Joker Wins Best Score at Critics' Choice Awards

Joker's award show run continues with a big win for Original Score at the Critics' Choice Awards tonight. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir already got awarded Best Original Score at the 77th Golden Globe Awards last weekend, and she can add this trophy to the pile. All those months ago, when whispers of Joker being a serious awards season contender surfaced, people wondered if the film could really live up to that kind of hype. One dynamic performance by Joaquin Phoenix later and Todd Phillips' movie has both gained a lot of respect from awards voters and the general public. The Joker fanbase, in particular, has been waiting with baited breath to see if the movie can bring home the biggest prize of them all when the Oscars roll around. Time will tell, but all these other awards finding their way toward the film is probably a sign of consideration at the minimum.

Joker's home release has special features that chronicle how Guðnadóttir captured some of the haunting elements of Phoenix's performance. That bathroom scene really allowed the actor to flex those muscles and the music was a huge reason why it all came together so nicely.

"I started writing the music just after reading the script," Guðnadóttir explained. "So I just started playing with cello a bit, which is my main instrument, and just played around with some melodies and the feelings and I kind of sat with it for a few hours. And then I was actually practicing something else, and I kind of stumbled onto what became the main theme afterwards. It was just like a feeling strong feeling of something clicking into place, because it just connected with exactly the same feeling that I'd had when I read the script."

Phillips also showed a great deal of respect for the composer's work in making the whole engine go as well. Phoenix was absolutely satisfied with how that sequence played out and now they're all reaping the benefits.

"I think it's a really great moment in the movie, and it's a really much more effective way of illustrating the beginning of the transformation, with grace that kind of comes out of nowhere. You kind of feel that he has it in him," the director complimented the dancing sequence. "We wrote in the script there's a certain elegance to him, and a certain romance … he has it in him. There's music in him, so to speak. But that's the first time we really see it come out."