That idea of this hero inside of this ordinary guy,
who's spent all these years in this office and never gone out into the real world,
all of a sudden he's experiencing all this and he has to do it in the moment.
It's very cinematic and kind of epic.
And I felt like he deserved to have this epic score for his life.
Teddy and I talked about it, and he wrote this really beautiful theme.
To me, it's a little bit melancholy, but it's also uplifting, too.
MAN: Perfect.
The very first germs of the concept were about the music making a transition
from dreaminess to presence.
I wanted Walter not to be sad.
He lives a very hermetic life,
but his inner life is very active.
So I wanted to evoke the dreaminess
without it tilting towards, "This is a sad guy."
I don't know, is my page broken?
Do I maybe have a broken page, or...
TODD". I've never heard of that, but, okay.
SHAPIRO: So that was the initial take.
And the theme that became Walter's theme
was written while Ben was shooting in Iceland.
So I sent him that theme and just waited.
He was just too busy while he was shooting to listen to anything.
So I just waited with a sick feeling in my stomach
to hear whether he liked any of it,
then finally got a very enthusiastic e-mail several months later.
The thing that's crazy is, I don't think I would have gotten it
if you hadn't played it for me on the harp.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
I really appreciated that.
STILLER: The music in the movie, to me,
I wanted there to be a voice almost for Walter.
And there is this artist named José González who I really like,
and his voice is amazing.
Step outside Step outside
Baby, Step out!
STILLER: And so, he agreed to basically voice the film in the score,
so there's a lot of humming from José throughout the movie
that's sort of like Walter's voice.
I feel like he's narrating the movie musically with Walter.
GONZALEZ: When we started working on the music,
it was basically me and Teddy sending stuff to each other, at first.
Since we were starting from scratch, I didn't have any words.
So humming, when I write music, that's how I start writing.
I go with melodies and harmonies first.
Ben liked it, Teddy liked it pretty early on to have the humming.
He was just a perfect mesh of voice and a sensibility with material.
STILLER: And then he collaborated with Teddy on some songs,
and then Teddy and Ryan Adams wrote an end title song that José sings
that, I think, really captures the vibe of the movie.
It was a great experience to work with Jose.
Dawn is coming Open your eyes
Look into the sun...
GONZALEZ: I was surprised how well the music,
both the humming parts and also the real songs,
how they really complemented the movie.
...and it's on our side
SHAPIRO: With Ben, we have a great collaborative relationship.
And on this movie, I think that we're both really happy
with how that process turned out.
It was a great experience.