Hans Zimmer: The man behind the Lion King and Dune scores, is set to make his Bollywood debut

Rejoiced in the majestic beats of Lion King’s Circle of Life or expressed amazement at the different emotions let out through ‘ I Just Cant Wait to be King’; got the adrenaline rush while listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean background score or lost yourself in the dreaminess of the Interstellar BG? Then thank one man – Hans Zimmer. This 67 year old German music composer is the reason movies like The Dark Knight Trilogy, No Time to Die, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Dunkirk and many more are remembered by their music and background scores today. As Zimmer is all set to make his big Bollywood debut with A.R Rahman through Ramayana, here’s recapping why he is still a legend and a master of music.

Who is Hans Zimmer and what makes him a musical legend?

As a child in the 1960s he disliked the idea of formal training. In fact, he used to play his family piano and the only formal training he ever got was two-weeks of piano lesson. Post which, it was completely self-taught. Admitting to the fact that Italian composer Ennio Morricone was probably the reason he chose to devote his life to music, Zimmer, over the years has carved a special style for himself.

Fusing electronic music and traditional orchestra compositions, his works are modern, traditional, yet humbling. As he often said that he could hear music in his mind; he recreated just that for the listeners, for if one hears his music once, they would keep on humming it in their minds.

But life wasn’t always very easy for Zimmer who grew up Jewish in a Post World War II society. His mother escaped the war and they were weary of his identity or rather revealing it due to security reasons. Zimmer has often admitted that his mother was musically gifted while his father, who he lost quite young, encouraged innovation. And perhaps that is how his own style of innovating music started quite early on in his journey.

Zimmer was also part of music bands and wrote advertisement jingles. But it was the 1988 movie Rain Man which changed his life. There was no looking back from there. It was followed by Driving Miss Daisy, Lion King and so on. In fact, most of his movies are Oscar-winning movies. Zimmer himself is the recipient of two Oscars – for Lion King and Dune; a BAFTA and five Grammy Awards. Along the way, Zimmer has not only composed music but also studied music to deeply engross himself in the subject and then experiment with it as per the requirement of the movie. He had once gone to Africa to record their scores in their native language to enriching his knowledge about Japanese music for The Last Samurai. With time, he ventured in scoring music for The Netflix show The Crowns and even the FIFA Anthem – Living Football apart from documentaries for Sir David Attenborough.

And now with the news drop of Hans Zimmer making his way to Bollywood for the Ranbir Kapoor – Yash led Ramayana, one cannot keep calm to see his magic along with India’s own Academy Award winner AR Rahman. He is also said to have F1 starring Bradd Pitt in his sleeves.

On personal front, Hans Zimmer is divorced from Vicki Carolin, but the two have a daughter. He then married Suzanne Zimmer with whom he has three children. But the couple is divorced as well. In 2023, he proposed to his partner Dina De Luca during a live show on stage.

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