‘Lion King’ composer and icon Hans Zimmer finds circle of life, makes a big reveal

Composer Hans Zimmer can’t seem to get away from “ Lion King.” emotional score has gotten him jobs, his only Oscar and secured him a place in hearts of children and ults. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to come back when Jon Favreau approached him to revisit soundtrack for his techlogically vanced re-imagining of animated film, which opens nationwide Thursday night.

“I’m always one saying to everything,” Zimmer, 61, said. “I suppose I’m reluctant bride.”

He only agreed to do “ Lion King” a quarter of a century ago because of his daughter. She was 6 at time, and his movies at that point weren’t exactly child-friendly.

“I couldn’t take her to a Tony Scott bloodbath,” Zimmer said.

He h one stipulation: That it wasn’t going to be a musical.

“I said I don’t want to do a musical, I hate musicals,” Zimmer said. “And y said, we’ll guarantee you this will t become a musical ever.” How it ended up that way is, “ar story.”

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But it’s t only way “ Lion King” diverged from his expectations. What he thought was going to be a “nice cartoon” turned into something much darker. story about a young prince who loses his far hit a nerve for Zimmer, who also lost his far at a young .

“All that stuff that one h mand to cover up so well, I h to go and open up and actually write from that point,” Zimmer said. “I h to write what it felt like to be a little boy who loses his far.”

And yet Zimmer is always somewhat surprised to find that people have such a connection to it. Terrence Malick only approached him for “ Thin Red Line,” which would earn him ar Oscar mination, because of “ Lion King.” He remembers being at a dinner with Malick, Werner Herzog and ors and overhearing, “ voices of two great filmmakers passionately arguing with each or which piece in ‘ Lion King’ y prefer.”

“I’m going, y’re talking about a KIDS movie,” Zimmer said, still slightly baffled and amused. “Terry Malick and Werner Herzog arguing about ‘ Lion King!’”

And when Pharrell Williams convinced Zimmer to play at Coachella in 2017, he said fine, but that, “ one thing we’re t going to do is ‘ Lion King’.” A 23-year-old member of his band told him to get over himself. “It’s soundtrack of my generation,” young man declared. Zimmer conceded and h a bit of a revelation in desert.

“I look out throughout shambles of a field with all se people and see grown men and women truly touched and I’m realizing it’s t because it’s sentimental but because it’s emotional, it’s truth, and my band is playing every te with total conviction,” Zimmer said. ”(I thought) maybe we can pull this off with an orchestra and maybe because everybody in orchestra will kw material y will play it with same sort of passion and conviction.”

That was convincing he needed. And Favreau h shown him some majestic concept foot of what film would actually look like.

“He wasn’t just my portal into music, which is arguably most important aspect of this film,” Favreau said. “It’s difficult to appreciate just how significant a collaborator he was.”

When it finally got down to recording, he assembled his band and hand-picked orchestra from around world in Los Angeles. And it turned out to be just as he’d dreamed: An emotional experience. Zimmer even got to do something rar special this time around. He recorded with a live audience at Barbra Streisand Scoring St where y’ve recorded everything from “Gone With Wind” and “Lawrence of Arabia” to “E.T.” and most recent “Star Wars” films.

“I wanted it to be a performance. refore I needed an audience. I h 102 people in orchestra and band. And n I put 20 chairs upfront for filmmakers who me movie who actually never get to come to recording sessions,” Zimmer said with a smile. “It’s circle of life, or completing a circle or whatever. force is strong on this!”

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