Wonka, a new prequel story delving into the magical past of Roald Dahl's iconic character Willy Wonka, took to the screens last December just in time for Christmas. Full of sugar and spice and all things nice, a delightfully energetic Timothée Chalamet leads the way as young Wonka strives to make dreams come true and create his very own chocolate shop. Built on a solid foundation of sickly sweet and soaring musical numbers, Dahl's world is just as bonkers as ever, with a healthy dose of heart thrown in.
Driving this story of emotion and whimsy is composer Joby Talbot's score, created in conjunction with songwriter and former bandmate from The Divine Comedy, Neil Hannon. Reflecting on the film of the holiday season, Joby chatted with FILMHOUNDS about what it takes to make a musical score that not only sits in Dahl's world — but fully brings it to life.
Wonka was just the sort of film we needed for Christmas. Honestly, it was lovely. And a lot of that comes down to the musical design and the scoring. What initially drew you to the project?
My old bandmate and friend Neil, who I hadn't worked with in decades — I used to play in his band, The Divine Comedy, back in the '90s/early 2000s. I heard he was doing the songs and we had dinner together, and I was like “Oh, who's doing the scoring?”
I then got to watch the movie and I thought it was amazing. The world-building is just incredible. So I spoke with [director] Paul King and gave my kind of take on how it should work musically. I think it's imperative that the score and the song live in the same world, that the songs just emerge effortlessly from the score and that you never feel you're going from one movie into another movie, which is a really tricky thing to pull off. In the great musicals, you don't ever ask yourself “why are they starting to sing?”, you just feel like it's completely natural.
I thought I was pretty well qualified to do it because I knew Neil's music intimately, probably better than anybody. I also loved the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book growing up and I'm exactly the same age as the Gene Wilder movie. So it all seemed like one of those things where the stars sort of align.
Roald Dahl's books are known for being so whimsical and then you add this incredible world-building which screenwriters Simon Farnby and Paul King elaborate on in this prequel. How did you go about bringing these elements into the music?
It's interesting when you come on a project where they've been working on it for a long time because you pick up on what the priorities have been. We kept coming back to one thing: “Does it sound like Dahl, does it feel like Dahl?” [Dahl's world is] whimsical, a little bit dangerous, a little bit dark. It's weirdly moralistic and also weirdly amoral. And it's obviously something that kids really react to. So everyone was asking themselves, what was it about the material when you saw it as a kid that really chimed?
So we talked long and hard about how to make a Dahl-worthy score — we wanted music that could live in that world. It's interesting because it's not based squarely in one place or time. They didn't want to make it too specific with this fancy fairytale place. So some of the choices we were making reflect this variety — using lots of cymbals, banjos, then some big band brass and musical score. There's a sort of circus element to it as well. Willy is almost like the ringmaster in this kind of world he's creating around him.
I didn't really start scoring this until I had taken a really deep dive into the songs, and I think that paid off because it means that every musical choice you're making is informed by what you've done with the song. You're never very far away from the feeling of the song.
There's quite a lot of anticipation for the most well-known song, Pure Imagination, maybe because you've weaved that motif throughout the score? So when it finally arrives at the end, well I thought that was quite magical.
It was a decision quite early on that we were going to try and have it at the beginning. But then it wasn't immediately apparent that it was going to be attached to the Noodle storyline — her search for her mother. There's that moment where she tries a piece of chocolate for the first time, and she talks about her mother — we played just the opening bar of Pure Imagination and Paul and I looked at each other like “Well that kind of works.”
There was, initially, this big version of the song that cut — this big fantastical kind of thing. It was very lovely but it felt like a musically sealed-off thing in the middle of the movie. It wasn't really informing anything on either side of it. But you don't actually hear the song that often because every time, every time it played, it cost a lot of money paid in royalties. So we couldn't just use it unthinkingly. There had to be a reason for using it.
Well, it certainly makes for a triumphant ending. Why do you think it's important that this story is a musical, in a sense?
They're very keen we don't call it a musical, we call it a film with songs. But is that not a musical? And obviously, the first thing about that is you have to choose the right place in the script for there to be a song. All of that happened before I got on board. You then sow the seeds for the incoming song quite far in advance of the song happening. So it's almost like the music is taking us into that heightened reality without us even noticing it. Just as the film is otherworldly, and fun and whimsical and ethereal and magical, well the idea of people bursting into song is very much a part of that line of thinking. So it makes sense to me that they would sing, and also that the music would just be, even when they are not singing, the music is so kind of front and centre in this film.
