Thomas Newman | |
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Newman at 2010 Classic Brit Awards | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Thomas Montgomery Newman |
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | October 20, 1955
Occupation(s) | Film score composer, conductor |
Instruments | Piano, violin |
Years active | 1979–present |
Spouse(s) | Anne Marie Newman |
Thomas Montgomery Newman (born October 20, 1955) is an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career that has spanned over four decades, he has scored numerous films including The Player (1992); The Shawshank Redemption (1994); American Beauty and The Green Mile (both 1999); In the Bedroom (2001); Finding Nemo (2003); Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004); Cinderella Man (2005); WALL-E (2008); the James Bond films Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015); Finding Dory (2016); and 1917 (2019). He also composed the music for the 2003 HBO miniseries Angels in America. Throughout his career, he has collaborated extensively with directors such as Sam Mendes, Andrew Stanton, Frank Darabont, Steven Soderbergh, John Madden and John Lee Hancock.
Newman has been nominated for fifteen Academy Awards, tying him with fellow composer Alex North for the most nominations without a win. He has also been nominated for four Golden Globes, and has won two BAFTAs, six Grammys and an Emmy Award. Newman was honored with the Richard Kirk award at the 2000 BMI Film and TV Awards. The award is given annually to a composer who has made significant contributions to film and television music.[1] His achievements have contributed to the Newmans being the most nominated Academy Award extended family, with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Newman is the youngest son of composer Alfred Newman (1900–1970), who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score nine times, and Martha Louis Montgomery (1920–2005). He is a member of a film-scoring dynasty in Hollywood that includes his father Alfred, older brother David Newman, younger sister Maria Newman, uncles Lionel Newman and Emil Newman, cousin Randy Newman (also known as a singer and songwriter), and his first cousin, once removed, Joey Newman. His paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants,[2] and his mother was from Mississippi.
During their upbringing, Martha Newman took her sons to violin lessons in the San Fernando Valley every weekend.[3] Newman later studied composition and orchestration for two years at the University of Southern California,[4] before transferring to Yale University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1977 and a Master of Music in 1978.[5] While at Yale, he met composer Stephen Sondheim, who became an early mentor.[3]
Newman and his wife Ann Marie have three children. They reside in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.
At first, Newman was more interested in musical theater than in film composition, working with Sondheim in Broadway plays.[6] Lionel, who succeeded Alfred as music director for 20th Century Fox, gave Thomas his first scoring assignment on a 1979 episode of the series The Paper Chase.[1] In 1983, John Williams, who was a friend of both Alfred and Lionel, invited Newman to work on Return of the Jedi, orchestrating the scene in which Darth Vader dies.[7] Afterward Newman met producer Scott Rudin in New York City and Rudin invited him to compose the score for Reckless (1984). Newman said that he thought "it was a tough job, at first" for requiring him to "develop vocabularies and a sense of procedure", only getting comfortable with writing scores "and not fraudulent in my efforts" after eight years.[8]
In 1992, Newman composed the score for Robert Altman's The Player and Martin Brest's Scent of a Woman.
In 1994, he received his first Academy Award nominations with the scores for Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption and Gillian Armstrong's Little Women.[6] He also scored Jon Avnet's The War. In 1996, he scored Diane Keaton's Unstrung Heroes, receiving yet another Oscar nomination. In 1998, he scored Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer as well as Martin Brest's Meet Joe Black. In 1999, Newman composed the score to Sam Mendes' first feature film American Beauty, created using mainly percussion instruments. Newman believed the score helped move the film along without disturbing the "moral ambiguity" of the script, saying "It was a real delicate balancing act in terms of what music worked to preserve that.".[9] He received a fourth Oscar nomination for this score, and although he lost again (to John Corigliano for The Red Violin), he did receive a Grammy and a BAFTA.
