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Hans Zimmer is a German composer and record producer, famous for his works in the movies like “The Lion King,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, “ The Last Samurai,” “The Dark Knight Trilogy,” “Inception,” and “Interstellar.” Here are 48 facts about him:
- Born as Hans Florian Zimmer in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on September 12, 1957.
- He played piano as a child, but only for a brief period. He disliked the discipline in those lessons.
- He spent his childhood in Königstein-Falkenstein, but moved to London during his teen. He attended Hurtwood House School in London.
- His mother was a musician and his father was an engineer and an inventor. His father encouraged him to do innovative thinking.
- During an interview to Mashable, he stated that his mother would always gasp at him and his father would appreciate him when he modified his piano regularly adding chainsaws and other stuff to it.
- His father died when he was only a child and he embraced music to escape from the sorrow. He once stated “Music had been my best friend.”
- During an interview in 2014, he revealed that he is Jewish and recollected the time when his mother escaped to England in 1939.
- He started his career with the band Krakatoa in 1970’s. He played keyboards and synthesizers in the group.
- He could be seen briefly in the music video “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the band “The Buggles” in 1979, when he played music for them.
- The Spanish music group Mecano invited Zimmer and drummer Cann from Helden band to perform live in Segovia in 1984. The album “Mecano: En Concierto” includes two songs from the live performance.
- He joined with UK Punk band “The Damned” to co-produce a single in 1980 titled “History of the World, Part – 1.” This was included in the album “the Black Album” with the description “Over produced by Hans Zimmer.”
- During his time in London, he also wrote some tunes for advertisement for the company Air Edel Associates.
- He joined hands with another composer Stanley Myers to co-find the Lillie Yard recording studio. Myers was a well known composer with 60 film scores to his name.
- Zimmer and Myers both worked together on film such as “Moonlighting,” “Success is the best Revenge,” “Insignificance” and “My Beautiful Launderette.” They worked towards fusing electronic instruments with orchestral sound.
- 1987 movie “The Last Emperor” won Academy Award for Best Original Score.” Zimmer was the score producer of the movie.
- His first ever movie as a solo score producer was “Terminal Exposure,” in 1987 directed by Nico Mastorakis.
- He joined hands with composer Sandy McClelland in 1987 to produce the theme song for the game show “Going for Gold.”
- In an interview to BBC he said “‘Going for Gold,’ was a lot of fun. It’s the sort of stuff you do when you don’t have a career yet. God, I just felt so lucky because this thing paid my rent for the longest time.”
- The biggest turning point in his career came in 1988 when he was asked to compose for the movie “Rain Man,” by the director Barry Levinson. His score was nominated for Academy Award in 1989.
- Director Levinson’s wife had heard the track for the drama “A World Apart,” composed by Zimmer. Both of them were impressed by the score and hired him immediately for “Rain Man.”
- About his score for “Rain Man,” he said, “The Raymond character doesn't actually know where he is. The world is so different to him. He might as well be on Mars. So, why don't we just invent our own world music for a world that doesn't really exist?”
- He composed the score for “Driving Miss Daisy” by Bruce Beresford with entirely synthesizers and samplers. It went on to win Academy Award for Best Picture.
- During an interview to Sound on Sound magazine, in 2002, he revealed that Roland MKS-20, a rackmount synthesizer, was used for “Driving Miss Daisy.” About that he joked saying “It didn't sound anything like a piano, but it behaved like a piano.”
- He was a great fan of Pete Haycock in his teen days. They both collaborated together in 1991 movie “Thelma & Louise,” by Ridley Scott.
- Zimmer was approached by Walt Disney Animation Studios to score for the animation “The Lion King.” It was due to the fact that he went to Africa to use African choirs and drums for his score.
- He won an Academy Award for the Best Original Score, a Golden Globe Award and the Grammys for his first animation movie “The Lion King.”
- Terrence Malick of “The Thin Red Line,” wanted the music before the shooting of the film. Hence Zimmer recorded a six-hour long music for him.
- He used synthesizers completely instead of traditional orchestral instruments for “Crimson Tide,” in 1995. It won Grammy Award for the main theme of the movie.
- When doing scores for “The Last Samurai,” he felt he knew very little about Japanese music. He did extensive research and understood, the more he studied, the less he knew. He was completely taken aback when they appreciated his knowledge in Japanese music, when he went to Japan with his research for feedback.
- He was busy with other projects and declined the offer to work for “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” It later went to his colleague Klaus Badelt. However, Zimmer later provided few themes that were used in the movie.
- He bought an out-of-tune piano for 200 dollars and used it to score for “The Sherlock Holmes” in 2009.
- For the sequel “Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows,” by Romani virtuoso musicians. He along with Guy Ritchie, the director, went to Slovakia, Italy and France for research in this music.
- For the theme of “The Joker,” in “The Dark Knight,” Zimmer used his friend Martin Tillman’s single tune played on a cello. He went on to say “I wanted to write something that people would truly hate.”
- He found his own production company “Media Ventures” but due to some legal issues later on changed it to “Remote Control Productions.”
- He used electronic manipulation on the French song “Non, je ne regrette rien” to produce score for the movie “Inception” in 2010. The horn sound in the score became a main feature of the movie.
- He dedicated his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame received in December 2010 to his friend Ronni Chasen, killed in Beverly Hills, just a month before.
- He joined with Pharrell Williams of “the Neptunes” to compose a theme song for the 84th Academy Awards in 2012.
- He recorded a single track titled “Aurora” to raise money for the victims of “2012 Aurora Shooting.” During the screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in a theatre in Aurora, a gunman opened fire and killed 12 people and injuring several others.
- He joined other musicians such as Pharrell Williams, Johnny Marr, Michael Einziger, Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski, and Steve Mazzaro, known as “The Magnificent Six,” to compose songs for the movie “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in 2014.
- He revealed in an interview that he is retiring from composing songs for superhero movies as he found it too difficult to compose for “Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
- His last name in Germany means “Room,” or “Chamber.”
- He first married Vicki Carolin on March 19, 1982. The marriage lasted only 10 years and they divorced on April 7, 1992. They both have a kid together.
- He presently lives with his second wife Suzanne in Los Angeles. He has 3 children from this marriage.
- He rates the theme song from the movie “Assault on Precinct 13” in the year 1976 by director John Carpenter as his favorite theme of all time.
- Once during an interview he said he feels German producers forgot him for their German language film’s music composition. Immediately he was hired for German movie “Laura’s Star” in 2004.
- He was nominated in the year 2006 for “Film Composer of the Year” Award by the International Film Music Critics Association.
- The Daily Telegraph published a list of “Top 100 Living Geniuses” in 2007 which included Zimmer’s name.
- He achieved his 100th score of his career when he composed for the movie “The Last Samurai.”
