Tony Gilroy Swaps Politics for Music in New Film Behemoth!

Tony Gilroy once dreamed of being a musician. He played guitar in several bands and moved to Los Angeles hoping to land a studio gig. A session with real players showed him he wasn’t cut out for that life. Still, the world of film scoring caught his attention. While working on the score for Rogue One at the Gary Martin Soundstage, he felt the intensity of the orchestra and thought there had to be a story worth telling. He left the session with a buzz that stayed with him for years.\n\nHis new film Behemoth! debuted at the New York Film Festival and will hit theaters December fourth through Searchlight Pictures. Pedro Pascal plays a cellist who is always on the run, a former prodigy returning to Los Angeles to write music for movies. His life is messy, but his playing is flawless. The movie is a tight, time‑shifting character study that feels like a cousin to Michael Clayton and a love note to the craft of film scoring. To fill the soundtrack, Gilroy recruited nine composers, calling them the Behemoth! Collective, and gave each the same fee. They wrote a short manifesto that set up a utopian vibe for the collaboration. The

idea was simple: everyone gets equal pay and equal voice.\n\nGilroy often talks about how music and image blend in mysterious ways. He mentions the lucky find of a zither player in a tavern that shaped the score of The Third Man. He also recalls that Michael Clayton started with no music at all; he watched it silent many times before a score finally clicked. Working on Andor for six years taught him a lot, calling it the most life‑changing creative burst he’s ever had. That experience let him turn the Rogue One spinoff into a sharp look at fascism and revolution. He says the process taught him to listen closely to every cue.\n\nBehemoth! became his escape from the endless cycle of politics, anger and dread that came with reading the news each day. He said he gave himself permission to hide in this movie for a while, feeling he had said enough and fought enough. Turning off the news and putting on music felt like a treat. When asked what Andor taught him about today’s world, he pointed to a shortage of alternative leaders who can speak with charm and clarity. He worries that without such voices, public debate stays stuck.

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