Few Hollywood composers deserve the ‘veteran’ title as much as the three-time Grammy-winning Mark Mancina; an early collaborator with Hans Zimmer when the German only had a makeshift room for a studio, Mancina has scored beloved films including Twister, Bad Boys, Con Air and many more. He speaks to Headliner about simultaneously returning to the world of Moana to score its sequel, while also working on Juror #2, rumoured to be Clint Eastwood’s final film.
While Mancina has scored over 60 films and television series, he is a songwriter at heart, initially dreaming of being a rockstar — his love of writing, arranging and producing songs has stayed with him throughout his career, one of the reasons he can go from scoring a gritty film like Training Day to the multiple Disney films he has worked on, including Tarzan and Brother Bear.
He is such an experienced head that he is seeing films he has previously worked on being rebooted: he scored the original Twister in 1996 which saw the new Twisters released last year, and he is currently working on the live-action remake of Moana and is intent on not repeating himself musically, having been the composer for the original Moana film, not to mention this is coming straight from working on Moana 2.
He is speaking from his home in north California, where the Los Angeles fires thankfully haven’t reached. “I have been through several fires, and I used to live in Southern California where it was common. I really feel for those folks. And, a lot of people I worked with on Moana have been affected by this tragedy, so it's really terrible.”
Mancina steadfastly believes that his ability to wear lots of musical hats has been something that has firmly seen him through his decades-long career.