“ The Regime ” showrunner Stephen Frears is a man of few words when it comes to music — at least according to award-winning composer Alexandre Desplat . But that wasn’t a bad thing. The two had previously collaborated, and Desplat liked that approach, as it gave him free reign to come up with compositions that he could bring back to the director.
Recruited for HBO’s “The Regime,” starring Kate Winslet as the chancellor who reigns over an unnamed Central European country, Desplat looked to Winslet’s acting, design and costumes for inspiration. “The music needed to be charged with humor, but not too much,” he says. “There also needed to be an ominous presence.
There’s something uncomfortable about these people. They’re almost sad, and they’re crazy and unique, so the music had to show that desperate world.” He found himself writing music that was layered with “Mitteleuropa sounds.
The music is never really happy. It’s a strange mix of melancholy and joy in the music you hear,” Desplat explains. The world of the show, with huge palaces and a country ready to go to war, dictated that the need for a good-sized orchestra to provide the score’s foundation.
In addition, Desplat recruited musicians playing the balalaika (a Russian stringed musical instrument) to create a mix of sounds. He added the cimbalom, which, combined with the orchestrations, infused an energy into the score. When Frears first heard a cue from Desplat, the showrunner suggest.
