Harry Gregson-Williams
Harry Gregson-Williams is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after and prolific composers, whose long list of film and television credits underscores the diverse range of his talents. His recent projects include Warner Bros.’ summer hit “The Meg,” directed by Jon Turteltaub; the action thriller “The Equalizer 2,” starring Denzel Washington and directed by Antoine Fuqua; Aardman Animation’s “Early Man,” directed by Nick Park, for which he received an Annie Award nomination; and
Disneynature’s “Penguins,” which opened on April 17, 2019. Anticipated films set to premier in 2021 include Antoine Fuqua’s feature film “Infinite,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel,” starring Matt Damon and Adam Driver.
The recent Disney release of the live action “Mulan” marks the second time Gregson-Williams has worked with director Niki Caro, having scored her film “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” which was released in 2017. Other projects for 2020 include Antoine Fuqua’s feature film “Infinite,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Gregson-Williams’s recent television projects include “Manhunt: Deadly Games” for Lionsgate Television and the limited series “Catch-22,” directed and executive produced by George Clooney for Hulu, which premiered on May 17, 2019. He also wrote the music for the ABC action dramedy series “Whiskey Cavalier,” starring Scott Foley, which premiered in February 2019. Previously he created the main title theme
and scored two episodes for Amazon’s 10-episode sci-fi anthology series “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.” For the episode titled “The Commuter,” he received an Emmy® nomination.
Gregson-Williams was the composer on all four installments of the animated blockbuster “Shrek” franchise, garnering a BAFTA Award nomination for the score for the Oscar®-winning “Shrek.” He also received Golden Globe® and GRAMMY® Award nominations for his score for Andrew Adamson’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe.” He has collaborated multiple times with a number of directors, including Ben Affleck on the films “Live by Night,” “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone”; Joel Schumacher on “Twelve,” “The Number 23,” “Veronica Guerin” and “Phone Booth”; Tony Scott on “Unstoppable,” “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” “Déjà Vu,” “Domino,” “Man on Fire,” “Spy Game” and “Enemy of the State”; Ridley Scott on “The Martian,” “Prometheus,” “Exodus: Gods and Kings” and “Kingdom of
Heaven”; Bille August on “Return to Sender” and “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”; Andrew Adamson on the Shrek series, the first two Narnia movies and “Mr. Pip”; and Antoine Fuqua on “The Replacement Killers” and “The Equalizer.”
His many other credits include the scores for Simon Baker’s directorial debut, “Breath”; the telefilm “Confirmation”; Catherine Hardwicke’s “Miss You Already”; “Blackhat,” for director Michael Mann; Len Wiseman’s “Total Recall”; Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens”; the documentary “Life in a Day”; Mike Newell’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”; Gavin Hood’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”; and Beeban Kidron’s “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.” Gregson-Williams has also created the scores for a variety of animated features, including Aardman’s “Arthur Christmas,” “Flushed Away” and the Oscar®-winning “Chicken Run”; and DreamWorks’ “Antz.”
Gregson-Williams has scored three of the five games in the highly successful “Metal Gear Solid” franchise for Konami and scored “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” for Activision, which became the top-selling video game of 2014 and earned him various music gaming awards. Throughout his career, Gregson-Williams has collaborated with
a diverse array of recording artists such as Regina Spektor, Imogen Heap, Tricky, Peter Murphy, Flea, Hybrid, Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, Trevor Horn, Trevor Rabin, Lebo M., Perry Farrell and Tony Visconti.
Born in England to a musical family, Gregson-Williams earned a music scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge, at the age of 7 and later gained a coveted spot at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama, from which he recently received an honorary fellowship. He started his film career as assistant to composer Richard Harvey and later as orchestrator and arranger for Stanley Myers, and then went on to
compose his first scores for director Nicolas Roeg. His subsequent collaboration and friendship with composer Hans Zimmer led to Gregson-Williams providing music for such films as “The Rock,” “Armageddon” and “The Prince of Egypt” and helped launch his career in Hollywood.
In 2018, Gregson-Williams received the BMI Icon Award, in recognition of his unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists’ prestigious Ambassador Award. He has also been a regular mentor at the Sundance Composers Lab, working directly with talented emerging composers from all over the world.