Mark Asham also spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the challenges of making fun music, his favorite musical cues, and the connection between the Unbearable Weight score and Bad Lieutenant.
Composer Mark Asham wasn’t the first choice for Nicholas Cage’s action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Great Talent, but he’s the one to go.
Isham had submitted his role when the composer invites first came out. Still, when he didn’t land the job, the award-winning music thinkers behind countless films. Including Lieutenants Bad Cage, Forward, and Stolen – took over the project. It was something he wanted to see, even if he couldn’t work it out in the end.
Then the phone rings.
“A few months later, they called and said they had a problem and wanted to see me again,” recalls Isham. But he hasn’t seen the film. He only had a two-line summary at the time. So he wanted to see what he would take. Watching is an opportunity to see “how it works and how great it is” before presenting the application.
The concept combines his musical treatment of Cage in other projects with various genres and thematic ideas heavily influenced by spaghetti westerns.
“We touched everything – darkness, passion. We used a flamenco guitar, spaghetti westerns, and hardcore action music,” said Isham.
After the film hit theaters on April 22, the composer spoke to THR about the score’s impact and various references to Cage. And worked with the film’s director and music director to create Unbearable Weight’s musical identity.
How to work with director Tom Gormican?
Tom is very, very cooperative. He makes music not only for temporary music but also for music with other people. So he had a lot of ideas. He knows a lot about what doesn’t work, and he has some ideas about what will. So my 1st task was to come up with these ideas – about 15 to 20 minutes of music and they worked. From there, we famously moved on, but he’s an efficient person – lots of thinking, lots of opinions, lots of things to try In the last, we got something that I am thrilled with.