{"id":117549,"date":"2025-09-16T06:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T10:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=117549"},"modified":"2025-09-25T11:28:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T15:28:28","slug":"interview-tiff-2025-award-winning-composer-will-bates-talks-about-tuner-starring-leo-woodall-dustin-hoffman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2025\/09\/16\/interview-tiff-2025-award-winning-composer-will-bates-talks-about-tuner-starring-leo-woodall-dustin-hoffman\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | TIFF 2025: Award-Winning Composer Will Bates Talks About Tuner, Starring Leo Woodall & Dustin Hoffman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dustin
Dustin Hoffman and Leo Woodall in the film Tuner (Photo courtesy of TIFF)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Documentarian Daniel Roher<\/strong> makes his feature debut with Tuner, a film that is part crime caper, part romance, with a strong underlying thread about the nature of music, art, and the artist. The film made its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025.<\/p>\n

Roher\u2019s documentary credits include Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019, and Navalny, for which the director won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film in 2023.<\/p>\n

Tuner composer Will Bates<\/strong> was born in London, and we asked him about his work on the movie.<\/p>\n

The Movie<\/h2>\n

Leo Woodall<\/strong> (The White Lotus, One Day), plays Niki White \u2014 once a virtuoso pianist, now a piano tuner. He lives with a condition called hyperacusis, where a person\u2019s hearing is hyper-acute to the point of causing discomfort and even pain, and as he grew into his teenage years, it made music making unbearable. He constantly wears ear phones to block out the everyday noise.<\/p>\n

Now and then, sound designer Johnnie Burn<\/strong> lets us hear the world the way Niki hears it without them in all its crazy highs, lows, and distortion. It\u2019s disorienting, to say the least.<\/p>\n

On the bright side, it makes him an excellent piano tuner.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what he\u2019s doing as the film opens, in a partnership with his uncle Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman<\/strong>), an old jazz cat who\u2019s been keeping New York\u2019s pianos playing harmoniously for decades.<\/p>\n

Dustin Hoffman adds much of the humour to the movie\u2019s opening, both alone and in his banter with screen wife Marla, played by Tovah Feldshuh<\/strong>. He\u2019s perfected the lovable old curmudgeon with a nice edge and sense of authenticity. Woodall also shines in the centre of the film, convincing as someone whose dream has gone awry, and is left drifting in its wake.<\/p>\n

Casual abuse by their clients, who ask for everything from help fixing toilets to coming late at night in order to work in client are par for the course. It\u2019s on one such occasion, working late, that Niki stumbles on to a couple of safecrackers, and a realization: what amounts to an auditory disability in everyday life becomes an unusual gift for hearing the tumblers as they settle into place while illegally opening a safe.<\/p>\n

Plot<\/h3>\n

\u201cTuning a piano\u2019s about creating harmony out of chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, and without giving away too much, the plot is a little predictable. Niki is reluctant to get involved, despite his obvious advantage, but then Dustin Hoffman<\/strong>\u2019s Harry Horowitz falls ill, and money is short\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part crime caper movie, with scenes that depict both the highs and the lows of robbing the rich of their safes. Lior Raz<\/strong> plays the charismatic, yet dangerous, head of the thieves Niki stumbles upon.<\/p>\n

But, along the way, Niki also meets Ruthie, played by an appealing Havana Rose Liu<\/strong>. She\u2019s a composition student, and she struggles with her latest work.<\/p>\n

Their relationship opens up a romantic side to the story, but also a discussion of art and the artist. Who is he, Niki wonders, if he can no longer be a virtuoso? Does he have to spend the rest of his life spinning his wheels? To its credit, the movie offers no easy answers to those existential questions.<\/p>\n

During the course of the story, Ruthie plays some of her composition, contemporary music actually written by Marius de Vries<\/strong>, who also served as the executive music producer for the film.<\/p>\n

Will Bates: The Interview<\/h2>\n

Will Bates composed the movie soundtrack. Bates has composed scores for a wide range of filmmakers that include Paramount+\u2019s NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which just premiered on September 4, Netflix\u2019s mini-series Devil in Ohio; and the Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated Netflix mini-series Unbelievable to name only a few.<\/p>\n

Bates is also a solo artist and multi-instrumentalist with his own post-punk band The Rinse, and has recorded and toured internationally. He\u2019s primarily a saxophonist, and as such, he\u2019s collaborated with a range of artists. He\u2019s also a producer and composer.<\/p>\n