His critical and commercial success continued in the years to follow with his scores for films such as Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich, and Todd Field's In the Bedroom. He was nominated consecutively for a further three Academy Awards, for Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition (2002), Andrew Stanton's Finding Nemo (2003), and Brad Silberling's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). However, he lost on each occasion to Elliot Goldenthal (for Frida), Howard Shore (for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), and Jan A. P. Kaczmarek (for Finding Neverland).
In 2006, he teamed once again with Todd Field for Little Children and Steven Soderbergh for The Good German (he was nominated for latter). At the Oscar ceremony, he appeared in the opening segment by Errol Morris, who jokingly stated that Newman had been nominated for and failed to win an Oscar eight times. Newman replied: "No, I've failed seven but this will be my eighth", and indeed, he again lost, this time to Gustavo Santaolalla for Babel.
His first score since The Good German was for Alan Ball's Towelhead. In 2008, he scored the animated film WALL-E, collaborating for the second time with director Andrew Stanton (with the first collaboration being Finding Nemo). The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (as had Nemo). Newman received two Oscar nominations: one for Best Original Score, and another for Best Original Song for "Down to Earth", which he co-wrote with Peter Gabriel. He was nominated in the Original Score category with two other veteran composers, James Newton Howard and Danny Elfman, both of whom have also been nominated for several Oscars but each time unsuccessfully. Newman lost both the score and song nominations to A. R. Rahman for his work on Slumdog Millionaire. He and Peter Gabriel did however win a Grammy for "Down to Earth".
In 2008, he also scored Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road. In 2009, he scored Jim Sheridan's Brothers (the remake of the Susanne Bier film). In 2011, he scored Tate Taylor's The Help, John Madden's The Debt, Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady, and George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau.[10]
In 2012, Newman scored John Madden's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. He also scored the 23rd James Bond movie Skyfall, which celebrates the film franchise's 50th anniversary.[11] His work on this film earned him his eleventh Oscar nomination and a second BAFTA win. During 2013, he scored Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects and John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks. The latter score was very well received by film music critics, earning Newman BAFTA and Oscar nominations for the second consecutive year, both of which he lost to Steven Price for Gravity.
Newman's 2014 projects included David Dobkin's The Judge and Tate Taylor's Get on Up. In 2015, he scored John Madden's The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, marking the first time Newman has scored a sequel to a film he also wrote the score for.[12] Also that year, Newman returned to score Sam Mendes' 24th James Bond movie Spectre, the sequel to Skyfall. He also collaborated with Steven Spielberg for Bridge of Spies, marking Newman's first collaboration with Spielberg and the first Spielberg film not to feature a musical score from his long-time composer John Williams, since the production of The Color Purple in 1985. For his score on Bridge of Spies, Newman garnered additional Oscar and Grammy nominations.
In 2016, Newman scored the motion picture Morten Tyldum's Passengers starring Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen, and Laurence Fishburne, for which he received his 14th Oscar nomination. Three years later, Newman reunited with Sam Mendes for his war film 1917, for which Newman received his 6th BAFTA and 15th Oscar nominations.
