New Money, Old Rules: The Gilded Age Podcast (Interview with Harry Gregson-Williams and Rupert Gregson-Williams, Series Composers)

Welcome to New Money, Old Rules: The Gilded Age Podcast!  Join Caroline and Mike each week as they discuss HBO’s new period drama, The Gilded Age!

This week on a special episode of New Money, Old Rules: The Gilded Age Podcast, Caroline & Mike sit down with series composers, Harry Gregson-Williams and Rupert Gregson-Williams.   

Can’t get enough of The Gilded Age‘s music? Well, now you can download the official soundtrack for purchase from the iTunes Store and Amazon Music. It’s also available for stream at Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud, and everywhere else you listen to music.
The official soundtrack features 39 tracks from the show’s composers, Harry Gregson-Williams and Rupert Gregson-Williams, and has a run time of 1 hour and 18 minutes. 
Here is a link to the soundtrack on Spotify!
Standing-Rupert-Gregson-Williams-at-Keyboard-is-Harry-Gregson-Williams-photo-credit-by-Riley-Donavan

GUEST BIOS:

HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after and prolific composers whose long list of film and television credits underscore the diverse range of his talents.  He most recently wrote the music for “The Last Duel” and “House of Gucci” both directed by Ridley Scott.  In addition, he wrote the music for Disney’s live action feature film “Mulan” which was directed by Niki Caro with whom he worked previously having scored her film “The Zookeeper’s Wife.” Gregson-Williams also co-wrote the original song “Loyal Brave True” for “Mulan” performed by Christina Aguilera.  He and his brother composer Rupert Gregson-Williams wrote the original score for the drama series “The Gilded Age” which debuted on HBO on January 24, 2022 in the US and will be available to stream on HBO Max. “The Gilded Age” launched on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW in the UK on January 25, 2022. They previously worked together on the miniseries “Catch-22.”

He was the composer on all four installments of the animated blockbuster “Shrek” franchise, garnering a BAFTA Award nomination for the score for the Oscar-winning “Shrek.”  He received Golden Globe and Grammy Award nominations for his score for Andrew Adamson’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” He has collaborated multiple times with a number of directors, including Ben Affleck on “Live by Night,” “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone”; Joel Schumacher on “Twelve,” “The Number 23,” “Veronica Guerin” and “Phone Booth”; Tony Scott on “Unstoppable,” “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” “Déjà Vu,” “Domino,” “Man on Fire,” “Spy Game” and “Enemy of the State”; Ridley Scott on “The Martian,” “Prometheus,” “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” “Kingdom of Heaven,” “The Last Duel” and “House of Gucci”; Bille August on “Return to Sender” and “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”; Andrew Adamson on the “Shrek” series, the first two “Narnia” movies and “Mr. Pip”; and Antoine Fuqua on “The Replacement Killers,” “The Equalizer,” The Equalizer 2” and “Infinite.” Some of his other recent film projects include the documentary “Return to Space” directed by Oscar-winning directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin with an original score by Harry and composer  Mychael Danna which marks their first collaboration together and premieres April 7, 2022 on Netflix, Disneynature’s all-new feature film “Polar Bear” which streams exclusively on Disney+ beginning April 22, 2022, “The Ambush” directed by Pierre Morel, “Life in a Day 2020” directed Kevin Macdonald, “The Meg” directed by Jon Turteltaub, Aardman’s “Early Man” directed by Nick Park for which he received an Annie Award nomination and Disneynature’s “Penguins.”  His television credits include “Whiskey Cavalier,” the miniseries “Catch-22” along with his brother Rupert Gregson-Williams and creating the main title theme and scoring two episodes of the anthology series “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” for which he received an Emmy nomination for the episode titled “The Commuter.”

Gregson-Williams has scored three of the five games in the highly successful “Metal Gear Solid” franchise for Konami and scored “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” for Activision, which became the top-selling video game of 2014 and earned him various music gaming awards. Throughout his career, Gregson-Williams has collaborated with a diverse array of recording artists such as Regina Spektor, Imogen Heap, Tricky, Peter Murphy, Flea, Hybrid, Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, Trevor Horn, Trevor Rabin, Lebo M., Perry Farrell and Tony Visconti.

