Jeff Russo (‘Bosch: Legacy,’ ‘Fargo,’ ‘Ripley,’ ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ composer): ‘I give each project that I’m working on its own due’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I give each project that I’m working on its own due,” declares Emmy-winning composer Jeff Russo. For our recent webchat he adds, “I think that I try as a writer and as a creator, to just stretch.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
Russo won an Emmy in 2017 for composing the third installment of “Fargo,” and has been nominated for all four previous seasons of the anthology series. The in-demand composer saw four of his projects premiere this past season, including his fifth tilt at the FX limited series, as well as Netflix’s sumptuous “Ripley,” the final season of the Paramount+ sci-fi drama “Star Trek: Discovery,” and the sophomore season of Amazon Freevee’s “Bosch: Legacy.”
SEE ‘Fargo’ season 5 rave reviews raise its Emmys profile
“Fargo” was created and written by Emmy winner Noah Hawley, based on Joel Coen and Ethan Coen‘s Oscar-winning 1996 film of the same name. The anthology series takes place in the Midwest, with each season following its own self-contained narrative with a disparate set of characters in various settings and eras. The 10-episode fifth season is set in Minnesota and North Dakota in the fall of 2019 and stars Emmy nominee Juno Temple (“Ted Lasso”) as midwestern housewife Dorothy “Dot” Lyon, whose mysterious past comes back to haunt her after she inadvertently lands herself in hot water with the authorities. The dark comedy/crime drama also stars Oscar nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh (“The Hateful Eight”) and Emmy winner Jon Hamm (“Mad Men”) as the season’s nefarious villain. “With ‘Fargo,’ we have a new story being told every year. I get to reimagine what that score is going to be every season, and I’m very fortunate to work on something like that where I get to stretch out every year because the story is different,” Russo says about composing for the FX drama.
On the other hand, “Ripley” stars Andrew Scott as the titular con-artist social climber in this latest re-imagined adaptation of the classic Patricia Highsmith 1955 crime novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” which was previously adapted by the late Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”). All eight episodes of the Netflix limited series were written and directed by series creator and Oscar winner Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”), with an ensemble including co-stars Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf, Eliot Sumner as Freddy Miles, Margherita Buy as Signora Buffi, Maurizio Lombardi as Inspector Pietro Ravin and Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood. The opulent film noir unfolds as a grifter named Ripley living in New York during the 1960s is hired by a wealthy man to weave a complex web of deceit, fraud and murder in an idyllic paradise on the Neapolitan coast. “We’re making a thriller, a noir thriller that is about a psycho and there’s nothing pretty about that,” Russo explains about the challenges of finding the right tone for the series. “There’s ugliness there, and all of that pretty that we see has to be juxtaposed against the tension that we feel and the dark, and at the same time we still have to tip our hat to the fact that we’re in Italy, and it’s 1963.”
Looking back at five years of “Star Trek: Discovery,” Russo says this final season gave him plenty of new opportunities. “The way we are telling this story in this season is a departure from the last few seasons. It was always going to be this race against time. It was always going to be this swashbuckling, so to speak. One of our main goals this season was to have as much fun as we could,” he says. The fifth and final season of “Star Trek” hit opens with Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery navigating the complicated politics of a newly re-formed Federation over 900 years into the distant future. However, they soon stumble upon an age-old mystery that sends them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to uncover an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. The series’ swansong season co-stars Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz, David Ajala and Blu del Barrio, with Emmy nominee Alex Kurtzman (“Star Trek: Short Treks”) and Michelle Paradise once again serving as showrunners.
Russo’s fourth project this season, “Bosch: Legacy,” stars Titus Welliver, who reprises his role as former LAPD detective Harry Bosch from the original Amazon Prime Video police procedural “Bosch” (2014–2021). “‘Bosch,’ for me was a different type of storytelling altogether, and I really enjoy telling that story,” Russo declares about the crime drama sequel, which was developed by Michael Connelly, Tom Bernardo and Eric Overmyer and co-stars “Bosch” returnees Mimi Rogers and Madison Lintz.
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