Interview: I'll Play Mother composer Adam Langston discusses his unsettling score

I'll Play Mother has a straightforward premise: Following the tragic death of their mother, two young children are placed in the care of prospective adoptive parents. Initially hopeful for a fresh start, the new family soon begins to notice strange and unsettling occurrences surrounding the children. As eerie events unfold, the adoptive parents start to question if there is something far more sinister lurking beneath the surface.

I'll Play Mother was directed by Brad Watson and the script was written by Libby Adam from an original story by Ben Charles Edwards. The film stars Jo Martin, Susanne Wuest, Shubham Saraf, and Megan Lockhurst. Wuest starred in Goodnight Mommy (2014), which some (including this interviewer) consider to be a great psychological thriller.

With a haunting score by composer Adam Langston, the tension steadily rises in this gripping psychological thriller.

Interview with I'll Play Mother composer Adam Langston

1428 ELM: How did you approach composing for I'll Play Mother, given its blend of psychological tension and emotional depth?

ADAM LANGSTON: I tried not to separate those two elements in the music—psychological tension and emotional depth—and instead keep them blended, as you said in your question. So, while each may dominate at different times, I wanted the other always-present in the music in some way. I found various ways to achieve this.

Firstly, through harmony, by having seemingly simple or innocuous chords being offset by something slightly more dissonant or unusual, and vice versa. Secondly, through melodies which don’t ever quite rest or resolve, and occasionally through using rhythms at different speeds simultaneously.

1428 ELM: What unique challenges did I’ll Play Mother present compared to your previous work as an orchestrator on films like Alien: Covenant or No Time to Die?

LANGSTON: The challenges as composer are mostly unique to those of the orchestrator. The starting point for the orchestrator is the music of the composer, whereas the starting point for the composer is the film itself. That said, I was able to use lessons I learned from the music of both Jed Kurzel (Alien: Covenant) and Hans Zimmer (No Time to Die) because they are both brilliant and unique composers.

The way their music is structured—the architecture of it across the film—is important and something I try to pay great attention to in my own music.

I’ll Play Mother and mood dynamics

1428 ELM: How did you use the score to reflect the evolving relationships between the children and their prospective parents, especially as the story takes a darker turn?

LANGSTON: I would say the score is mostly from the perspective of Cyrus (Saraf), the adoptive father, and from the start, his relationship with the children is quite complex, so there is always a certain disquiet in the score to reflect that. He has an interesting arc in the film, which the music follows him on, and it certainly ends up in an unexpected place. There are recurring themes in the score that grow darker with the story, by including more harsh colors or dissonant tones.

1428 ELM: Did you draw inspiration from any particular musical styles or composers when developing the score for I'll Play Mother?

LANGSTON: We were very much inspired by Jerry Goldsmith and also Bear McCreary. Also, for me personally, there’s some Thomas Newman influence in parts of this score. I love all these composers’ work, so it was a joy to try to follow in their giant footsteps a little bit!

Larger films vs. smaller films

1428 ELM: Given your experience orchestrating for large-scale films, how did you balance intimate, emotional moments with the underlying tension in this film?

LANGSTON: Sometimes we would leave intimate moments, and emotionally raw ones, without music. The performances across the board in this film are great, and it was often important to leave space for the emotions (especially the big ones) to fully occupy the film, and feel unadorned and real. This means that where the music does enter and exit needs great care, which is something I always try to do.

This is also the case with orchestrating even large-scale films; the music will still often come in very softly, with maybe a very small number of players, before building and growing to its full power. Brad (the director) is very astute at all this, brilliant at spotting where music should go and not overusing it. This film has a lot of underlying tension, the effectiveness of which could be weakened if there was too much music.

1428 ELM: How closely did you collaborate with Brad Watson, the director, to ensure that the score aligned with his vision for the film?

LANGSTON: Very closely, and that’s a good question. Probably the most important thing a composer can do is have the score align with the director’s vision. I’d say that is non-negotiable!

Brad is a composer as well as a director and editor, and his understanding of music in film is innate. Whenever I send him any music, it’s as close as I can possibly get it to a final or finished version, so that he can give me any notes based on that, not based on things that I might be intending to change. In any case, we are usually on the same page, but I don’t want to give him extra work to do by having to imagine what a final version will sound like.

Also, we can probably get the music to an even better place if our starting point is a finished piece of music, rather than a rough draft or something like that.

Emotional impact

1428 ELM: Can you walk us through a specific scene where the music plays a pivotal role in enhancing the suspense or emotional impact?

LANGSTON: I think the montage-type sequence where Cyrus and Michelle (Wuest) are preparing for the arrival of the children (called "Preparation" on the album) has quite a pivotal role for the music. Partly because it is a montage, and I think music can sometimes get closer to taking a leading role instead of a supporting role in a montage, to some extent. The filmmaking is so strong that music is mostly in support, but when you have a montage, more often than not, you’ll want music to tie it together and make it feel cohesive or whole.

This sequence also introduces a theme that we’re going to hear a few more times in the film, and enhances the sense of the emotional journey that the parents are embarking on.

1428 ELM: How does your background as an orchestrator for action-packed films like Independence Day: Resurgence and White House Down inform your approach to more psychological or character-driven films like I'll Play Mother?

LANGSTON: Action-packed films can reach a very high-intensity level in the music, so I guess knowing what that is and how it can be achieved is useful because I can scale back from there or hint at elements of that intensity if required. There can be similarities too between these different types of film score, with regard to musical themes and how they are presented, constructed, deconstructed, and so on, over the course of the film. Also, sometimes the chaotic, dissonant orchestral sounds that we might hear in psychological horror can be found too in the frenzied or desperate moments of action films such as those.

Unusual instruments and sound design

1428 ELM: Did you incorporate any unusual instruments or sound design techniques to create a unique atmosphere in the film's score?

LANGSTON: There are some unusual instruments, but most are quite sparsely used, and usually in the context of more orchestral-sounding music. There are some interesting combinations of percussion instruments, such as water tanks with tubular bells, large kalimbas, and bowed resonant sculptures. These sounds can have a subtle feeling of ‘oversized toys,’ which seemed appropriate to the youngest character Elijah especially.

There are a few impacts made from old radio equipment sounds, manipulated. I also used pipe organ pedals for some very low, sub-bass sounds. Brad wasn’t looking for what we might call an "experimental" score overall, so these are not the defining aspects of the score, but they do add color to it.

1428 ELM: As this film delves into darker, possibly supernatural elements, how did you use music to blur the lines between reality and the sinister undercurrents in the story?

LANGSTON: I think to blur those lines we kind of broke down the harmonic and melodic structures we’d established. This resulted in things basically sounding weirder. It was a bit like taking a jigsaw puzzle and mixing up the pieces, jamming pieces together which weren’t supposed to fit.

So, things which sounded ordered and familiar earlier start to sound more angular and alien. Also, lowering the pitch right down of certain sounds to obscure their character, and slowing them down too, was a cool way to subtly enhance these elements of the film.

You can rent I'll Play Mother on Fandango, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Google Play Movies, and YouTube.