Marvel‘s Runaways premieres at the end of the month on Hulu and the man behind the music of it all seems to be having quite the creative experience. While the word “fun” tends to be a divisive word when it comes to fans and critics, fun behind the camera is what keeps creatives wanting to work under the Marvel umbrella and draws more talent towards it. For Siddhartha Khosla, that seems to be the case.
In fact, it’s what could have Khosla’s name pop up in future Marvel projects — he sure hopes so after his experience on Runaways.
“Absolutely. This is so much fun for me,” Khosla said. “It would be a dream to do more stuff in the Marvel universe. I would love too. I’ve learned a lot working on the score on this.”
Khosla’s most recent work can be found on NBC’s This Is Us, where he composed the music for the popular series. Now on Runaways, the most obvious question was how one led to another. With a different sound and style, the two shows exist on completely different plains and may not seem like the easiest transition.
That was a welcomed challenge for Khosla and it turns out there was a strong sense of familiarity entering Runaways, one that made Marvel much less daunting for the composer. Series creators Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, known for their work on The O.C. and Gossip Girl, were strong factors in Khosla’s decision to take the opportunity with Marvel.
“What ultimately drew me to the project was the team behind it. Stephanie and Josh are extraordinary at what they do and they have a gift and a real understanding of that relationship between two different generations,” Khosla said. “They do that so well and always have in their careers. And Alexandra Patsavas, the music supervisor, is amazing so I’ve been a big fan of all three of them. The opportunity to work with them was a long time coming. Oddly enough, they’ve used some of my band’s songs in their earlier shows. There was a mutual love and that’s what made this so special.”
The band Khosla is referring to is Goldspot, of which he works as a singer/songwriter/producer. From film to television and being in a band, it’s clear that Khosla’s talent for music stretches to all corners. But when working for a well-oiled machine such as Marvel, creativity can become stifled — at least that tends to be the concern. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t the case at all. And luckily for Runaways fans, we may reap those benefits through some rare choices in sound.
“The amount of artistic freedom I get on this show is awesome,” Khosla said. “Like I get to do stuff that is very rare for television. The risks that I get to take are fun. There are some weird, crazy sounds in this score sometimes. As the season progresses, you’ll hear it a lot more. It’s a bold sound too and (Josh and Stephanie) embraced it and they think it’s cool. That’s where my encouragement comes from.”
It’s not often one goes into a series or film listening for the composer’s flair. Without the last name Williams, Elfman or Zimmer, it could be difficult to garner that sort of fandom from composing, but knowing that Marvel’s Runaways could offer something outside-the-box in terms of a score could certainly have the potential to perk up some ears.
Marvel’s Runaways stars Rhenzy Feliz (Teen Wolf, Casual) as Alex Wilder, Lyrica Okano (The Affair) as Nico Minoru, Virginia Gardner (Little Bitches) as Karolina Dean, Ariela Barer (New Girl) as Gert Yorkes, Gregg Sulkin (Faking It) as Chase Stein and Allegra Acosta (100 Things to do Before High School) as Molly Hernandez.
Runaways also stars the villainous group The Pride which consists of Kip Pardue (ER) as Frank Dean, Ryan Sands (The Wire) as Geoffrey Wilder, Angel Parker (The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story) as Catherine Wilder, Brittany Ishibashi (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) as Tina Minoru, James Yaegashi (Madame Secretary) as Robert Minoru, Kevin Weisman (Alias) as Dale Yorkes, Brigid Brannagh (Army Wives) as Stacey Yorkes, Annie Wersching (The Vampire Diaries) as Leslie Dean, James Marsters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Victor Stein and Ever Carradine (The Handmaids Tale) as Janet Stein.