Newman likes to vary the instrumentation in his scores, ranging from full orchestra to percussion-only music. He is also fond of incorporating unusual instruments such as the zither, hurdy-gurdy, psaltery and hammered dulcimer,[1] or unexpected sounds, like Aboriginal chants and the chirping of cicadas. The composer declared that he has "an interest in mundane experimentation."[6]
Year | Title | Director(s) | Studio(s) | Notes |
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1990 | Men Don't Leave | Paul Brickman | Geffen Pictures Warner Bros. |
— |
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael | Jim Abrahams | Paramount Pictures | Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande | |
1991 | Career Opportunities | Bryan Gordon | Hughes Entertainment Universal Pictures |
Song album with three Newman tracks released by Curb |
The Linguini Incident | Richard Shepard | Academy Entertainment | Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande | |
Naked Tango | Leonard Schrader | New Line Cinema | — | |
The Rapture | Michael Tolkin | Fine Line Features New Line Cinema |
Song album with ten Newman tracks | |
Deceived | Damian Harris | Touchstone Pictures | — | |
Fried Green Tomatoes | Jon Avnet | Act III Communications Universal Pictures |
Song album with three Newman tracks and separate score album, both released by MCA | |
1992 | The Player | Robert Altman | Avenue Pictures Spelling Films Fine Line Features (US) Pathé (International) |
Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande |
Whispers in the Dark | Christopher Crowe | Paramount Pictures | Varèse Sarabande album release cancelled; released by Intrada in 2012 | |
Scent of a Woman | Martin Brest | City Light Films Universal Pictures |
Soundtrack released by MCA | |
1993 | Flesh and Bone | Steve Kloves | Paramount Pictures | Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande |
Josh and S.A.M. | Billy Weber | Castle Rock Entertainment New Line Cinema Columbia Pictures | ||
1994 | Threesome | Andrew Fleming | Motion Picture Corporation of America TriStar Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande. Twinned with American Buffalo |
The Favor | Donald Petrie | Orion Pictures | — | |
The Shawshank Redemption | Frank Darabont | Castle Rock Entertainment Columbia Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Epic Soundtrax | |
The War | Jon Avnet | Universal Pictures | Song album with 12 Newman tracks released by MCA | |
Little Women | Gillian Armstrong | Columbia Pictures | Soundtrack released by Sony Classical | |
1995 | Unstrung Heroes | Diane Keaton | Hollywood Pictures | Soundtrack released by Hollywood Records |
How to Make an American Quilt | Jocelyn Moorhouse | Amblin Entertainment Universal Pictures |
Soundtrack released by MCA | |
1996 | Up Close & Personal | Jon Avnet | Cinergi Pictures Touchstone Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Hollywood Records |
Phenomenon | Jon Turteltaub | Touchstone Pictures | Song album with one Newman track released by Reprise | |
American Buffalo | Michael Corrente | Capitol Films Channel Four Films The Samuel Goldwyn Company |
Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande. Twinned with Threesome | |
The People vs. Larry Flynt | Miloš Forman | Phoenix Pictures Columbia Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Angel Records | |
1997 | Red Corner | Jon Avnet | Avnet-Kerner Productions Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Soundtrack released by EAR |
Mad City | Costa Gavras | Warner Bros. | Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande | |
Oscar and Lucinda | Gillian Armstrong | Australian Film Finance Corporation Fox Searchlight Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Sony Classical | |
1998 | The Horse Whisperer | Robert Redford | Touchstone Pictures | Soundtrack released by Hollywood Records |
Meet Joe Black | Martin Brest | City Light Films Universal Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Universal Records | |
1999 | American Beauty | Sam Mendes | DreamWorks Pictures | Soundtrack released by DreamWorks Records |
The Green Mile | Frank Darabont | Castle Rock Entertainment Warner Bros. |
Soundtrack released by Warner Bros. Records. |
Year | Title | Director(s) | Studio(s) | Notes |
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2000 | Erin Brockovich | Steven Soderbergh | Jersey Films Universal Pictures (US) Columbia Pictures (International) |
Soundtrack released by Sony Classical |
Pay It Forward | Mimi Leder | Bel Air Entertainment Tapestry Films Pathé Warner Bros. |
Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande | |
