When we sit down to speak with Lorne Balfe, the composer of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the sixth and arguably best of the Tom Cruise spy movie bunch, we have to stop midway through the interview. Lalo Schifrin had just come on the radio to discuss how much he loved Balfe’s reworking of his ‘Mission: Impossible Theme’.
Schifrin was the composer who realised an awesome baseline was the secret to one of the greatest espionage themes of all time in 1966 – and it was a theme that Balfe rearranged for Fallout’s opening credits. It was one of the many ways Balfe and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie shook things up on the action sequel, but Balfe was nervous about it all the way through the production. Hearing that the legendary composer loved it, Balfe told us that he can now “die a happy man.”
The general relief in Balfe’s demeanor underscores a Cinderella rollout for Fallout, which many have hailed as the series’ best. And a big part of that are the chances Balfe and McQuarrie took. The latter previously directed the then-best reviewed M:I movie, Rogue Nation, yet in coming back elected to have an almost entirely new creative team, including the composer.
Balfe, who has worked on some big franchise films before including Terminator: Genisys and The Lego Batman Movie, was given relative free rein to reimagine things, including creating what became the film’s signature theme, an original piece highlighting Ethan’s isolation and loneliness. That, plus a more aggressively muscular tone, allowed Balfe to help make the film a big departure from the rest of the series
In our interview, we discuss trying to reinvent the ‘Mission: Impossible Theme’, as well as Balfe’s own contributions on percussions and bongos in the score (he was apparently a “failed” percussionist). We also consider just what the word “trilogy” could mean…
DoG: How did Christoper McQuarrie first approach you about joining the Mission: Impossible team?
Lorne Balfe: We’ve got a lot of mutual friends and colleagues. Jack Myers, who produced Dunkirk, and the whole Paramount family. That was the initial connection, and then I started having a few breakfasts with McQuarrie to talk about the film. He talked a lot about Ethan’s character in this movie, and how he wanted to show a different side to him. I think after the third breakfast, I locked myself in the studio and I wrote down the music to basically try and say everything that I felt I was getting from him about Ethan. So that’s how it all began.
McQuarrie has said he really wanted this to feel entirely different from Rogue Nation. How did he specifically articulate that to you, and how did you interpret that?
He never said you’ve got to do the opposite of what Rogue Nation did. We never had that conversation. It looks different, the movie felt different, the colors of it were totally different. I think it happened naturally. The other great thing is it didn’t use temp music. So the first time I watched the movie [in post-production], some of the scenes I watched actually used music that I had written beforehand for the movie. It was a totally different way of working. But there was no agenda with the music to make it dramatically different, I think it was just a case of, “how do we change these melodies and scenes, and incorporate it into something new?”.
So did you use some of that early music you wrote after the first breakfast meeting in the final film?
Quite a lot of it. I think that the whole exchange cue, when they’re in Paris, that was one of the first pieces that I ever wrote.
The armored car scene?
Yes. That was one of the first scenes. There were quite a lot of other scenes [that came from] initial thoughts about where the music might fit. The first piece that you hear during the wedding was, again, a piece I had written when Chris and I had been talking about the different characters in the movie.
That wedding scene had one of the most interesting pieces of music in it – specifically when Luther is telling Ilsa about Julia. What do you hope audiences take away from that piece of music?
I hope they take away that Ethan is a human, that he’s not a superhero. He’s a human being, and I think the whole point of that scene was really to show his flaws in one way. And I think musically, you’ve got one of the best themes ever written, the Mission: Impossible theme, and the plot theme that comes from the TV show too. I thought they’re as good a themes as any. [Laughs]
They complement each other very well. And with your original piece, it feels much more earnest and yearning than the motifs you usually associate with movie spies.
Yes, and I think also with this movie, I personally never felt that there was ever a sense of parody or even a nostalgic feeling to Mission: Impossible. [And using that theme] is just giving it a cherry on its head, really approaching it as a modern theme and not trying to sound retro, which you can easily do. But the colour of the movie is not like that. It’s a very honest movie. I wish I could say that I contributed to one of the best action fight scenes I’ve ever seen in my life, that bathroom fight, but I can’t. It was so real and raw, and I think that comes back down to McQuarrie’s excellent tastes. He knows when to use music and when not to use it.
It’s all much more visceral when you don’t have music telling you what to think. You just feel the desperation of the characters.
Yeah, and also it’s more barbaric and more real without music accompanying it. You can smell the fear from the men as they fight.
Is there any trepidation in approaching a beloved franchise with such an iconic theme like this?
Yes. Yes and yes. [Laughs] It’s unbelievable. I mean when I first watched the first Mission: Impossible, I was in college, and I remember falling in love with the franchise. I remember seeing him on the train, and just every one, every sequel, has just been part of my growing up with movies, and I think that that theme is so iconic. When you first sit down you’ve got two things going on in your head. One is to try to be aware of the audience and the fans. And I tried to do that the same with Terminator, to be respectful to that theme and use it when it means something. Because it’s not just the fact that it’s a good theme; it’s a memory that people will associate. It’s very intimidating.
At the same time you find yourself worrying that you might be using the theme too much, or else consciously trying to maintain its reverence. You find yourself trying to avoid it at certain times where it might be easy to insert it for every action beat.
But I think it comes down to what feels good, and the fact that it’s Fallout, but it’s also Mission: Impossible – Fallout. I can easily start writing new themes, but I feel that [the theme] makes you feel connected to certain characters. It just is a perfect little theme that some people will say is overused and some people will say it’s underused. You can never win, all you can do really is think about the person watching that movie and ask if it feels right or not.
You have to make it your own too, and I think you do some really interesting work in it, particularly in terms of the percussion.