Well, chocolate and music are both forms of magic, right? So you just have to have music in a Willy Wonka film.
Obviously, Wonka has been played by a number of iconic actors — what was it like writing the music for Timothée Chalamet's younger rendition?
He's obviously incredible in the role. It was such a smart idea to cast him and he makes the film. His take on the character is rather more innocent, naive, wide-eyed, kind of optimistic than the Gene Wilder version. He's got that very clean, clear American kind of pop voice. It's just lovely.
I only met him the one time, I went down when they were recording Pure Imagination and I was just so impressed with him, and his whole engagement in the process. He was constantly coming up with new thoughts and new plans, Timmy was exceptional at that.
And then you have this great crew of — I don't want to say ‘villains' — on the other side of it. What was it like writing for the more ‘amoral' side of Wonka's world, as you said?
I loved writing for the baddies, it's always the best fun.
It's funny, when you're deciding which elements of the songs that you can take and kind of, you know, run with. It's not always obvious which bits are going to be useful to you and which bits aren't, until you settle down and try to write and discover that really useful musical motif that's striking, once you hear it you're not going to forget it. That was Sweet Tooth – every time it comes back we know that it signifies the whole corrupt chocolate cartel.
And they were just visually so engaging. Such an opulent world they live in. And then you compare it with the hotel, their world was a different sort of thing. Kind of a mechanical nightmare of the laundry with horrible machines clattering away. So making the musical languages of those different songs, and the music associated with those songs, storylines, and characters as different as possible is important.
Scrubbit and Bleacher were interesting because I found as soon as I started to put music against those two, they became much more likeable. It sort of softened them and it made them more clown-like and funny. It's really interesting when you start putting music against performances, it kind of changes things. There are certain actors who don't really need any music. There's no room for music. It's all in the performance. And there are other ones who, as soon as you put music, you realise that the performance was just asking for some music. You can attach music to them … and as soon as you put music there, it all comes together.
And what sort of instrumentation went into Noodle's musical direction?
Her instrument comes from the piano. So she has two themes: For A Moment and Pure Imagination, which is her dream.
For A Moment, it's sort of an indie pop song — it's a bit more modern. We worked very hard on making it sort of take off and fly when they get up on the roof with the balloons on the glass building. You just feel the whole thing just soaring off. I mean she is the beating heart of the movie. I think the really emotional part of this is her finding that she does have a family and learning to engage with people and trust Willy.
Before we finish up, can we talk a little about the recording of these magical scores?
The songs and the score and everything was recorded in scratch so there's nothing fake in it, it's all real performances by real people. We started to think about them about a year ago in January. And then it was sort of on and off, right the way through until three days before it was finally released. There was one day when we had five different studios and I was on my bicycle, charging around London trying to manage the whole situation
There was an orchestra, the band which is the heart of the songs, and a big bang — like three different choirs, the monks, the male boy's choir, and organs. It's just kind of amazing. It was just like being given the keys to the candy store! They all worked so hard to make it feel real. This is a real place, a real-time place, helping you really believe in the emotions and believe in the emotional story. What I really really love is just human beings expressing themselves through music to another human being.
Let's finish off with a few quick fire questions. Favourite song?
Sweet Tooth – I just think it's just brilliantly done. Neil really pulled it out of the hat with that one. The harmonies are just perfect, a little kind of perfect musical box. But the one that lands most impressively is You've Never Had Chocolate Like This with the whole song and dance element. That was really fun too.
I'm a big fan of your work on Sing, is there anything else from your past experience that you think helped on this project?
Well, the big project I finished right before it was with the Royal Ballet, Like Water for Chocolate. There was a lot of chocolate in my immediate past. So that's probably helpful. But certainly the big ballet scores, you know — Wonderland, and all the arrangements I did for Neil back in the day.
If chocolate were an instrument, what instrument would it be?
Well, it's sort of sensuous, seductive so probably that oboe sound. Reedy and sophisticated.
And one final question – do you like chocolate?
I do, I like it very much. Neil says he doesn't, but who doesn't like chocolate!
Surely you can't sign on to this film if you don't like chocolate!
No, I wouldn't have thought so.