2001 | In the Bedroom | Todd Field | Good Machine Miramax Films | |
2002 | The Salton Sea | D. J. Caruso | Castle Rock Entertainment Warner Bros. | |
Road to Perdition | Sam Mendes | The Zanuck Company DreamWorks Pictures (US) 20th Century Fox (International) |
Soundtrack released by Decca Records | |
White Oleander | Peter Kosminsky | Umbrella Entertainment Warner Bros. |
Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande | |
2003 | Finding Nemo | Andrew Stanton | Pixar Animation Studios Walt Disney Pictures |
Newman's first score for an animated film Soundtrack released by Walt Disney Records |
2004 | Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events | Brad Silberling | Nickelodeon Movies Paramount Pictures (US) DreamWorks Pictures (International) |
Soundtrack released by Sony Classical |
2005 | Cinderella Man | Ron Howard | Imagine Entertainment Miramax Films Universal Pictures (North America) Buena Vista Pictures (International) |
Soundtrack released by Decca Records |
Jarhead | Sam Mendes | Universal Pictures | ||
2006 | Little Children | Todd Field | New Line Cinema | Soundtrack released by Silva Screen Records |
The Good German | Steven Soderbergh | Virtual Studios Section Eight Productions Warner Bros. |
Soundtrack released by Varèse Sarabande | |
2007 | Towelhead | Alan Ball | Scott Rudin Productions This is that Corporation Warner Independent Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Lakeshore Records |
2008 | WALL-E | Andrew Stanton | Pixar Animation Studios Walt Disney Pictures |
Soundtrack released by Walt Disney Records |
Revolutionary Road | Sam Mendes | BBC Films DreamWorks Pictures Paramount Vantage (US) United International Pictures (International) |
Soundtrack released by Nonesuch | |
2009 | Brothers | Jim Sheridan | Relativity Media Lionsgate |
Soundtrack released by Relativity Music Group |
Year | Title | Director(s) | Studio(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | Let Them All Talk | Steven Soderbergh | HBO Max | — |
2021 | The Little Things | John Lee Hancock | Warner Bros. Pictures | — |
Operation Mincemeat | John Madden | FilmNation Entertainment Netflix |
— | |
2022 | Dog | Channing Tatum Reid Carolin |
FilmNation Entertainment Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer United Artists Releasing |
— |
A Man Called Otto | Marc Forster | Columbia Pictures TSG Entertainment II Stage 6 Films SF Studios Playtone Artistic Films |
— | |
2023 | Elemental | Peter Sohn | Walt Disney Pictures Pixar Animation Studios |
— |
The Last Voyage of the Demeter | André Øvredal | Universal Pictures | — | |
White Bird | Marc Forster | Lionsgate Mandeville Films Participant Media |
— |
Year | Title | Director(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1979 | The Paper Chase | Various | "A Case Of Detente" (season 1, episode 21) Probably Thomas Newman's first film score |
1987 | Amazing Stories | Episode "Santa '85." Soundtrack released by Intrada | |
1990 | Heat Wave | Kevin Hooks | |
1992 | Those Secrets | David Manson | Soundtrack released by Masters Film Music |
Citizen Cohn | Frank Pierson | ||
2000 | Boston Public | Various | Main title theme |
2001 | Six Feet Under | ||
2003 | Angels in America | Mike Nichols | Soundtrack released by Nonesuch |
2012 | The Newsroom | Various | Main theme and pilot |
2017 | Five Came Back | Main theme | |
2018 | Castle Rock | Main theme and six episodes | |
2023 | Tom and Jerry Time | Will Finn | Main composer; theme music composer unknown |
Newman has also composed music for television, including theme music for the series Boston Public and the miniseries Angels in America. His theme music for the television show Six Feet Under won two Grammy Awards in 2003, for Best Instrumental Composition as well as Best Instrumental Arrangement. He also wrote the theme for the HBO series Newsroom.
Newman also wrote a commissioned concert work for orchestra, Reach Forth Our Hands, for the 1996 Cleveland Bicentennial. The Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned an orchestral work by Newman, It Got Dark,[14] which was performed by the Kronos Quartet and Los Angeles Philharmonic and conducted by Leonard Slatkin during the orchestra's 2009–2010 season.[15][16]
He composed the incidental music for the Washington Shakespeare Theatre Company's 2014 production of As You Like It, directed by Michael Attenborough and starring Zoe Waites.[17]
He also collaborated with composer and multi-instrumentalist Rick Cox in an electro-acoustic album 35 Whirlpools Below Sound; which is released under the label Cold Blue Music in 2014.[18]
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Thomas Newman |