‘Horizon’ Composer John Debney & Director Kevin Costner Shared A Taste For Epic Westerns & Longtime Cowboy Fantasies – Sound & Screen Film

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 composer John Debney found a kindred spirit in actor-filmmaker Kevin Costner when the two met making Hatfields & McCoys over a decade ago, both for their shared love of the Western genre and their proud status as native Angelenos.

“We both grew up out here, and so it’s kind of weird when you grow up out here,” Debney said on stage at Deadline’s Sound & Screen event Friday night. “My dad was in the film business for 40 years, so I sort of grew up on sets and it was like that we connected on sort of a visceral level, from the same experience.”

And when Debney and Costner discussed collaborating on Horizon, they discovered their passion for the Western genre shared an origin story. “As a kid, I used to ride horses with my father in the hills of Griffith Park – yes, there are riding trails in Griffith Park! And so we were always cowboys in our heart. So when I told Kevin that, he said goes, ‘Me too!’ And he truly is a cowboy’s cowboy. And so for me it was always the dream, was to do a film like this, to do a Western.”

Another serendipitous commonality emerged as they discussed the magisterial sweep and scope the music of Horizon should convey, while also focusing on individual characters. “The [Western film] that literally caught my attention when I was a kid, at eight years old, seven years old, was How the West Was Won, which many of you probably are way too young to remember, but it was a very long, beautiful Western with a bunch of storylines. And I told Kevin that also.”

I said, ‘Kevin, I think what you want is something like How the West Was Won, which had these rich Alfred Newman themes. And so that’s really what he wanted,” Debney explained. “And he happened to say, ‘Oh, that’s my favorite Western!’ I lucked out.”

“Kevin wanted some tunes – he said, ‘I need themes,’” Debney revealed. “And that sort of spoke to me because that’s what I love doing. So having the background of these incredible visuals, these incredible actors… It’s a wealth of riches. There were long stretches where I could just play music and play a theme. And that’s a dream for a composer…I figured if I played him something and he hummed it back to me the next day or two, then I was on to something.”

Check back Monday for the panel video.