Interview
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND Composer Mac Quayle Discusses His New Film
In this apocalyptic thriller from award-winning writer and director Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot), Amanda (Academy Award winner Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke), rent a luxurious home for the weekend with their kids, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). Their vacation is soon upended when two strangers — G.H. (Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) — arrive in the night, bearing news of a mysterious cyberattack and seeking refuge in the house they claim is theirs. The two families reckon with a looming disaster that grows more terrifying by the minute, forcing everyone to come to terms with their places in a collapsing world. Based on the National Book Award-nominated novel by Rumaan Alam, LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND is produced by Esmail Corp, Red Om Films, and executive produced by Higher Ground Productions.
Watch the film on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81314956
Esmail says of his movie:
“I think this film is right for audiences today because it speaks to the uncertainty of how we feel. I’ve always viewed Leave the World Behind as a cautionary tale, and I say that because there’s no hero’s journey in this film. There’s no moral lesson. It’s really about where our world is at and where it could go and what that means. And what I want more than anything is to provoke conversation, because I do think no matter what the solution, if there even is a solution, the path forward is to talk about it.”
WAMG recently spoke with Emmy-winning composer Mac Quayle on his score for Netflix’s LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND.
We discussed composing the frenetic score, his use of music to create a paranoid, unstable world, and his take on the controversial ending.
Spoilers Ahead!
WAMG: Let’s talk about your new movie, LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND. I think a lot of the success of this film is really your score. It’s one of the most interesting scores I’ve ever heard.
What led you to become a composer when you were growing up? Were you in marching band?
Mac Quayle: My parents put me in the church choir when I was six. Okay. That’s my beginning with music. Piano lessons from age ten to 13 and around that same time, getting into high school band, I was in the marching band as a percussionist, and then I played in a couple of rock bands. And then I went to NYU.
Studied a little music, but dropped out because I was launched into sort of the beginning of my music business career in New York as a musician, producer, dance remixer. And I had this sort of whole first career in New York in the music business.
And then that took me into the very early 2000s, when the music business had its first sort of downturn as being disrupted by digital technology. I moved to Los Angeles in 2004 looking for what was next and it took me a couple of years to get my first real job, but I started working as an additional composer on a TV show called “Cold Case”.
That was kind of the beginning of career number two, the film and television world. And then that kind of brings me up to now.
That’s about 17 years ago. It kind of really took off in 2014 when I got hired by Ryan Murphy to work on “American Horror Story”. And that sort of just gave everything a lift, and that led to me meeting Sam Esmail and, working with him on “Mr. Robot”, and then now, of course, collaborating with him.
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Mahershala Ali as G.H. CR: Courtesy NETFLIX
WAMG: The score crescendos, till the end of the film… it’s so chaotic, and you’ve got so many musical visual cues. Can you tell me about composing for a thriller, horror, disaster movie? What did the director tell you prior to composing so that it doesn’t fall into one of these genre tropes?
MQ: Well, he sent me a playlist of music that I’ve been listening to that he thought might be an inspiration for a starting point.
And it was mostly orchestral music, quite bizarre. I call it avant-garde, new classical music from Europe. I didn’t know most of it, very dissonant, a-tonal, quite weird. And I was excited. I heard this, and I’m like, oh, this is going to be so much fun to go into this world.
And I knew he would have to record an orchestra, and he was on board with that. That’s literally the starting point. I read the script.
WAMG: You were composing while he’s shooting the movie?
MQ: That’s right. When I got started, a key piece of how he wanted to work was he didn’t want to use temp music, right, which was contemporary music. (That is a popular tool where directors will put in music that they just hold a place until they compose the real score.) And he didn’t want to use that. He just wanted to have my music from the beginning. So that meant I was going to have to get to work before he was in full editing mode.
And so I wrote a few pieces, which I sent to him. He loved them. And then I just wrote ideas, motifs, weird orchestral effects, all these different things. And I went in and recorded with a string session, a string section, and a brass section. I took all this material, and I chopped it up and put it into my computer and then started using that to write the rest of the score.
I’m writing, he’s editing, I’m sending in music as fast as I can. Sam is texting me, I need more music. I need more music. It’s a little chaotic, but we got it done. We ended up with the entire score in place months later, and I’d say 80% of it got done with this tool kit I had recorded.
And now I went back and recorded a little bit more to fill in the rest.
WAMG: Your score just makes you feel so uneasy and really gives it that emotional punch. You spoke about it being avant-garde. It sounds a lot like Stravinsky, I have to say.
From the very beginning, the first couple notes, your score amps up the stress and anxiety and suspense, so you almost can’t tolerate it, because I was just… stop the music already! It’s literally the heartbeat of the film.
When did you start deciding, for the orchestral part I’m going to need strings and percussion and piano, and a horn made from a deer antler.
MQ: Those decisions were kind of coming together near the beginning of the process, listening to that playlist, that’s what they were. They had strings and brass and woodwind percussion. And so I knew that that was going to be my palette. And like I said, yeah, I did the string session, I did the brass session, and then I also recorded some soloists, cello, bass, violin, percussion that added to my toolkit.
At some point, there’s this whole sort of deer storyline, and I need a sound for the deer, something that will be somewhat a little creepy, a little maybe mystical. And I found this sound blowing across an antler, and it just seemed to have the right tone. And then oddly, the percussionist that recorded for me, he gave me these sounds where he was taking a rubber ball and rubbing it on some metallic percussion. And it was oddly similar to the antler sound. So I ended up using the two of them.
They’re really great companions in the score. They sound like maybe one is one deer and another one is a different deer. I don’t know if it’s quite that literal, but it was a fun sound to discover.
WAMG: Talk to me about these nine modes called the Messian modes.
