ComingSoon had the amazing opportunity to speak with Bullet Train composer Dominic Lewis about his work on the action film starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Brian Tyree Henry. Lewis spoke about his unique approach to the score and discussed some of the exciting projects he has on his schedule.
“Bullet Train follows Ladybug (Pitt), an unlucky assassin who’s determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs has gone off the rails,” says the synopsis. “Fate, however, may have other plans as his latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe — all with connected yet conflicting objectives — on the world’s fastest train.”
Lewis has worked on a number of high-profile projects, including the recent The King’s Man and Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway and TV series such as The Man in the High Castle and DuckTales. He also scored the Disney+ TV series Monsters at Work and Baymax!
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Jeff Ames: What brought you to Bullet Train?
Dominic Lewis: I had an interview with Dave (Leitch, the director) and (producer) Kelly (McCormick) on Zoom way before they even shot a frame. So, it was kind of a surprise for me I the first place to get the gig. We did a couple of Zooms and by the end of the second Zoom they said they wanted to work with me and made the deal and I was like, “What? What’s going on, this is crazy.” My concept was kind of, “What’s the perfect needle drop?” basically. Normally, the needle drop and score are separated but with this movie they are very much one idea. The soundscape of the movie and the music of the movie is all one thought and at the same time so many different thoughts of every genre and everything you could possibly think of. I mean, there was nothing off the table, really. I could go any direction I wanted to, and that freedom or true sense of a blank canvas was amazing. The trust David and Kelly put in me to see their movie through and their vision … we were on the same page from the start.
What makes you decide between the score and needle drop?
Often times I’m not the one in charge of putting needle drops into the film. That’s the music supervisor’s job and they work with the director and music editor to make things fit. Oftentimes are used in a more general way — in a juxtaposition way in a fight scene or montage. Something where it doesn’t require too much storytelling, where it just needs to create a vibe. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and have a fight scene that works, and they even cut the film to the song.
Knowing all that, that’s why I was like, “So many songs are great for twenty seconds and then they don’t work anymore.” That was my idea of the perfect needle drop. I can do those awesome twenty seconds and then I can go to a stripped-down version or the chorus or the bridge so that it’s still telling a story, it’s still following the arc of the characters and the movie. Yet, it feels like a song. So, the approach to the score was very much that.
I also wrote and produced songs for the film and soundtrack as well. I was sort of the musical director of all of it. So, although it’s crazy and wacky and all over the place, it still has a very cohesive feel to it.
Was there a particular scene that you started with that informed the remainder of your score?
Yeah, being on so early — I was on before they even shot a frame — I could react to the script. I purposefully said, “Don’t temp this with anything. I want to create the original temp” — and, obviously, we can go in further down the line and cross our Ts and dot our Is. The first thing I did was write a song for this montage with the character The Wolf, played by Bad Bunny. Dave wanted it to feel like an old Latin song, but he wanted me to bring it up to date and put a modern production behind it. So, that was my first Bullet Train musical thing that I dove into. When I was writing it, I thought, “This would be great” — because I wanted a really gruff voice — “this would be great for Alejandro Sanz, I mean he’d kill it,” never thinking that he would actually go ahead and say yes to doing it. A lot of this score was bucket list stuff for me. It was important for me to get the song because it was the first musical thing I’d done for David and Kelly. I wanted to get it right and luckily they loved it and then we were off to the races.
Then I sort of moved into the more score-y side of things, the more serious material — which is actually that track that you guys released — which I did without seeing any picture, I was just sort of reacting off the script. It was just me like a mad scientist in my studio in the middle of a pandemic just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck. I really wanted the score to have this feeling of, you know, you’re rummaging through your mate’s house and you’re going through their vinyl collection and you find this really cool record from the 1970s no one has ever heard before. I want to use that as my sample. Obviously, I had to come up with that record, I didn’t take someone’s record! (Laughs) So, down to the finest details when recording it and writing it, I wanted to make it as retro and old as possible. You know, to the choice of studios, to the choice of size and musician and miking and instruments and everything like that. That was the first example of me switching my brain on to score, but I was still approaching it almost like a concept album track. I still had that song switch on in my head, but that’s about as score-y as it gets.
“Staying Alive” was always there. David wanted that from the beginning. That sort of instructed my choices as I was going through the movie. I wanted to give every character their theme and their sound. And to do that I would give them a musical taste back story — what would these people listen to? After watching dailies and reading the script, those characters really jump off the page. Prince, for example, she’s Russian, but she studied in England. What would she have listened to? What was her musical taste? That instructed me on where to start experimenting with genres and sounds. I did that for everyone.
Lemon and Tangerine had a cool arc to their sound. I’m English, obviously, and they’re English — almost the same age — so I was trying to experiment with old school stuff, some scar and Brit-pop and throwing in some punk and different things like that. In an early stage of the movie we were introduced to the characters separately and they weren’t all intercut. So, I had more time to do that and that material was working. And then when the tones and the cut shifted, I didn’t have long enough to make those ideas work. Earlier in the production, I had seen dailies, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays Tangerine, had a West Ham United sticker on the back of his phone; and the West Ham United anthem is “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” so, I scored that idea. When I was scoring an emotional scene between Tangerine and Lemon at the end of the movie, I did this really emotional version of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles,” instead of doing the usual film composer thing — you know, let’s do some string and piano and make people cry. I didn’t want to go down the old generic road of doing that. I did this very intimate version of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” and David loved it, but he stopped and said, “This has to pay off. I can’t have this song randomly placed towards the end of the film.” So, not only did he think of places to put it into the film, he worked it into the script as well. We see a flashback of Lemon and Tangerine as kids and they’re watching West Ham United on the TV and there’s a very somber version of “Bubbles” playing there.
