Threading Together Time, Space, and Emotion with Music:
An Interview with Film and Television Composer Jeff Russo
Abstract
In 1993, American guitarist, songwriter, and composer Jeff Russo co-founded the Grammy-nominated rock band Tonic. During the band's four-year hiatus between 2004-2008, Russo discovered his interest in composing music for pre-written narrative stories in film and television. His first opportunity was Noah Hawley's crime drama series The Unusuals (2009). Since, Russo has composed the music for all five seasons of Hawley's Fargo (2014-present) as well as Hawley's psychological feature film, Lucy in the Sky (2019). Russo has also struck up a collaborative relationship with writer and director Steve Zaillian, composing the score for the crime miniseries The Night Of (2016), and the Netflix limited series, Ripley (2024), an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 psychological thriller, The Talented Mr Ripley.
Russo has scored a diverse collection of stories, from crime to sci-fi, black comedy to action thrillers. His works include Star Trek: Discovery (2021-present), Picard (2020-23), Peter Berg's espionage action-thriller Mile 22 (2018), Craig William Macneill's biographical thriller Lizzie (2018), and Nick Tomnay's delightfully dark comedy, What You Wish For(2023), about a chef with gambling debts who assumes the identity of a friend, only to find himself asked to procure an unusual menu for an exclusive dinner party.
Speaking with MSJ, Russo acknowledges the difficulty of discussing music given its subjectivity. The conversation is not difficult. Instead, what becomes apparent is the limitations of words to explain how music makes us feel. It can be described, but there's something evasive and ambivalent about this description. We're left searching for a fuller way to verbally and intellectually articulate what it is that music makes us feel.
Two of today's prominent composers, John Williams and Hans Zimmer, shape the conversation about the role of music in storytelling. Russo identifies some fascinating contradictions in how we can compare the pair. It becomes apparent that Russo understands the process of composing music is the pursuit of connection and, for viewers, the subliminal manipulation of music is intrinsic to the emotional connection. This idea of connection is a recurring theme that he returns to when he discusses sublimating the experiences of characters in his own process for Fargo, Picard and Ripley.