What a surreal moment – getting to chat with Thomas Newman and Julia Newman! Whether you’re a big film music fan or a casual film goer, I’ll guess that you’re familiar with Tom, having been nominated for fifteen Academy Awards (I accidentally say fourteen…) and scoring projects like The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, Finding Nemo & Finding Dory, 1917, and loads more. Now, Julia is picking up the family’s film and tv scoring mantle, and the two of them recently co-scored Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, a dramatization of the Menendez brothers crimes. We use the series as a jumping off point for the conversation, regularly referring to and discussing it while also pivoting into broader conversations about collaboration, improvisation and working quickly, the use of theme and repetition, and plenty more.
I was surprised to hear that no one else had brought up the connection between a father-daughter team scoring a series about children murdering their parents. Of course, the Menendez brothers’ relationship with their parents permeates throughout the series, but that of Thomas and Julia also plays so heavily into how they work together. The two relationships bear a welcome juxtaposition, with Thomas and Julia constantly beaming during the interview, proud of one another (Julia mentions she’s the proudest daughter in the world) against the backdrop of familial hatred and emptiness in Monsters.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is currently on Netflix, and Tom and Julia’s score (as well as much of their other work) is available on all major platforms.
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