MQ: Yeah. There was a composer, Olivier Messian, who was active in sort of the early to mid-20th century, and he wrote this book in the, I think, the 1940s, where he outlined these eight modes, called the Messian modes. They’re essentially scales, not unlike more popular modes like Linean or Dorian or Phrygian, which are kind of very common. And when I was looking for a way in, like, what was going to be my musical center, what type of harmony did I want to use? I discovered these modes and I started experimenting, and I found that mode three, which does have nine notes in it, would be my first experiment.
Basically, I didn’t know if it was going to work or how much I would get out of it. But those first three pieces that I wrote were using mode three. Sam loved them. So I just kept going, and I’m like, I’m going to try to do the whole film in mode three, and let’s see what happens. Honestly, I didn’t think I would get to the end with just that, but I did somehow.
So, yeah, for me, what it did was it gave me, like, a rule to bump up against. Okay, so if I would write something like I would normally write, because we have our things that we do as composers. We have these types of harmonic progressions that we like or the types of melodies, and I would try to do something like that, but I couldn’t use. There are three notes off limits because there’s twelve notes in the western scale, right. And I could only use nine of them.
I would try to do a harmonic movement that would normally use one of those three notes that are not in the mode. And now I got to change it. It would force me sort of out of my comfort zone to do something that I hadn’t done before and to make the music sound a little bit unexpected and sometimes like, well, there’s something wrong with it, right? You hear it and you’re like, oh, here’s this piano. And it’s kind of nice, but there’s some wrong notes in there.
I found it really useful as sort of a boundary for me.
WAMG: It’s very effective with that because the way you combine the motifs and the sounds and the effects, it all comes together to make this score that’s very disquieting. It’s not the traditional type of score, but by the end of the movie and the resolution, the viewer is exhausted. I was very stressed by the end of the movie. Once you got to see the final cut, with the ending, do you think everybody makes it to the safe house?
MQ: I think so.
WAMG: Do you think so?
MQ: To me, I think they do. I know there’s been a lot said about this ending.
The way the ending unfolds, that’s kind of how it was from almost in the beginning, they were tweaking it, a lot of tweaking to the edit and what not. But essentially, that was the ending. And I loved it the first time I saw it. I mean, it was in the script.
I read it in the script. And it’s a bold choice to just end like that with the “Friends” song. But, yes, based on what’s come before, the two men and the boy are in the car. They’re driving to go to the house. We think the women, they’ve seen the house. They’re in the woods. They’ve seen it. And now, of course, they see the destruction of New York City. And so, yeah, they’re all going to go to the house. I feel like that’s a given.
I didn’t need to see them arrive there. I just thought it was creative and kind of fun and jarring way to end it, with Rosie there watching “Friends”. Finally getting to see the final episode, which is all she’s thought about the entire time.
WAMG: Were you able to conduct any of your score?
MQ: Just one tiny piece. I’m still not quite there. I mostly hire other people to conduct, but someday I will become comfortable doing that.
WAMG: Are you working with Sam anytime soon? I mean, there are directors who have their go to composers, and you guys have worked on a few projects already. Are you guys hoping, planning to work together again on another project?
MQ: I mean, there’s nothing on the schedule right now. But, yes, I hope so. Of course, I will show up for anything Sam brings to the table. I’m really a fan. Hopefully we will be reuniting not too distant in the future.
WAMG: And then what’s up next for you?
MQ: Well, I’m just finishing two films. The first one… in “Mr. Robot”, there was a character who was CEO of E Corp, which was the big evil company at the center of the plot. Anyway, he was the chairman. Philip Price was the character played by an actor named Michael Christofer.
And Michael and I met briefly at the final premiere for season four. And earlier this year, he contacted me and said he’s directing the film and would I be interested in reading the script and possibly scoring it. And it was a really nice script and a great cast, and I’m just finishing this. It’s a drama and I’m really excited about that. Again this score is a small string ensemble and piano, a very sort of a different sound for me.
And then the other one I’m almost done is a documentary that I’m working on with Ronan Farrow and I’m excited about that.
WAMG: Anything on the TV side?
MQ: You know, the Ryan Murphy shows that I’ve been involved with for a number of years are all continuing. American Horror Story was interrupted by the strike. And so we were able to finish half of it and now the other half is underway. And then the 911 shows, “9-1-1” and “9-1-1: Lone Star” are both coming back next year, so we’ll be starting that at the beginning of the new year.
WAMG: Are you working on any of “The Last of Us”?
MQ: I did work on the video game, the part two. Unfortunately, they came to me sort of right at the end of their process on the television show, and it was too late. I didn’t have room in my schedule, so I did not work on season one.
I don’t know. Maybe they’ll come to me earlier on season two. I could be involved. I really loved the show, though. It was the highlight of 2023.
WAMG: Thank you so much for taking the time on a Saturday afternoon to talk to me. The film is on my Top 10 list of the year, the score is amazing, and can’t wait to hear what you come out with next.
MQ: Fantastic and thank you.
The soundtrack is also available on digital platforms.
Leave the World Behind Soundtrack Tracklist
1. Space (1:12)
2. Beach Day (2:55)
3. White Lion (1:50)
4. Good Omen (1:00)
5. Knock At The Door (2:10)
6. Cyberattack (2:28)
7. The Deer (1:09)
8. Red Rain (5:29)
9. Self-proclaimed Survivalist (2:19)
10. Sirens (2:13)
11. The Flood (1:31)
12. I’m Done Waiting (4:57)
13. Spiral (4:33)
14. We’ve All Been Deserted (2:06)
15. Human vs. Nature (5:15)
16. The Third Stage (5:01)
17. The Paradigm (2:20)*
*Written and performed by Lil Yaghty
0 comments