The soundtrack for Tuner ranges from contemporary jazz to tense electro and neoclassical passages.<\/p>\n

Bates appreciates that the film gave me the chance to write in a range of styles from action-oriented to romantic. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s a very emotional story between Nicki and Ruthie,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of the music that\u2019s on camera is needed to emphasize the technical expertise of the characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niki\u2019s story, and his relationship to music, is something Bates can empathize with. \u201cIt\u2019s very much something that I can relate to. I feel like my identity as a human being is so connected to what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scene where Niki confronts his feelings about his situation is a poignant one. \u201cThat frame resonated with me \u2014 what would happen if you couldn\u2019t express yourself in that way?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been involved with music since he was a child. \u201cI started life as a saxophone player, and I started as something of a child prodigy,\u201d he says. An accident that injured his fingers changed the trajectory of his plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something I thought about when I worked on this film.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musical excerpts sometimes act as something of a counterpoint to the action on screen. \u201cDaniel was quite clear […] it should be a balance to what is seen on screen,\u201d he explains. It acts to flesh out the underside of the action on screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we get under the hood of these characters?\u201d While the virtuosity of characters like Niki and Ruthie is in evidence, the music adds emotional underpinning. \u201cWe need to develop some subconscious themes.\u201d He put music to the subtext, in other words.<\/p>\n

Building the Score<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe wanted to throw a lot at the page,\u201d Will says. \u201cI build big, intricate pieces. And then I find myself taking a sledge hammer to all that,\u201d he continues. \u201cHow can I say the same thing with less? That was certainly the case with this movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once he\u2019s pared it back, something emerges. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s melody,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

As a film score, it\u2019s always about how to enhance the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, we have to realize we\u2019re in the service of story. It\u2019s not about us,\u201d he explains. He tries to express what isn\u2019t necessarily said out loud in the dialogue. When it comes to Niki and Ruthie\u2019s story, it was about building a connection between them from the outset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously in their performance, and I\u2019m really there to amplify what\u2019s on screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marius de Vries hired outside consultants to train both actors to be able to play his music on screen. That part of the film was already done when Bates came on board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a useful thing for me to be able to contrast and work against.\u201d<\/p>\n

Film maker Daniel Roher wanted the movie score to have a separate composer, a different voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, there\u2019s a lot of jazz in this movie,\u201d he states. Roher wanted the score to include something of a nod to that aspect of the story, but also offer a contrast.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat would it sound like if Bill Evans had access to modular synths?\u201d he wondered. Roher loved the idea.<\/p>\n

He got creative with instrumentation, including a vintage East German tuning device. \u201cIt has different switches for different pitches,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s very wonky, and makes these kinds of strange tones. I used that to build chords.\u201d He enjoyed being able to use an instrument he\u2019d collected some time ago. \u201cWhat a perfect place to use this weird instrument that I\u2019ve had for a while,\u201d he continues. \u201cI have a strange habit of collecting odd electronic instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roher was clear on one point: he wanted the movie score Bates wrote to contrast the orchestral music that the characters were playing in the story. It had to offer a different sound world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was definitely part of the fun of this project, was to incorporate those strange sounds and then add the more familiar elements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other pieces in his instrument collection also proved handy. Bates had been going to estate sales with his wife, and once they knew what he did, he was offered free pianos. \u201cI took them all,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI became the guardian of these pianos.\u201d<\/p>\n

His wife, an artist, has deconstructed a few with the use of hammers, and he\u2019s retained the harp from one of them. He used it for the scenes where Niki is cracking a safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe percussive sounds are me banging on the piano harp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuner will screen at the Zurich Film Festival on September 30, and then the Vancouver Film Festival on October 11. Look for it to hit a screening service sometime in the near future.<\/p>\n

Fun fact: Herbie Hancock<\/strong> makes a cameo appearance in this film where music and musicality play a role of their own.<\/p>\n

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Documentarian Daniel Roher makes his feature debut with Tuner, a film that is part crime caper, part romance, with a strong underlying thread about the nature of music and the musician.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":117552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41660,41496,23,29,63],"tags":[40966,3311,30394,42264],"yst_prominent_words":[12167,19234,19229,16843,6616,8986,30391,30390],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/09\/Copy-of-INTERVIEW-2025-09-15T222549.303.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-uzX","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117549"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117872,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117549\/revisions\/117872"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117549"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=117549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}