Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit Western series “The Madison” features a powerful performance from Michelle Pfeiffer as a widow who relocates her family from New York City to Montana in the wake of her husband’s sudden and tragic death. With the star’s acting serving as the show’s solid anchor, one of composer Brenton Vivian‘s main tasks was to give the series a score that supported rather than overshadowed her work.
“She’s such an incredible actress that really I didn’t need to do much,” Vivian said during IndieWire’s Craft Roundtables. “Just something to hold that performance in place really, and have an undercurrent of score underneath it and let her do her thing.”
Vivian was joined by a variety of different composers from some of the biggest shows of the past year at the IndieWire composer roundtable. Also present were “Alien Earth” composer Jeff Russo, “The Boroughs” composer John Paesano, “Spider-Noir” composer Kris Bowers & Michael Dean Parsons, “Murderbot” composer Amanda Jones, and “Monster: The Ed Gein Story” composer Mac Quayle.
Vivian explained that Pfeiffer’s performance, and the character arc she goes through across the show’s first season, helped him to shape the arc of his own score. In the beginning, as her matriarch Stacy processes her grief, the music he composed is minimalist and more in the background of the series. In the show’s later episodes, as Stacy begins the process of moving on from the tragedy, the score grows in presence, becoming much a much larger part of the show’s tapestry.
“The last thing I want to do is be like, ‘Everyone listen to the music! This is what we should be listening to, not her performance,’” Vivian said. “A lot of her performance was helping me strip back the score. It’s only until she starts getting through it all, and starts having a better understanding of her loss and her grief, that I can start to bring the score back in, and have it tell a bit more of the story.”
Watch the complete panel in the video above. IndieWire’s TV Craft Roundtables is now streaming on @PBSSoCal and the PBS App as well as IndieWire.com and our social channels.
