Alexandre Desplat

Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat is a French film composer. He composed the score for Legendary Pictures' Godzilla.

Biography
Desplat was born in Paris, to a French father and a Greek mother who met at the University of California, Berkeley. After their marriage, they moved back to France, where Alexandre was born. Alexandre is the younger brother of Marie-Christine and Rosalinda Desplat.

At the age of five, he began playing piano. He also became proficient on trumpet and flute. He studied with Claude Ballif, Iannis Xenakis in France and Jack Hayes in the U.S. Desplat swiftly became skilled, both as a performer and a composer.

Desplat's musical interests were wide, listening to a mix of the French symphonists like Ravel and Debussy, jazz and even more exotic world music. He was also influenced by South American and African artists, among whom were Carlinhos Brown and Ray Lema.

Being a big fan of movies, Desplat set his sights on becoming a film composer from an early age and took actions to make this dream a reality as soon as he started thinking of building a career. He worked on his first film, "Le souffleur", in 1986.

When recording the music for his first film, he met a violinist called Dominique Lemonnier, who became his favorite soloist, artistic director and wife. Desplat worked on many films throughout his career since the 1980s, and his big Hollywood break came in 2003 with the soundtrack for the film: Girl with a Pearl Earring.