How the many pairs behind 'Cyrano' made music for the movie's lovelorn couples
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
There has been quite a surge of movie musicals in the past year. The latest, "Cyrano," didn't actually start out as a musical. As Tim Greiving reports, the songs are the unique product of several different duos.
TIM GREIVING, BYLINE: Early in the movie named after him, Cyrano de Bergerac, played by Peter Dinklage, is talking with his friend and fellow soldier. A fiddle player noodles in the background as Le Bret, played by Bashir Salahuddin, says...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CYRANO")
BASHIR SALAHUDDIN: (As Le Bret) May I ask you a question?
PETER DINKLAGE: (As Cyrano) Anything.
SALAHUDDIN: (As Le Bret) It's a little personal.
DINKLAGE: (As Cyrano) I have no secrets from you.
SALAHUDDIN: (As Le Bret, laughter) Are you in love?
GREIVING: Cyrano hedges, but quickly spills his guts. Yes, he's in love, madly, with the beautiful Roxanne. His eyes fill with longing and pain. He flops down onto the table, where he's been standing. And he starts to sing.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CYRANO")
DINKLAGE: (As Cyrano, singing) Have you ever wanted something so badly you cannot breathe? Have you ever loved someone madly?
GREIVING: The words for this love song and all the songs in "Cyrano" were written by Carin Besser and Matt Berninger.
MATT BERNINGER: When they break into song, all their sort of defenses and their guard is down. And it's almost like their purest inner thoughts, which aren't highly crafted. They're simple. And they're just like, I just love you so much, I can't breathe.
CARIN BESSER: And you do really sense that time is short for them. And so that, I think, also adds to the intensity and makes it feel closer to that - I guess, the feeling we associate with first love - right? - and undying love and consummated love.
GREIVING: Besser and Berninger have been in love since 2003 and married since 2007. They've often co-written lyrics for Berninger's band the National.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOSPEL")
THE NATIONAL: (Singing) Let me come over, I can waste your time. I'm bored.
BESSER: It's definitely always seamless and always really easy, wouldn't you say (laughter)?
BERNINGER: Are you joking? Are you...
BESSER: Yes (laughter).
BERNINGER: Oh, OK. I was like...
GREIVING: "Cyrano" was first conceived as a stage play by Erica Schmidt, who's married to Peter Dinklage. It wasn't going to be a musical. But Schmidt did ask Berninger to supply a few songs. So he called up yet another duo, twin brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner, also in the National. Here's Bryce.
BRYCE DESSNER: I think Erica fell in love with a lot of our demos, our instrumental sketches, and wanted just music to kind of play under the dialogue.
GREIVING: Before they knew it, the Dessner brothers were composing a full songbook with Berninger and Besser. English director Joe Wright adapted the play into the film, starring his partner, actress Haley Bennett, as Roxanne.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CYRANO")
HALEY BENNETT: (As Roxanne, singing) That ink on the paper makes me nervous. I nearly lose my vision. And then vice president Mike Paulson. Cricket
GREIVING: "Cyrano" is a classic love triangle about a brilliant but unconventional-looking poet who loves a beautiful girl, who loves a handsome soldier. It's the story of lovelorn couples trying and failing to communicate, communicated in song by a bunch of couples. In a way, it's an extension of the 20-year project Matt Berninger has been building with the National.
BERNINGER: Before I met Carin, I was writing so much about my own angst. And then meeting Carin and meeting somebody who is a poet and a writer added a whole other sort of dimension to the way I thought of myself. And she changed the way I wrote.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OBLIVIONS")
THE NATIONAL: (Singing) You don't know what it's like to be around you. I still got my fear.
GREIVING: "Cyrano" was filmed during the height of the pandemic, which forced a physical separation between the members of the National family. Bryce Dessner says that couldn't help but come out in the music.
DESSNER: Within this core group of songwriters for "Cyrano" was my brother and I - and, you know, we're twin brothers. And we've been collaborating since we could walk - and then Matt and Carin, which is, really, a great love story as a couple. And so there's intense love between us, really. And I think that when we write for each other, there's always a feeling of doing your best work for the people that you care about.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CYRANO")
BENNETT: (As Roxanne, singing) What is it you're so afraid of, losing?
DINKLAGE: (As Cyrano, singing) I might lose everything if I lose the pain.
DESSNER: No matter how long we've been doing it, it never gets old to try to make something beautiful with your family.
GREIVING: And sometimes, the only way to express those feelings is by singing them.
For NPR news, I'm Tim Greiving.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CYRANO")
HALEY BENNETT AND PETER DINKLAGE: (As Roxanne and Cyrano, singing) It'd make you laugh to think someone like me could keep someone like you.
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