Composers
Web: mariusdevries.com
Contact: Jen Appel - [email protected]
Most Recent: Dicks: The Musical
Songs for A24’s first-ever movie musical, Dicks: The Musical, were created by composers Marius de Vries (Moulin Rouge!, La La Land) and Karl Saint Lucy. Though a newcomer to film scoring, Saint Lucy wrote the music (with the film’s directors and stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp) for the original stage play Fucking Identical Twins, on which the movie is based.
De Vries, who met the film’s directors years ago, says Dicks was one of the most fun projects he has ever worked on. In contrast to the absurdist plot and song lyrics, the musical score is classically orchestrated and true to what one would expect from an off-Broadway musical. “I think in the music department, Karl and I felt a quiet responsibility to be the grownups in the room. We felt the compositional arrangement and execution had to have a real sincerity and act as the skeletal support for all the craziness of the film. We wanted to play it straight with the music,” de Vries says.
Saint Lucy says the biggest challenge of co-writing the music was that the experience was a first for him. “I’d done limited symphonic arranging, but this was a very hands-on experience and Marius was gracious in giving me a chance at orchestrating songs,” he says. “We can feel starved for opportunities that fit, and I’m so grateful my first piece gets to be something that’s so ‘me.’”
De Vries’ advice to aspiring composers is not to enter a project with lukewarm feelings: “Only do it if you must. It should be an inescapable imperative in your life, where the alternative is so terrible to contemplate, you have no choice. Then you’re qualified. You need that level of obsession to drive you through the times when it’s not working.”
Saint Lucy says: “When I first signed on to Fucking Identical Twins, I was just working with my friends who I was doing comedy with. If I did something right, it’s that I said ‘yes’ at a time when I was very broke and in no position to take on a creative investment. Really think about who you can see yourself working with in the long run, and make your career about developing those relationships.” •