I’m a failed percussionist, you see. [Laughs] I studied percussion as a music student, and I didn’t have the best of timing, so I could never make it as a professional, unfortunately. But percussion is always very important to me. Also the whole concept of the bongos, and bongos have that very nostalgic feel from the TV show. Sometimes there are solo bongo players, then I go to 12, and then the sound changes the same way the colours of the movie change.
Did you go back and watch any of the TV series?
Yes, but I think I always knew that it wasn’t going to be a reference point. I think it’s important to know the whole history of it though. It’s important to know the pedigree of where everything has come from. It was a huge learning curve, because the TV show wasn’t a part of my generation, the movies were. But for me it’s important to know the heritage of these notes.
And when you hear those bongo drums in the show, you still say, ‘Oh, I know where that’s going into the next film!’
At the beginning of the movie we start off with those bongos, but that wasn’t originally going to happen. But then working with the musicians, as soon as you hear those drums, you feel connected to something. I think that was something else that we wanted to try to introduce without being retro. It’s just a sound that triggers a memory.
At the same time, do you feel like you’re offering a slightly less overt trigger to audiences during the action scenes?
Absolutely. The thing is, this movie is different from the other movies in the franchise. The filmmakers change and so should the music. [It’s like saying] we shouldn’t have gone into color, that black and white was perfectly good. And I think it’s the same with instrumentation. That violin section, the brass section, to me is the same as a mood synthesizer. It’s creating a color, and it helps create a different tone to the story. To me it may be different, but the DNA is all connected back to that original theme. There may be less woodwind in this one, but to me it’s still honest to the original music that Lalo had written.
There does seem to be a trend in film scores for action movies to rely less on leitmotifs in favor of more tonal soundscapes, do you see it evolving that way?
I still think it’s 50/50. I think it depends on the movie though. I think that purists may regard the ‘80s and Jerry Goldsmith being the quintessential example of film scoring, but that was also a very prominent type of score that arrived during a time when soundtracks were purely songs, and there was very little score. So I think times change, and if I’m working on an animation like Lego Batman, it’s very orchestral, it’s very melodic, but that suits the type of story that’s being told.
[The interview is suddenly interrupted by Lalo Schifrin on the radio, talking about how much he loves Balfe’s work]
Could you talk about what you just heard on the radio?
It went a bit too quickly! I was just talking to someone else about the stress that I had throughout this whole process where I was trying to build up the courage to send the music I had done on this to Lalo. And I kept chickening out, basically. I kept coming up with a reason not to. And then especially how the new opening titles are so different from any of the others. It’s a different harmonic way of presenting things, which hadn’t been done. So it was a big jump.
But, anyway, I was petrified sending it to him. And doing this other interview, they said, ‘Has he heard it yet?’ And I told them I was basically petrified to get his reaction. And then about an hour after we talked, they phoned him up directly and played him the music from the film… But that was very touching. He loved it?! I can die a happy man now that I’ve got the blessing of Lalo.
That is a huge vote of confidence. And we were just talking about the importance of his theme. Sounds like he was a real fan of how you reintroduced it in this film and played around with it.
Thankfully, thankfully. I can call my mum now too. That was her dream come true!
Could you talk about how you readjusted that theme for the opening credits? And why you were so worried about Lalo’s reaction?
I think it’s just respect. I think that when you’ve got something that’s so iconic… It’s like you are in a band and you have a version of a Beatles song. It’s on such a high pedestal, it’s damn difficult.
McQuarrie has spoken about how he let the locations help him find this movie and write this script. Were you allowed to enjoy that same free-flowing process?
Yes, I’m basically coming up to a year now to when we first started talking and I think that any opinion you have as a composer when you start Mission is different by the end, because, and I think McQuarrie said this, Mission has a life of its own. And it does. It’s very interesting. I know that halfway through writing a few of the action scenes, you get more and more comfortable with these melodies. Suddenly they’re in your hand. Then, after a while, they’re on your fingertips, and then they become mental. And then you start thinking of new ways to reinvent them. So it constantly evolved. The mission breifing music was one of the hardest scenes to write musically, because it’s such an iconic scene, with Ethan being given his mission. And that cue? I lost track of how many times I wrote it.
You said you’ve been on this for over a year, so after Tom Cruise broke a bone in his foot, did that delay affect your process or give you more room to work?
It gave me a break. During that break, I went and worked on Pacific Rim: Uprising. So, it gave me a break for a while. But having distance from something gives you great retrospect, and I think it was interesting being able to have that distance from the movie, because then you’re able to kind of really step back and judge what you’ve done. ‘Is that the best? Am I giving the best I can?’ And I feel very [pleased] with this movie. I really feel that I’ve given it the best I can to help tell a story.
How does your experience on Mission: Impossible differ from working on other franchises with iconic themes, such as Terminator Genisys and even Lego Batman?
Well the whole working process was very different. My writing room was right next door to McQuarrie’s. So we were next door to each other for a long time. Normally when you speak to a composer, their lives are spent in a dark dungeon… So we were able to constantly be expanding different scenes and different pieces of music together, and it was, yes, it was a very unique way of working, and I think it was a great way of working.
They try and reinvent it every time, but would you be interested in coming back to Mission: Impossible in the future?
Never say never. I’ve loved it and it was a privilege to be part of this family, and I’ve learnt a lot from McQuarrie and Tom. It’s just been amazing to be part of it. You never know. I mean, it’s pretty epic. I don’t know, musically, what direction it could go. So it would be a very hard task. Yes, it would be a joy, but how do you beat this? They say that every time when they make a movie in a franchise, but I think that they have really made a stunning film.
Fingers crossed after these last two McQuarrie ones that he wants to do a trilogy, but we’ll see…
I hear the word trilogy used a lot. [Laughs]