This is the collaboration with David, he’s so collaborative and so trusting. He treats you not just as a musician but a filmmaker.
Then we did a really awesome version of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” in like a 60s Vegas and we got Engelbert Humperdinck to sing, which was crazy. I mean, when I suggested him — to be honest with you — I wasn’t sure if he was still alive. (Laughs) But he was, and he’s awesome. He came in and did a fabulous job. There’s a punk version of the song as well during a bit of slow-mo when the characters are walking through the carriage. So, from that one little idea of seeing the West Ham stick on Tangerine’s phone, and doing the emotional version of “Bubbles” at the end of the movie, the song got worked all the way back through the film. Which is really cool.
That’s kind of unheard of, but a credit to David who is just so awesome.
So, as you are working your way up the ranks as an action composer, do you feel more pressure to deliver or more freedom?
It’s weird because when I did a lot of additional music for Hans (Zimmer) and John Powell and Henry Jackman, they wouldn’t get me to do action scenes. I was always like, “Why don’t I get to do the action scenes?” I was always doing the sort of underscore-y stuff. “Dom, you’re really sensitive, so you can do the emotional stuff.” (Laughs) I think that’s why I gravitate to do a lot of action stuff, because I never got to do it as an additional. I was always sort of stuck in the underscore world, a little bit. Obviously, I’m doing it now, and the more experience I got helps me to do everything, but maybe I’ve got a little bee in my bonnet about the early days of additional music.
I think the change for me was when I did The King’s Man with Matt Margeson. It was literally the opposite with Matt, because Matt was always the action guy. And I was like, “Well, I’ll do the emotional scenes and Matt can do the action stuff.” We both had a chat about that before we started King’s Man and we were like, “Let’s swap it up and do something different. I’ll do a lot of the action stuff and Matt can do the emotional stuff — and we’ll obviously have our fair share of the other bits as well,” and I think I really got the bug on that job. That was the film where I was like, “I actually can do this.” I’m all right at this action stuff. I love doing it. A lot of composers sort of shy away from action or are nervous to do it, but I love it and I love to approach it in a different way and that’s what Bullet Train was. Approaching scoring with a very different mentality. Trying to stray away from the usual — you know, we’re on autopilot as film composers, and they just come out of us naturally. I had to turn that switch off. Anytime I got stuck in the mode I had to be like, “No, no, it’s not good enough.” I had to push myself. I have to come at this from a different angle and not do the easy thing. So, I don’t know how I’ve ended up doing so much action, but I really enjoy it.
Do you have upcoming action films you can discuss? I mean, at this point do you have your pick of the litter?
No, I’m still in that mode of “please give me work.” If the phone rings its pretty much a “Yes” every time. There’s a mixture of stuff I’m working on. I’m doing another film with Kelly and David producing called Violent Night (with David Harbour and John Leguizamo), which is basically Die Hard meets Home Alone. It’s Santa Clause beating up loads of bad guys, which is really cool. (Laughs) A lot of action in that, but that’s kind of more traditional orchestral stuff and very different from Bullet Train. Also, I’m doing another Christmas movie (laughs) with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds directed by Sean Anders (and John Morris) called Spirited. I’ve had a blast on that. It’s a musical so the pressure is off slightly because I’m not at the forefront of the musical — the shining light is on (Benj) Pasek and (Justin) Paul. So, I’ve been able to write a very traditional, sweet, candy-filled orchestral Christmas score, done in an old-school way. I’ve got a massive orchestra in London and they’re all playing together, there was no striping. It was just like old school times. Writing nice tunes and nice Christmas-y music. It was fun. I kind of needed it, really, after Bullet Train. (Laughs) The pressure to be cool the whole time is very wearing, especially as someone who isn’t naturally cool. It was nice to be that orchestral guy for a little bit.
I’m also doing a TV show called Kaleidoscope with Netflix, which is really cool. I can’t say too much about it because they haven’t released the whole concept about it yet, but it’s a heist thing and it’s really cool. I had to put my cool hat on for that one!
Is there a particular sequence of bit of music you want audiences to pay attention to when they watch Bullet Train?
Well, other than the track that already went out into the world — which made me nervous because I realized people are going to judge my work and I can’t just talk about it — other than that, I’m really proud of the work I did on the songs and how that infiltrated the score. There is a particular moment, and I don’t think they’ll have to listen out for it, but there’s a moment where we’re in the train and the camera pans in on Brad (Pitt) and he says a cool line and it cuts to this huge wide shot of the train coming into the station, and there’s this huge 70s rock cue song that I did. Honestly, I’ve never heard anything of mine played so loudly in a film. After we dubbed it, I was like, “That’s really loud.” Going to the premiere, I was like, it’s probably not going to be that loud again because that was the dub and they cranked it. And it was so loud in the premiere, that it pinned me in my seat. I was like, “This is awesome.” Kudos to Mr. David Leitch for having the balls to play music really loud on this one.
