With just a few notes, Hans Zimmer can transport you back to your childhood (Pirates of the Caribbean,The Lion King) or forward to a dystopian future (Dune, The Dark Knight). Sometimes his work twists the knife (Interstellar, No Time to Die). Other times it lifts your spirits (Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated). After a 40-year career, the two-time Academy Award–winning German composer now steps into the spotlight in a new film dedicated to the study of his scores, featuring conversations with everyone from Denis Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet to Billie Eilish and Zendaya. According to Christopher Nolan, expect “proper Zimmer madness.” To celebrate the release of Diamond in the Desert, Zimmer shares his key components to the good life. —Carolina de Armas
Airline: Emirates.
Airport: Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas.
Alibi: “The dog did it.”
Bag: Rimowa.
Bedtime: No bedtime.
Car: BMW.
Cocktail: A Bellini—in Capri.
Cocktail appetizer: Caviar.
Date: My partner.
Dinner, weekday: Pasta.
Dinner, weekend: Pasta.
Drive: Through the English countryside in the spring.
Escape: I have a place, but if I told you, then everyone would come.
Excuse: “The dog did it.”
Family: The ones across the fence.
Friend: Pharrell Williams.
Hideaway: If I told you my perfect hideaway, it wouldn’t be a hideaway.
Hotel: The Lowell, in New York City.
Indulgence: Caviar in bed at the Lowell with my partner.
Jacket: Canali.
Last Meal: A pint of peach ice cream.
Movie: Anything by Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Andrei Tarkovsky, or Sergio Leone.
Neighbor: One you never have to meet.
Nonfiction book: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes.
Novel: Dune, by Frank Herbert.
Pair of pants: Etro.
Pair of shoes: Hermès.
Pen or Pencil: Fountain pen.
Pet: Dog.
Piece of advice: “Keep your advice to yourself.”
Restaurant: Giorgio Baldi, in Los Angeles.
Ride: The Flying Scotsman express passenger train.
Saying: “Enough is enough.”
Singer: Aretha Franklin.
Socks: Paul Smith.
Street: Regent Street in London lit up for Christmas.
Television series: Borgen.
Theme song to your life: Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
Time of day: After the sun has gone down.
Vacation: An adventure in Italy with my partner.
Wake-up time: Noonish.
Work of art: Anything by Gerhard Richter.
Hans’s Essentials