Born in England to a musical family, Gregson-Williams earned a music scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge, at the age of 7 and later gained a coveted spot at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama, from which he recently received an honorary fellowship. He started his film career as assistant to composer Richard Harvey and later as orchestrator and arranger for Stanley Myers, and then went on to compose his first scores for director Nicolas Roeg. His subsequent collaboration and friendship with composer Hans Zimmer led to Gregson-Williams providing music for such films as “The Rock,” “Armageddon” and “The Prince of Egypt” and helped launch his career in Hollywood.

In 2018, Gregson-Williams received the BMI Icon Award, in recognition of his unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists’ prestigious Ambassador Award. He has also been a regular mentor at the Sundance Composers Lab, working directly with talented emerging composers from all over the world.

RUPERT GREGSON-WILLIAMS was born in England and educated at St. John’s College Choir School, Cambridge.

A multi-award winning composer, Gregson-Williams has written the scores for a wide range of feature films, including the Oscar-winning “Hotel Rwanda,” for which he was awarded the European Film Award for Best Composer; the animated films “Abominable,” “Over the Hedge” and Jerry Seinfeld’s “Bee Movie,” receiving an Annie Award nomination for his score for the latter. He received an Emmy nomination in 2017 for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score) for his work on “The Crown.”

Gregson-Williams also wrote the music for the hit film “Aquaman” directed by James Wan which was released in December 2018; scored the blockbuster and critically acclaimed “Wonder Woman” directed by Patty Jenkins which opened in 2017; the award-winning war drama “Hacksaw Ridge,” starring Andrew Garfield and directed by Mel Gibson, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and opened nationwide in 2016 and the international hit “The Legend of Tarzan,” starring Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie and directed by David Yates.

Most recently, Gregson-Williams wrote the original score for “Fatherhood” starring Kevin Hart and directed by Paul Weitz (June 2021) and the popular Netflix Animation film “Back to the Outback” which was directed by Harry Cripps and Clare Knight and was released in December 2021.

For television, Gregson-Williams’s most recent projects were “Behind Her Eyes” for Netflix in 2021, “Catherine the Great” starring Helen Mirren which premiered on HBO in October 2019 and the limited series “Catch-22” directed and executive produced by George Clooney for Hulu which premiered in May 2019 for which he wrote the music with his brother Harry Gregson-Williams. He wrote the music for TNT’s “The Alienist” starring Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans and Daniel Bruhl which premiered in January 2018. He has also composed the music for various other TV projects, including the Emmy-award winning HBO series “Veep,” AMC’s “The Prisoner,” and Sky Vision’s “Agatha Raisin.” He received an Emmy nomination for the 2002 telefilm “Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story,” for Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Dramatic Underscore).

He and his brother composer Harry Gregson-Williams wrote the original score for the drama series “The Gilded Age” which debuted on HBO on January 24, 2022 in the US and will be available to stream on HBO Max. “The Gilded Age” launched on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW in the UK on January 25, 2022. They previously worked together on the miniseries “Catch-22.”

Gregson-Williams has had a long association with Adam Sandler and has composed the scores for many of his films over the years. Their collaborations include “Click,” “Bedtime Stories,” “Grown Ups,” “Just Go with It,” “Blended,” “The Ridiculous 6,” “The Do-Over,” “Sandy Wexler” “Murder Mystery” and “Hubie Halloween.”

His other film credits include “The Eight Hundred.” “Winter’s Tale,” directed by Akiva Goldsman; “Made of Honor,” starring Patrick Dempsey; and “Thunderpants.”

His commercial and film collaborations have included working with Ben Folds, Mark Knopfler, Hans Zimmer and Skylar Grey.

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Trailer | 1 | 2 | 3 | Kelli O’Hara Interview | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Julian Fellowes and Sonja Warfield Interview | 9

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Credits:

Music:
“String Quartet No. 12 in F Major, “American”, Op. 96: IV” by Antonín Dvořák.

New Money, Old Rules: The Gilded Age Podcast is a Pod Clubhouse original production, recorded and produced at Pod Clubhouse studios. This episode was edited by Caroline Daley and assembled by Michael Caputo.