" And I said, "I paint. I see colors. Certain notes are certain colors to me, and then it just kind of blends together, and I paint." She was very intrigued by that. I never thought about that process until she asked me. She went and looked it up and came back and said, "That's synesthesia." I had no idea.

It's very hard for me to describe, because it's not just, "there's this color, so it's this note." Visuals are so beautiful because it all blends together. There might be a person onscreen wearing a red dress, but then in the background, you see green trees. Or there's the ocean, or the blue sky. Or even the camera filters might do something for me, where there's a little bit more of a blue or yellow tone. It somehow puts me down a path where my hands move, and it just goes from there. It's a process I don't really understand. I almost don't want to understand it, because I feel it keeps me free. I don't try to mathematically analyze why these things get triggered for me.

The time has come — Game of Thrones. How did you first get involved with the show?

I got the call through my agent. She says, "There's a show called Game of Thrones. They’re interested in working with you. They're gonna send over two episodes. Have a look, and then we're gonna set up a meeting."

What did you think of the two episodes?

I was blown away. I could tell immediately that this was special. I had never seen anything like it. A kid being pushed off a tower — that's how you end the first episode? I met with David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the showrunners, and we sat down in a room and just started talking. They did an amazing job in guiding me through the show, because I had not read the books. We hit it off before I even had written a note. They said, "This is a very complex story. There are hundreds of characters. How do we go about this musically? Thematically? How do we make the music enhance everything, rather than confuse things?" But when we sat in that room, we had ideas so quickly. I was super excited to get involved.

What were the discussions about the main title?

Very little was talked about, actually. The effects house creating it was just down the street from me, and the guy said, "Why don't you come have a look?" The visuals weren't quite finished, but you could tell what the scenes were, all the cities popping up out of the ground. We watched it, and they said to me, "Can you make this a journey? A lot of our characters travel, families separate, they meet up again ... ." The main title needs to capture the overall mood of the show, but the journey was what they were really interested in, the excitement of where our characters are going and what's going to happen next.

So from that, how did you come up with the main theme?

I came up with it on my way back from the effects house when I was in the car. I was so inspired. As I was driving, that's when that, "Pum pum, da-da da dum," just came up. I ran in here, and I started playing it and capturing it, and I went from there.

There's a key change early on in the piece.

Yeah, the opening starts in minor, then goes to major, then back to minor. The thought behind that was that the whole show was based on backstabbing and lying and cheating. You don't know who you can trust. I wanted to establish that with the main title immediately. Before you settle into a key, there is this slight turn into a different key, and then it brings you back — it doesn't settle down for you just yet. That was just a little hint of what the overall show is and what’s to come.

What advice would you give to an aspiring composer?

I think the most important thing is to be true to yourself. Most of the time, as we learn and grow, we have idols and aspire to be just like them — and, in the case of composers, to write just like them and sound like them. But it's important to bring out your own voice. If you like jazz more than rock music, maybe focus on jazz. If you like electronica music, focus on that. Don't feel like you're pushed into a certain area just because everybody else is doing it. Eventually your own voice will come out.

The contributing editor for Foundation Interviews is Adrienne Faillace.

Since 1997, the Television Academy Foundation has conducted over 900 one-of-a-kind, long-form interviews with industry pioneers and change-makers across multiple professions. The Foundation invites you to make a gift to the Interviews Preservation Fund to help preserve this invaluable resource for generations to come. To learn more, please contact Amani Roland, chief advancement officer, at roland@televisionacademy.com or (818)754-2829.

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The full version of this article originally appeared in emmy magazine, issue #6, 2024, under the title "Foundation Interviews: Ramin Djawadi."